Sacramento Kings’ assistant coach Roy Rana feels identifying talent at a young age and coach development are the two main areas which can help Indian basketball bridge the gap with the rest of the world. The 50-year-old said there needs to be an alignment in the way the game is taught to Indian children all over the country and that better coaching will produce more talents.
“I was at the Basketball Without Borders camp that we did in Delhi in 2008. Obviously this trip with the NBA Global Games has been impactful. I’ve seen the NBA Academy India. I’d love to go to Ludhiana and see some of the things that are happening in Punjab. So some of this for me would be really just sharing kind of what we did in Canada but not necessarily the reality on the ground,” Rana told reporters in a conference call on Thursday.
He said: “I’ve found out that talent identifications is going to become critical and that’s going to happen at an early age. Looking at 13 and 14-year-olds, younger age groups and trying to see who has potential.. giving them exposure at a younger age would be helpful. I think there needs to a coordinated, designed effort so there’s alignment in teaching the game across the country and I’m not sure if that exists. How do you identify players at a younger age? How do you build alignment in teaching the technical and tactical side of the game? All of this is about coach development which will help the sport grow and thrive as we move into the future. The better you develop your coaches, the better you develop your talent.
“In the diaspora and our community, there is a lot of talent and many Indians are playing basketball outside of India. If we look at what’s being done internationally, we can be confident that it can be done domestically as well.”
Rana, born to Indian parents in England, was previously the coach at Toronto’s Ryerson University since 2009 before joining Kings. He also served as Canada’s junior men’s national team for five years.
His biggest achievement was guiding Canada to a gold medal in the 2017 Fiba Under-19 Basketball World Cup which was the first time they won the championship at a Fiba event.
However, he said he had to struggle to become a basketball coach and get to the NBA as the sport was not very popular among the Indian community in Canada when he was young. Rana says times have changed now with many showing interest in the game.
“I am a complete anomaly although now the story is different now where Indians in Canada are crazy about basketball and the community is growing at a much faster pace. When I was growing up in Canada, it was a hockey country and we tried to adopt that hockey culture since that was the easiest way to assimilate. Hockey was big in my family at a younger age, badminton was big as well but mostly it was about academics which I was okay with but I wasn’t destined to become a doctor which is a dream for Indian parents,” he said.
Rana recalled that his mother felt he was mentally sick for his obsession with basketball and that no one believed that he could make a career through coaching at first.
“My mother always taught that there was something wrong with me because I was so passionate about basketball. This passion for basketball was unusual almost. Now its a source of great pride in our community. Coaching wasn’t viewed as an opportunity to better yourself or make a life for yourself. It was viewed as something that was concerning but the mentality among Indians community has changed tremendously. Kids have been taking up the sport at such a young age, it has become such a passionate sport that what was once strange is now very normal. And there’s a lot of Indian coaches in United States and Canada who are following the game at a collegiate, high school and professional level,” he said.