Indian basketball needs a Yao, says Durant

NBA behemoth Kevinevin Durant set a world record in India on Friday but admitted it will take a lot more for basketball tball to overtake cricket in thehe country. Durant said that India ndia will have to be patient andd find its own Yao Ming to become me a world basketball force as it is in cricket.

On a visit to Indiaia that took him to the e Taj Mahal on Saturday,rday, Golden State Warriors arriors NBA champion Durant (pictured, AFP) staged a training session with 3,459 Indian children thatat the NBA said would go into o the Guinness Book of Records ords as the biggest basket lessonlesso ever held. The 28-year-old28-yearforward, who was at theth NBA India Academy in th the New Delhi suburbs, was the centrepiece of the training session,se while players in Bangalore,Bang Chennai, HyderabadHyderaba and Kolkata joined by video. The DurantDur foundation has also donated two basketballbask courts in the country.c But Durant acknowledgedac c r i c k e t ’s p l a c e a s number one.on “I haven’t played cricket before but I know how deep the sportspor is in the culture,” he told a press confer- ence. “It will take some time for basketball to take over. But we had to start somewhere and this is a great start.”

“I think the buzz around basketball here is just growing. Just be patient and we will see more,” Durant added.

The NBA academy is a lready training some young Indians who hope to fol low i n t he foot steps of Sat na m Singh Bhamara, who became the first Indian drafted into the NBA in 2015, a nd Ca nadia n India n Si m Bhu l la r who played in the championship last season.

Bhamara, 21 and 7 feet (2.13 metres) tall, is now with the Texas Legends, an affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks, in the NBA D league, waiting for a call to the big championship.

Bhullar, 7ft5in (2.26m), who made a cameo appearance for the Sacramento Kings to become the first Indian to appear in the NBA, has more recently been playing in Taiwan.

Durant said India has got to find a giant like Yao who has taken basketball to a new level in neighbouring China.

“That would be perfect here,” said Durant. “They got a guy that got drafted two years ago to Dallas, playing D League for a couple of years. That was a huge step.

“Even someone like Sim is important just for people to know that somebody who looks like me can rise up the ranks and do something spectacular,” said Durant. “There are two guys right now. It’s just a matter of time before two becomes four and four becomes eight,” he added.