By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
NBA commissioner Adam Silver plans to create a professional basketball league in India that will be reminiscent of the Basketball Africa League (launching in 2020), The Undefeated’s Marc J. Spears reports.
The commissioner has been discussing the prospect of a league being in India with Sacramento Kings owner, Indian-born Vivek Ranadive.
Silver hopes to have the league running in five years. As he said in the press conference before the exhibition game between the Pacers and the Kings: “One of the things we need, though, is more of an arena infrastructure. think this is where [Sacramento Kings owner] Vivek [Ranadive] was a little ahead of the schedule that we might otherwise have been on. This is a fantastic facility we’re in today, but it required us bringing in a court, a scoreboard, seats, locker rooms. And it’s relatively small, certainly by NBA standards.
“I have had some interesting discussions with developers over the last two days here. I think it’s inevitable that there will be state-of-the-art arenas in major cities in India, in part because these are multi-use facilities and live entertainment is increasingly important here as well. Of course, a great arena can have concerts and other shows. But we do need to see those arenas over time in order to play more games.”
A special hardwood floor and scoreboard were brought to the arena in Mumbai where the Sacramento Kings and the Indiana Pacers will play two preseason games on Friday (4/10) and Saturday (5/10). Kings owner Vivek Ranadive was born and grew up in Mumbai.