Strange Beasts in a Small Town by Adam Armour

Long before India's name is added to that growing list of countries to host an NBA game - and there are currently no concrete plans - the league will have laid a solid foundation for its arrival on the subcontinent. NBA teams have since played a combined 161 games in 45 cities and 20 countries all over the world. borders in 1978 when the now-defunct Washington Bullets went to Israel to play Maccabi Tel Aviv.

'We think there is a lot of opportunity and the best is yet to come.' 'BIG WORLD OUT THERE' The NBA first cast an eye beyond U.S. 'The fan base is growing in India, we have done a lot of on ground grassroots initiatives the last couple of years.

'Basketball has been played in China for over 100 years and basketball relatively speaking is relatively new to India. There is also some very big differences,' the NBA's president of global operations and merchandising, Sal LaRocca, told Reuters. 'There are a lot of similarities when we think about the opportunity in India and how we thought about China. According to the NBA, 300 million people play some form of organized basketball in China and the league has India's 1.3 billion population in its crosshairs employing the same patient game plan to growing the sport from the grassroots up. Decades ago the NBA dispatched missionaries around the world to spread the basketball gospel with hopes of seeing the game one day rival soccer as the world's most popular sport while making the NBA a flagship destination for players and fans. But there are no such basketball bloodlines in China, now the NBA's biggest foreign market, and even fewer ties to India, the cricket-crazed subcontinent that the league has targeted for its next growth spurt.

In a sense the NBA returned home to its roots since the sport was invented by Canadian James Naismith in 1891. It marked the first time the mid-season showcase had been held outside the United States yet could hardly be considered daring or groundbreaking with the NBA firmly entrenched in North America's third biggest metropolis for over two decades. By Steve Keating TORONTO (Reuters) - When the National Basketball Association staged its All-Star Game in Toronto this year it was another subtle sign of a league's global ambitions.

Strange Beasts in a Small Town by Adam Armour