Princepal Singh jumps high, catches the lob from Lokendra Singh and slams a dunk down, before hanging on for just long enough to ensure he's not censured but his opponents, Malaysia, know what they are in for.
What they were in for was a 20-16 defeat, India dominating them inside the paint as well as along the perimeter in the opening game of the 3x3 men's basketball tournament at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
They would then walk out a couple of days later and batter Macau 20-12, Pranav Prince's twirling feint and dunk personifying the swagger India are playing with.
This isn't natural to Indian basketball, but change has been afoot over the past few years. Now Princepal's aura, Lokendra's incessant running, Pratap Singh Sekhon's finishing nous and Pranav's all-round prowess will take on the might of China on Friday, September 29. And they will believe anything is possible.
Asian Games
India ���� U23 3x3 Men Basketball Team Result
India ���� Vs Malaysia ����
20-16
India ���� beat Malaysia ���� by 4 points pic.twitter.com/5pz8zknXnQ
- #IndiaBasketball (@BFI_basketball) September 25, 2023
The finishing school
That confidence comes from a solid foundation. Pranav and Princepal are both graduates of the NBA Academy, a wing of the league that's synonymous with basketball worldwide. They have been working in India for the past half-decade, along with Reliance Youth Foundation, and Princepal is arguably their most famous alumni.
From asking "Oo ki honda?" (what is that?) when asked about basketball aged 14 to playing in the NBA G League, his rise has been rapid, and what's catalysed that is the NBA Academy.
In modern basketball, size is not enough, nowhere near -- everyone does everything and it's that kind of technical training that's made him such a good 3x3 baller. You can see it in Pranav's movement too - the seemingly natural reading of the game comes from hours of fine-tuning. And it's been done at the Academy.
They've focused on the identification, and development, of talent across the nation, but what the Academy essentially does right now is "develop elite talent", according to Bharath Anantharaman, Senior Director, Basketball Operations, NBA India. School programs that introduce a structured methodology to training are a driver of the Academy, but the primary focus is on developing elite talent.
Princepal was among the first to benefit from this, and learnt through not just the training at the Academy but participating in programs like Basketball without borders where he trained with athletes from NBA Academies across the globe.
But a finishing school alone does not make a nation of ballers.
The structure beneath and beyond
The stronger the competitive domestic structure of any sport, the better the players who play it are: just ask Indian cricket. And that's where the Elite Pro Basketball League (EPBL) comes in. They had their first pre-season this February, and it's done so well they are rolling out a women's league to go with the planned men's. Plus, 3x3 basketball leagues for both genders.
Sunny Bhandarkar, the CEO Of EPBL, says the logic behind starting a league was simple: give Indian players a dream to hold on to. "Right now, the only motivation a player has is, 'I want a certificate', and that's not enough. Take a leading basketball nation like Serbia, for instance. The system is very transparent, and they know for a fact that if they play well, they'll get picked for the national league, if they do well there the Euro League, and then maybe even the NBA." In a country where employment with the Railways and the Services is still the primary driver of young athletes to the sport, such a structure is alien. And EPBL wants to change it.
To meet this aim, his league has a couple of tweaks that other professional sports in India don't. One is the minimum requirement of college players in each franchise: for which the league aims to replicate an NCAA type scouting system. The other is the no-foreigner rule. "We want [youngsters watching] to see heroes and we want them to see local heroes. We want them to believe, 'you know what, I can do that too'."
The demand from the players side is evident: several national team athletes this writer has spoken to in the past have repeated the importance of having a professional league, of giving youngsters a chance to play without having to depend on the very limited slots that government departments have. Conducting open trials to encourage transparency in selection of players has also been a huge hit.
The challenges
But what's less evident is the other side, the league's. Bhandarkar knows that they won't be minting money from the off. For him, it's a long-run game: from league owners to franchise owners, they have it in them to sustain this for at least a decade, he says. "We will pay players [on time]. We will give them increments year-on-year," he insists. That, according to him, is EPBL saying basketball as a career is a viable, practical option.
Indian sport, though, has been burned many a times by enterprises that dreamt large but couldn't maintain steam. Bhandarkar understands this intimately as the founders of the EPBL were also founders of the UBA, that ran for five seasons. "When we did that," he says, "it was trial and error." They've learnt their financial (and operational) lessons from that, he says.
For players to completely buy into the dream, for this to make a material impact on the system, though, they will need to see this running continuously for a sustained period of time.
According to the NBA's Bharath, leagues like the EPBL coming up is a welcome development. "Our aim is to get basketball to the number two sport In India. So, from that angle it's great." The more basketball, the merrier, essentially and this is the kind of win-win that could benefit everyone in the ecosystem. Players graduating from a finishing school would light up the league, and the league would provide an important employment opportunity for graduates from academies across the nation.
Now, the league has major expansion plans - Bhandarkar sees the EPBL eventually being played like the NBA, dividing India into 4 zones to ensure everyone gets enough game-time. But before the dreams take off, there are still wrinkles to iron out, though. Major ones.
The EPBL is currently an event that takes place in one city, the reason being simple: lack of infrastructure. Most of the country plays its basketball outdoors, on concrete and cement courts with broken rims, and that's something that will take a mass movement to change.
Another stumbling block is the calendar. Since most of the best players in India are employed by government departments, they are committed to playing championships representing those departments. This clash has meant that the EPBL had no choice but to go ahead with the launch of their inaugural 3x3 league despite India's best being at the Asian Games. They are missing 10% of their signed women athletes (since the 5x5 teams is also playing in Hangzhou) but for him that's okay. If you're committed to making a league happen, it must happen, and a few sacrifices are a hit worth taking.
They want two (short) seasons a year, which means athletes are employed and playing competitive basketball for longer: something that can only be a good thing for them.
As Princepal and co are showing at Hangzhou, investing in the sport will pay off. And with the optimism of entities like the NBA and EPBL that are doing exactly that, the time is very much now for basketball In India.