NBA India Games 2019 diary: Kabaddi-playing Shaquille O’Neal, Buddy Hield’s search for monkeys and more

Mumbai: Harrison Barnes swishes a three-pointer so accurate that it barely even ripples the net. Buddy Hield spins past a guard before guiding a lay-up into the net. Marvin Bagley III rises to the rim to slam a thunderous dunk. Yogi Farrell hoists a three-pointer from nearly 70-feet out. Myles Turner leaps to deny De’Aaron Fox a lay-up. TJ Warren nails a three-point buzzer-beater to take the game into overtime. Players fling themselves on the floor to gain possession. There are Hail Mary shots with the game on the line. Players running themselves ragged with basketball royalty like Larry Bird courtside. Did someone say this was an exhibition game? In Mumbai!

Sure, as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver pointed out, NBA teams are accustomed to playing in venues with over 18,000 fans. But the school children in attendance at the Dome for the first game of the historic NBA India Games were equally enthusiastic.

Not just for the fans, for the players and coaches as well, the experience was unusual.

“This is the level of action you see in the NBA, even though it was a pre-season game and it was both teams’ first game of the season,” said Pacers coach Nate McMillan. “It was a different energy out there. The kids were loud ― kids are loud anyway. They were into the game. But before the game started we were not sure who the fans would be cheering for.”

His counterpart Luke Walton added, “Whoever scored, they were cheering for them! We had talked about what the atmosphere would be like before the game considering there were 3,000 kids in the stands.”

Buddy Hield, who shot 28 points on the day, observed, “When the Pacers were trailing it seemed like the fans were rooting for the Pacers. And when we were trailing, they started rooting for us.”

Shaq learns kabaddi

There are few sights in sport more fearsome than having to face off against Shaquille O’Neal. The NBA legend, who is a towering 7’1” tall, was an intimidating presence on the basketball court in his playing days, when he would dominate opponents into submission, and sometimes even shatter the backboards while dunking.

Thankfully, he played a low-contact sport like basketball. But imagine the giant presence of O’Neal on a kabaddi mat.

However, if Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive has his way, O’Neal could soon switch to playing kabaddi.

“I actually introduced the game to Shaq,” Ranadive told mediapersons at a press conference on Friday ahead of the NBA India Games. “He asked if you could tackle and if there were any rules. I told him he can do all the tackling he wants. So now he wants to play that. He wants to make that his next game.”

Hield’s search for monkeys and cows

A day before they took the court for the first of the two NBA India Games, Sacramento Kings had travelled to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Hield said the whole experience of travelling through the streets seeing the day-to-day life of regular people was what piqued his interest.

“I liked the cows and the monkeys running around. But when I came to Agra I couldn’t find any monkeys,” he said wishfully.

Walton’s Indian connect

Given the fact that Sacramento have an Indian origin owner in Ranadive, it was expected that a lot of what the Kings players and coach Luke Walton know about the country came through the owner’s first-hand experiences.

But Walton said that a lot of his background information about India came from his mother.

“She travels to India every few years to go to an ashram. Her sister actually comes every year. So my mom is well versed with Indian culture,” Walton said.

Ranadive’s mission curry

Given that Ranadive is back in the city that he was born in, Ranadive seems to have taken upon himself to introduce everyone from the NBA to any aspect of Indian culture possible.

His latest quest whilst in India? To show Hield the flavours of Indian curry.

“He’s from Bahamas, so there they eat curry as well. But now that we’re in India, I want to show him what real curry tastes like!” Ranadive said.

You can Live-stream all action between Indian Pacers and Sacramento Kings on JioTV