BALLO KE, India — In this sleepy Punjabi village, no one was surprised to see a seven-foot-tall Sikh farmer striding the narrow lanes toward the local Sikh temple on June 25. The farmer, Balbir Singh Bamrah, is a familiar presence in Ballo Ke, and something of a local curiosity.

But the other worshipers at the temple, known as a gurudwara, were a bit perplexed by the prayer the guru offered for Balbir Singh’s household. He stood over the farmer, his wife and his daughter, and prayed for peace, prosperity, health — and that Balbir Singh’s son would be drafted.

“They didn’t understand what the N.B.A. draft was,” said Sarabjot Kaur, Balbir Singh’s 23-year-old daughter. “They only realized later.”

Image Satnam Singh, second from right, in an N.B.A. summer league game in which the Dallas Mavericks played the Atlanta Hawks. Credit... John Locher/Associated Press

On the night of June 25 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn — which, some 7,000 miles away in Ballo Ke, was the next morning — the Dallas Mavericks selected Satnam Singh Bhamara in the second and final round, making him the first Indian-born player ever to be drafted by a team in the National Basketball Association. It was reported that the 19-year-old athlete, who is two inches taller than his father, would start out with the Mavericks’ Development League team, the Texas Legends.