Soon, the Sacramento Kings will embark on a trip that will mostly beforeign to them. Not for Kings owner Vivek Ranadive, though.

Shortly after purchasing the Kings in 2013, Ranadive shared with former NBA commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver about his desire for the NBA to host preseason games in his native India. Silver promised Ranadive that would happen eventually. Nearly six years later, it has.

The Kings and Indiana Pacers will play a pair of exhibition games on Friday and Saturday at the NSCI Dome in Ranadive’s home town of Mumbai. That left Ranadive feeling wistful and appreciative.

“It’s been a long journey, but the NBA has kept its promise to me,” Ranadive told USA TODAY Sports. “I can’t even tell you how incredible and exciting that is. It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”

Ranadive has dreamed about this scenario many times.

Ranadive grew up in Mumbai playing cricket and soccer. He moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 17 to study electrical engineering. He became a billionaire by pioneering real-time event processing software. Yet, Ranadive fell in love with basketball when he coached the team of his 12-year-old daughter and encouraged it to use a full-court press.

Ranadive became the Golden State Warriors’ co-owner and vice chairman in 2010. He had the Warriors host “Bollywood night,” which honored Indian culture with food, clothes and music. The team also printed T-shirts which read “Got Curry?,” a play-on phrase to Warriors star Stephen Curry. When Ranadive met with NBA officials, he often referred to India as “the next great frontier” for basketball.

“It can be played in rich countries. It can be played in poor countries,” Ranadive said. “Unlike cricket, it doesn’t require a lot of space. There isn’t a lot of space in a place like Mumbai. It also has a vibe to it, which is very much in tune with the Indian vibe. It’s a spectacle. It’s a celebration.”

The NBA agreed.

The league already had opened an office in India in 2011. So in 2014, Silver traveled with Ranadive to India to explore more initiatives. Since then, the league launched NBA Academy India (2017) for elite prospects. It televised more than 350 games in India, and it hosted 25 after-school and five in-school basketball programs. It launched the Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA program, which has reached more than 10 million Indian kids and helped train more than 10,000 instructors.

Partly thanks to Ranadive, in 2015 the Kings became the first NBA team to stream a game to India. Since Ranadive bought the Sacramento franchise, SONY has broadcast more than 140 Kings games in India. The NBA anticipates those numbers will grow following the league’s first preseason trip to India.

The Kings plan to leave Monday afternoon before visiting the Taj Mahal (Tuesday), hosting a practice and NBA Cares clinic (Wednesday) and completing their preseason games on Thursday and Friday. For the first exhibition game, the NBA will invite 3,000 kids that participated with the Jr. NBA program. Lastly, the NBA also will refurbish local courts and schools.

No wonder NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum predicted “there will be an immediate benefit in terms of the number of fans that engage in the NBA.” So much that the NBA and Ranadive believe the league will eventually have preseason games in India every year. The NBA has hosted pre-season games in China since 2006.

“I expect within the next 10 years they’ll have a player out of there that plays in the NBA," Ranadive said. "I expect there will be a league that starts there.”

After all, Tatum said the NBA drew about 100 million viewers from India this past year. Three of the NBA’s academy players compete on India’s national team. Sim Bhullar (Canadian) became the first player of Indian descent to play in the NBA on April 7, 2015. Shortly afterwards, Satnam Singh became the first Indian-born player drafted after the Dallas Mavericks selected him at No. 52. Since 2006, more than 35 current and former NBA and WNBA players have visited India with the league. Kings general manager Vlade Divac also has traveled to India with Ranadive.

Before and during his trip to India earlier this offseason, Barnes recalled that Ranadive advised him “to have an open mind and be ready to embrace a culture.” Barnes quickly fell in love with the country’s food. He liked how coachable the children seemed at the clinics. And he became amused he was initially mistaken for a recruiter for India’s cricket national team.

“When you get there, your senses are going to be assaulted. It’s what I call a ruckus democracy,” Ranadive said. “It’s going to be assaulted with sounds, smells and colors and pace. You might recoil. But you should reach out and soak it in. It’ll be an enriching experience.”

Follow Mark Medina on Twitter @MarkG_Medina