Basketball is an amazing sport. Yet, unfortunately, basketball isn’t a major sport in Bangladesh - a nation obsessed with cricket and sometimes football. In Bangladesh, basketball is considered by many to be an elite sport - a perception that does have some credibility. The good thing is it exists in Bangladesh and has expanded over the years.
In the past, whatever basketball was played in Bangladesh, especially between the 1970s and 1990s, it involved the wooden indoor court of Dhanmondi. However, some traditions of basketball have always been there in the armed forces and there is a basketball league in Dhaka. Then gradually came the expansion of English medium schools and many of them have basketball courts. This phenomenon has energized urban basketball, especially in Dhaka and Chittagong.
Like football lovers of Bangladesh take a lot of interest in European football, the basketball lovers who are primarily in Dhaka and Chittagong follow the NBA basketball league of the US, which is scheduled to begin this month. The NBA is electrifying like the English Premier League or Spanish La Liga or UEFA Champions League. Football enthusiasts just don't watch European football, they devour every related thing from transfer market and managers to ownership change, emergence of rising stars and so on. The same is the case with the NBA where basketball fans follow the whole nine yards related to the NBA - ranging from drafting to trades or transfers and personal lives of the stars.
Understanding the NBA
The format in which the NBA is played is uniquely different from traditional football leagues. In football, every team plays every other team twice in a home and away system and at the end of the season whoever gets the highest point wins the league. In the NBA, each season is split into two parts - the regular season and the playoffs.
All 30 teams of the NBA participate in the regular season where they play 82 games. Each team does not play every other team the same number of times, but rather it's divided into divisions and conferences. How many games a team won in the regular season decides which teams advance to the playoffs.
The playoffs is the tournament style part of the season that decides which team wins the league. It is split into 2 parts, the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Only eight teams out of each conference can participate in the playoffs, the bottom 14 teams do not get to participate. Since there are 16 teams, there are 3 rounds in the playoffs and then the Finals between a team from each conference which crowns a champion team for the season. Although this part looks like the knockout stage of a football tournament, it's not just one or two games. To progress to the next level or round one team has to win four out of seven matches against the opponent. This applies to all rounds of the playoffs.
Drafting or player recruitment from college is also an interesting concept in US basketball. Every season after the playoffs all NBA teams can draft two players into their team. The draft is divided into 2 parts, the first round and the second round. Each team drafts one player in each round. To participate in the draft, players have to be at least 19 years old or have finished university. The 14 teams that missed the playoffs participate in a draft lottery which determines which team gets to pick the first player. The rest 16 teams pick in the order of their win record. Teams also participate in trades or transfers which can include players or draft picks. This draft phenomenon adds to the excitement, gossip and discussions of the NBA. Basketball lovers across the world follow every bit of it.
Why basketball?
Basketball is a sport that has immense potential in Bangladesh. A lot of teenagers like it and more are likely to be loving it. But as of now, many of them probably cannot afford it because of the related facilities and costs. In Bangladesh, we don’t have many basketball courts and making new ones would involve considerable spending.
Despite the popular sports dominating, Bangladesh has a huge youth population and most of them don’t have access to recreational sports. Even if basketball is affordable only by solvent middle and upper middle class and above, even here, not enough youth from these segments are into basketball or any other sport. We also know that in our society, frustration, depression, and even drugs have their considerable presence among the youth of almost all social classes. A lot of young people are going astray. An exciting sport like basketball in the cities and towns of Bangladesh can really help in providing the youth with another healthy platform.
The sizeable and enthusiastic crowd in the basketball tournaments in Dhaka vindicate its great prospect. There are some basketball courts in many district government-owned sports facilities, but those are poorly maintained and with no basketball education or publicity, the youth of district towns are not being attracted to this amazing sport. These facilities should be upgraded and well maintained and some promotional campaigns and training run to attract small town youths to basketball.
Also, what is needed is the creation of more basketball courts and related facilities by the Bangladesh government and city corporations and municipalities. Only then will the fascinating world of basketball be genuinely open to the Bangladesh youth.
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Sherveen Saqif Chowdhury is a freelance contributor and an A level student from Dhaka. Email:sherveenchowdhury@gmail.com.