Advertisement

Amaechi - 'British Basketball may need NBA help to flourish'

NBA 1
NBA 1

The NBA’s all-shooting, all-dribbling Global Games alley-ooped into London again last week.

One single regular season game between two middle-ranking teams in the Denver Nuggets and Indiana Pacers brought hundreds of players, coaches, staff, legends, media and even some loyal fans across the Atlantic.

Here, they enjoyed the best of what England’s capital has to offer – the Pacers dressed for dinner at Kensington Palace and pro hopped to the Houses of Parliament, while the Nuggets Euro stepped their way to Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

There was also time to teach the locals the game at a series of clinics staged across the capital, with NBA legends Isiah Thomas, Dikembe Mutombo and Rony Turiaf balling with schoolchildren, celebrities and sponsors.

But what of the game of basketball as a whole, and what of its future in the UK?

It is 25 years since British audiences filled cinemas to watch Woody Harrelson disprove the theory that ‘White Men Can’t Jump’.

It is 20 years since British viewers flicked on Channel 4 and marvelled at the athleticism of Michael Jordan and the dominance of the Chicago Bulls.

Muller Oncourt 7
Muller Oncourt 7

It is ten years since the NBA established an office in Britain, with the main purpose of bringing the sport closer to its growing European fanbase and developing the sport in the UK.

A decade on, the league may be able to attract 18,000 people – the majority of them, it appeared, past and present Premier League footballers – and big-name sponsors to The O2 Arena on a one-off Thursday night, but will the legacy last much longer than the snow that was falling outside?

Speaking to Britain’s first NBA star John Amaechi at an exclusive Muller Rice pre-match event, that is the burning question.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, but raised in Stockport, Greater Manchester, Amaechi first picked up a basketball at the age of 17, moved to Vanderbilt and Penn State Universities on a basketball scholarship at 19 and was signed by the Cleveland Cavaliers at 24.

The 6’10 power forward or center spent six years in the league before retiring and returning to England, where he works in London’s upmarket Regent’s Park area as a clinical psychologist.

A deep thinker, the 46-year-old believes the game in this country needs a serious shakeup if it is ever going to attract large audiences on a regular basis.

GettyImages-488817001
GettyImages-488817001

Amaechi admits he watches little basketball these days but, as Britain’s only retired NBA player of note, he is invited to each and every Global Games event at The O2 Arena.

There, when asked whether the game can ever be a major participation and spectator sport in this country, his answer was honest.

There is huge interest in basketball, Amaechi believes, but he says the NBA needs to be more directly involved if this eye-catching game is to spread to the masses.

Amaechi points to South America, where the NBA has a strategic partnership with Brazil’s professional Liga Nacional de Basquete (LNB), and wonders aloud if the same could, or even should, happen in his homeland.

“There is a lot of interest in basketball in this country,” he says, “but the league here is the worst in Europe, and the attendance figures at top-level games are low compared to other European countries, where basketball is more established and more popular.

“What we need to look at is why countries like Croatia, which is much smaller population-wise, provide many more players to the NBA.

NBA 2
NBA 2

“For basketball to establish itself in the UK, it may require the NBA itself becoming involved in the administration of the game, as it has in Brazil, because they have the tools and the expertise to make it a success.”

What do the NBA themselves have to say on an issue that inevitably springs forth every time the organisation brings two of its teams to these shores?

When the NBA opened an office here in 2007, then-Commissioner David Stern was strong in his belief that there would ‘ultimately’ be an NBA franchise based in London.

Ten years on, his successor Adam Silver was less committal in interviews conducted in London this week, citing last year’s vote by UK citizens to leave the European Union as making the future of a potential UK-based franchise ‘unclear’.

With other countries with stronger basketball traditions fighting for the NBA’s attention – and dollars – 25 years on from Harrelson jumping across our screens, the state of British basketball and its future remain likewise.

The interest in the game is here, but is that interest strong enough to establish it in the mainstream?

It may be another 25 years before we, Amaechi, Silver or anyone else can answer that question.

*Muller Rice are a proud partner of the NBA Global Games London 2017, Denver Nuggets vs Indiana Pacers, at The O2 on 12th January