By the time he was 14, Bhamara was already as tall as his father, and had caught the eye of officials from both the BFI and the NBA. When IMG-R floated the idea of a scholarship for promising young players to spend five years training at the IMG Academy in Florida, which has produced players like Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter and Chauncey Billups, then-BFI head Harish Sharma suggested Bhamara. In July 2010, he joined 49 other players at tryouts for the scholarship. “I didn’t know why I was going, all I knew was that they were taking me somewhere to play basketball,” remembers Bhamara. “They just said go, and I said okay.”

He made the cut. Bhamara moved to Florida in August 2010, where he split time between his studies, learning English, focusing on building strength, honing his physical coordination and improving his still-rudimentary skills. When concerns over his eligibility meant he didn’t get any scholarship offers to play in the NCAA – the American college basketball league – he gambled on the NBA Draft.

On June 25, 2015, dressed in a double-breasted blue suit, Bhamara and his cousin Sunny Singh sat anxiously in their seats at the Barclays Center in New York as the NBA commissioner called out name after name. By the time they’d reached the 50th, Bhamara had lost hope. “I thought I wasn’t going to be picked, and I was worrying that I’d have to go back home empty-handed,” he says. “I’d started planning my preparations to try again next year when my name was called out. It felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders – all the expectations of people back home, the anxiety that I wouldn’t amount to anything, it all went away.”

A second-round pick (52nd overall) for the Dallas Mavericks, Bhamara became the first Indian player to ever be drafted into the NBA. But being a second-round pick means there’s no guarantee he’ll ever be a regular in the NBA. For the last two years, he’s instead been a part of the Texas Legends in the NBA’s Development League (recently rebranded as the NDA Gatorade or G-League). And he’s spent most of that time on the bench. The lack of playing time is frustrating. “But I decided to leave whatever happens up to God, and just work as hard as I can.”

Twenty-one-year old Bhamara is young, and has the potential to make it to the NBA by the time he’s 25. But it’s increasingly unlikely that he’ll ever become a starter, much less India’s version of Yao Ming. “I’ve always thought it was wrong to label Satnam the ‘Yao Ming’ of India,” Madhok tells me when I bring him up. “Yao was a No 1 draft pick, he already had a big reputation. Satnam, I think, is more like Wang Zhizhi, who was the first Chinese player to play in the NBA. Satnam is the first Indian to get that opportunity, he broke that barrier. And I think that’s amazing in itself. But we’re a few years off from having Indian players become stars in the NBA.”

Meanwhile, back home, the other LBA alumni – along with players like Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Prasanna Venkatesh Sivakumar and Rikin Pethani – formed the core of a new national team that looked to improve India’s record internationally. Under the guidance of former NBA coach Kenny Natt and former NCAA coach Scott Flemming, they learned to work as a team rather than relying on individual brilliance. Their hard work began showing results. They won a gold medal at the 2014 Lusofonia Games and another at the 2014 Asian Games. And then at the 5th FIBA Asia Cup in Wuhan, on July 13, 2014, they did the impossible: They beat China.

That may not sound like much, especially given that China fielded a depleted team, but ask any Indian basketball fan and they’ll tell you it’s huge. China are ranked 14th in the world and 1st in Asia. India are at No 53 globally, and 10th in Asia. China regularly compete in the Olympics and the FIBA World Cup. India have made one appearance in the former, none in the latter. Most importantly, India had never before beaten China in a competitive game. So when Amjyot Singh Gill, Amritpal Singh and captain Vishesh Bhriguvanshi took the team to victory, they were making history.

“It changed the mentality of the team,” says Madhok, who calls that game ‘the wonder of Wuhan’. “Earlier, India used to go into international competitions thinking they needed to beat the minnows and not embarrass themselves. Now they go in wanting to go toe-to-toe with the big teams. They start games with the mentality that they can win.”

The victory would be a turning point for Indian basketball. International coaches and scouts started paying attention. The team would beat China again in 2016. So it’s a little ironic that just as Indian basketball was entering its most successful period of the 21st century, things started falling apart, off the court.

In a dingy, run-down hall inside the sprawling Sports Authority of India (SAI) complex in Bengaluru, I sit down with Yadwinder Singh for a chat before their final session of this training camp. The walls are caked with dirt and the ancient hardwood court seems patched together with spit, duct tape and a prayer. A couple players get small niggles and knocks checked out by the physiotherapist, who only turned up on the final day of the camp, and won’t be accompanying the team to Lebanon, due to either an administrative cock-up or just plain old budget problems. On the other side of the hall, a group of young girls warm up for a volleyball session. It turns out the clean, modern Kanteerava Stadium – built only recently for the FIBA Asia Women’s Cup, held in Bengaluru in July – where I watched the team train in the mornings is a bit of a red herring. This, SAI, is where the team usually trains. The Delhi facility is even worse, Singh tells me.

The last time they trained there, the torn-up court led to a spate of groin injuries. “We have just one modern ball for the national camp,” he says, before pointing to a mound of ragged, worn-out basketballs in the corner. “I’ve been playing with those since 2003.”

Singh was the only player to go on record with his complaints, but he wasn’t the only one to have them. That morning, another player walked up to me on the sideline, holding a cup of tea. “Sir, please write this also,” he said. “Look at the sort of diet we get after two hours of training. Chai.”

The BFI’s marriage with IMG Reliance got off to a good start. There was the scholarship that sent Bhamara and seven others to the US. By 2014, IMG-R was contributing 80 per cent of the BFI’s budget, dwarfing the money from the Indian government. But there was trouble brewing behind the scenes. When BFI CEO Harish Sharma, who was instrumental in negotiating the deal, passed away in 2012, his wife Roopam Sharma replaced him. Not everyone was happy with that choice. In March 2015, the BFI split into two factions, both holding competing AGMs to elect two separate executive committees. One was led by K Govindraj and Chander Mukhi Sharma, while BJP MP Poonam Mahajan and Roopam Sharma led the other. Two years of fractious infighting followed, culminating in the government de-recognising the BFI and pulling all of its funding. Having received official FIBA recognition, the K Govindraj faction eventually won the right to govern the sport, but without state support.

Unwilling to get caught up in a political turf war, IMG-R turned off the money tap. And according to a BFI source, the terms of the deal don’t allow the BFI to look for other sponsors. The BFI has filed a case against IMG-R, asking it to either pay up or terminate the contract. But it might take years for a ruling. Till then, deprived of both private sponsorship and state support, the BFI is dependent on private donations to keep its operations running. This has meant it can no longer afford to pay salaries of top foreign coaches – and perhaps seeing which way the wind was blowing, Scott Flemming stepped down as head coach of the men’s team in 2015.

The players themselves are wary of talking about the split, perhaps due to the BFI’s track record of disciplining outspoken players. “All I’ll say is we’re players, and our job is to play,” says Bhriguvanshi. “We want to see Indian basketball improve and we’re trying to do that on the court. We expect to see the same off the court as well, no?”

Despite these setbacks, there’s still much to be positive about. While IMG-R has frozen its investment in the game for now, the NBA has doubled down. It’s opened an online merchandise store with Jabong, teamed up with social media companies and digital content firms, including The Viral Fever, and organised visits by top NBA stars during the off-season (Kevin Durant being the latest addition to that list), to make the league as accessible to Indian fans as possible.

Then in 2013, NBA India launched the Reliance Foundation Jr NBA Program to provide up-to-date training to school coaches. And earlier this year, it launched two more initiatives. The first was the NBA Basketball School, at the Jamnabai Narsee School in Mumbai, with a curriculum designed by former NBA coaches and players. The second was an NBA Academy in Noida. Twenty-one young cagers have already been selected for the first batch, all with full scholarships. The NBA envisions both programmes as a pipeline to American college basketball, international leagues and eventually the NBA. “The NBA Academy India is not just the best development facility for basketball in India; I believe it is currently the best facility for development of young athletes for any sport in the country,” says Yannick Colaco, MD of NBA India. “We’re confident that the academy as well as our grassroots efforts will go a long way in helping India produce more world-class basketball players soon.”

With plans for a full-fledged professional league still on ice, there have been other attempts to fill in the gap. In 2014, the Mizoram Basketball Association (MBBA) teamed up with local cable network Zonet to start the Mizoram Super League, featuring six teams. In three seasons, the MSL has attracted some of India’s top players, including Bhriguvanshi and Palpreet Singh Brar, as well as a smattering of players from the US. They play to packed stadiums – last season’s final was attended by over 4,000 people – and many more fans follow the league avidly on local television. Mizoram isn’t known as a basketball powerhouse, though. Only one player from the state has ever made it to the national team. But with the success of the MSL, interest in the sport has skyrocketed in the state. “We hope to have at least one Mizo player in the national basketball team by 2020,” says Dr Lalrinawma Hnamte, senior vice president of the MBBA. “With the sport becoming faster and more skill-based, lack of height isn’t such a big problem. Even the national team players who came to the MSL were amazed at how fast our players are.”

On a bigger scale, a private consortium led by American businessman Tommy Fisher is behind the United Basketball Alliance (UBA), whose month-long UBA Pro Basketball League kicked off in 2015 and finished its fourth season this March. Much like the MSL, it offers players the chance to earn a little extra cash and also play alongside talented foreign players. And with matches televised on Ten Sports, it’s also given them a small taste of what real sports stardom looks like. “I was having lunch at the airport recently when this middle-aged guy walked up to me and asked if my name was Vishesh and if I played for Bengaluru Beast,” Bhriguvanshi tells me over coffee. “He said he saw me on TV and that I played really well. That was the first time I’d ever been recognised in public!”

And, of course, there’s the Indian national team, with a core of incredibly talented players who have the potential to transform India from perennial also-rans to real Asian contenders. Amjyot Singh Gill and Amritpal Singh spent a few months last year playing in Japan’s second division, the first Indian players to do so. Called up recently for National Basketball LEague team Sydney Kings on their China tour, Singh also looks set to break into the Australian professional league. And there’s no shortage of young NBA hopefuls looking to follow Bhamara’s footsteps, such as the 21-year-old Brar, who was picked up by NBA G-league team the Long Island Nets last October. If this group of players continues to develop, they may just be the basketball heroes that the BFI and the NBA have been looking for.

For now, everyone’s focused on the FIBA Asia Cup. There’s a lot riding on the team’s performance in Lebanon, not least of all a shot at a first-ever qualification for the FIBA World Cup. At last year’s FIBA Asia Challenge, the team beat heavyweights China and Philippines in the group stages, falling to eventual champions Iran in the quarter-finals. This year, Bhriguvanshi tells me, they hope to reach the semis. With Satnam Singh Bhamara returning to the national team for the first time since 2013, and former NBA assistant coach Phil Weber joining as head coach, morale is high. A semi-final place would be the highest India have finished in a major international competition since 1975. And a World Cup qualification – though unlikely – would be absolutely historic. But the players can only do so much themselves. “Anything you want to do – not just in basketball – it needs a missionary zeal, total dedication and needs to be free from politics and interference,” says Dhaliwal. “If we have that, we can reach any level. But that is not there. People just sit in air-conditioned rooms and talk only in meetings, but do nothing practical.”

Back at the SAI complex, Yadwinder Singh prepares to rejoin his teammates on the court for their final training session of the camp. “This squad that we have, India are never going to have a better set of players,” he says, looking resigned, maybe even a little bitter. “Agar abhi nahin sambhala, toh phir mushkil ho jayegi aage (If [the federation] doesn’t handle [things] now, we’re going to have problems going forward.)

STAY CONNECTED WITH US GQ India

NOW READ

Neymar is officially moving to PSG and his salary will make you rethink your career

The only thing Floyd Mayweather has to do to make (at least) $300 million in 36 minutes

Here’s what went down when Abhishek Bachchan met Kevin Durant

> More on Sports

