NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum spoke to the media at a roundtable before tip-off between the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets at the NBA Abu Dhabi Games 2024, the third year of a multiyear partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
The NBA has taken an active role in growing the sport internationally, with basketball considered the second-most popular sport in the world and the fastest-rising one. Through the establishment of NBA Academies and Jr. NBA Programs around the world, the league has created a pipeline of international players making it to the NBA.
The 2024 Paris Olympics was a reflection of the rapid growth of basketball internationally, with 139 NBA and WNBA players on Olympic rosters across countries, with every men’s team having at least one NBA player on the squad and only one women’s team (Nigeria) not having a WNBA player.
Paris 2024 will be remembered as one of the greatest international competitions in basketball for the high level of play throughout the group stages and knockout rounds.
Fadeaway World asked Adam Silver and Mark Tatum about the league’s contributions to the international growth of the sport and how they’ve helped develop other international squads to be legitimate challengers to the USA atop international basketball.
Adam Silver: “When you look at the journey from the Dream Team in 1992 in Barcelona. I happened to start just shortly before those Olympic Games. And I think at that point, roughly 5% of the players in the NBA were from outside the United States. Now it’s getting close to 30%.
“I think now it was roughly 140 for both (men and women in Paris), and it was roughly probably 80 NBA players who participated in the Olympics. So, I think just based on those numbers, you’re seeing the impact of the growth. No question, a large part of it is the NBA competition aided by transformations in media, enabling people to get these games through digital technology on their phones everywhere.
“I also give a lot of credit to our federation FIBA. They’ve also done a lot – some independent of us, some in partnership with – to develop the game around the world. You know, Patrick Baumann (former Secretary General of FIBA) – he passed at a young age – but then Andreas Zagklis (Secretary General of FIBA), who’s now taken over, is very focused on the girls and women playing as well. So those have been important contributions.”
Silver also specifically broke down avenues of growth in massive markets such as India and China, acknowledging the various issues that the league is trying to overcome to help boost the growth of individual players who could one day be in the NBA.
“In terms of growth potentially in India, if you’re in the Gulf, the Middle East, more broadly, and even Africa, there’s so much basketball being played. We’re hoping to invest more resources in India and create competition there. I think that the issue is at the elite level, it requires elite training.”
“That’s why I referenced the potential Academy here (Middle East). I think it’s why despite, for example, an enormous amount of basketball being played in China, that I think the infrastructure isn’t ideal for developing elite players.”
“We’ve had many conversations with Yao Ming and others there about developing more NBA and WNBA-level players. I think that what we’re learning is that none of this happens automatically. It requires institutions to make the investment because even when you have extraordinary players without the appropriate training, without the appropriate coaching, they aren’t able to ultimately be at an elite level.”
Markets like China and India encompass over 2 billion people who could be consuming and training in basketball, with the league making an active effort to make it happen.
Commissioner Silver mentioned his conversations with Chinese Basketball Federation President Yao Ming, while the league’s activities in India show a commitment to finding talented youngsters who could emerge as local heroes to grow the game in the country.
The 2024 ACG Jr. NBA program tipped off in September 2024, traveling to multiple Indian cities and creating a competitive atmosphere pitting U-14 boys and girls against each other to qualify for the league finals. The Jr. NBA program has reached more than 14 million youth and 15,000 physical education instructors across 35 cities in India since 2013 and plays a pivotal role in talent identification and development in the country.
This year’s ACG Jr. NBA Program is being held in association with the Basketball Federation of India, the governing body of the sport in the country in a first-of-its-kind collaboration with the NBA. Skechers are the official Kitting Partner for the ACG Jr. NBA Program.
The league’s commitment to international growth was evident this week, dubbed the ‘Jr. NBA Week’ in UAE, reaching more than 7,000 youth from the UAE and across the Middle East and Europe through youth clinics and basketball development programs. Assistant coaches for the Celtics and Nuggets have led clinics for more than 450 coaches from local communities to teach techniques for team and player development.
Will A Regular Season Game Come To Asia Again?
Over the last few seasons, NBA fans have become accustomed to the NBA Global Games, a league initiative to bring competitive games around the world, including preseason games in Abu Dhabi. In terms of regular season action, the NBA Global Games visited France and Mexico last season.
With a growing emphasis on international basketball, it’s a matter of time before another edition of the NBA Global Games comes to Asia for regular season contests, with Commissioner Silver confirming the same.
Ishaan Bhattacharya, Fadeaway World: “Any chance for a regular season game coming to Asia?”
Adam Silver: “The answer is yes… I think as interest continues to grow globally, I think we could look, in terms of our schedule, if maybe there’s a particular point in the schedule where that’s where multiple teams travel internationally, maybe even some sort of break. That’s something we’ll continue to look at. But there’s no doubt that demand continues to grow for those games.”
Mark Tatum: “Regular season games are a little bit tougher because of the condensed nature of our schedule. We, in essence, play 82 games in about 172 days. So, any time you take time out to play regular season games, it takes away – because you have to travel – it takes away the number of days that you have to play those games.”
“So, you’re right, 20 years ago was the last time we played regular season games in Japan. We played preseason games two years ago with the Warriors and Wizards. It was a huge success.”
“I think one of the benefits – and Adam mentioned this – of playing preseason games is it gives the players more opportunity in a market to actually engage with the market. Both teams did clinics yesterday with the Jr. NBA kids as well. And so, a lot of the communities like that because it allows the players and the teams to get out and engage in the community and do the work that they love doing in those communities.”
“So, I would never say never. I think at some point we will.”
The last time the NBA Global Games came to Asia for the regular season was when Japan hosted it in 2003, with the now-defunct Seattle SuperSonics defeating the Los Angeles Clippers in Tokyo. Japan hosted 12 regular season games across three cities between 1990 and 2003.
With the league’s exploding popularity in Asia, primarily the Middle East and Southeast Asia, it seems like a matter of time before a regular season game is held in Asia.
The NBA Global Games have brought preseason action to Asian countries such as the United Arab Emirates, China, India, and Japan over the last five years, but the competitiveness of a regular season game where winning and losing has a tangible impact is unmatched.
There are many obstacles in making this happen, primarily due to the league’s condensed regular season schedule, but the league has done it before with Japan, so fans all across Asia can hope to see a regular season game in this region eventually.
Read more from my coverage for Fadeaway World at the 2024 NBA Abu Dhabi Games – Boston Celtics vs. Denver Nuggets.
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