Indo-Canadians now a big part of B.C.’s basketball spectrum
New wave of players gives hope for the future of hoops in the province
When Pasha Bains got his first real glimpse into the American basketball culture, Vince Carter was right by his side.
The scene was 1997 in Indianapolis, and Bains — a baby-faced Grade 11 student at Richmond High — had garnered an invitation to the Nike All-American Camp, arguably the most prestigious week of high school basketball in the world.
Carter, then a member of the University of North Carolina Tarheels, was appointed his team’s mentor.
Ironically enough, as the future Toronto Raptors great watched from the sidelines, the week marked a watershed moment for Canadian Basketball. Bains was the lone Canadian among the 200 participants that featured more than a few future NBA prospects.
The week reverberated with thethen-16-year-old on an unexpected level.
“They had a rating system on a card where you filled out your personal info. And you get to the last column and it said, ‘B or W’, meaning, ‘Are you black or white?’ and you checked it off,” said Bains, now the co-founder of DRIVE academy, one of the most respected basketball programs in the province.
“Mine was the only card in the entire camp that was left blank. I’m neither, obviously.”
As the son of Indian immigrants Paul and Nimmi, Bains’ infatuation with sports began long before the family resettled from Jalandhar, Punjab, to Canada in the early ’70s.
Soccer, track and field and cricket were what enthralled the family and their fellow countrymen. But Bains, born in Vancouver, had his heart unexpectedly set on basketball at an early age, despite the oddity at the time of being a serious Indian ballplayer.
“I didn’t do myself many favours by going to the deep south,” Bains said, reflecting on his NCAA experience at Clemson University (South Carolina).
“When I was at Clemson, I was the only Indian at the school, let alone the team. No Indians were going D1 at that time.
“It was tough to see where I fit in from a social standpoint; there were black parties and there were white parties, and nothing really inbetween.
“So when I would try, they would always say, ‘What are you? Where are you from? What kind of Indian are you?’ That was the kind of stuff I always had to deal with.”
At present, many Indo-Canadian club directors, including Bains, say the novelty of a successful brown ballplayer is dissipating, both back home (Canada and India) and in the United States.
With the game’s popularity higher than ever and club academies quintupling in B.C. in the past 10 years according to Basketball BC, Indo-Canadians are viewing basketball as a more viable option these days and parents are taking notice.
“The Indo-Canadian mindset is slowly changing with the secondgeneration kids,” said Surinder Grewal, co-founder of the Surrey-based AthElite Basketball Academy.
“Before school work and academics were the only focus; now there’s more of a balance. Sports aren’t necessarily secondary anymore for some of these kids, and the support system seems to be more in place now.”
Of the 11 cities in the country with the largest percentage of South Asian immigrants compared to overall population numbers, four belong to Metro Vancouver (Surrey, second; Abbotsford, third; Burnaby, 10; Richmond, 11). Those four cities also happen to be where former great Indo-Canadian players man some of the province’s most budding basketball academies.
Bains’ success with DRIVE has made it the unquestioned leader in Vancouver and Richmond basketball while in Abbotsford and Surrey, Grewal and Aman Heran have the strongest pull with AthElite Basketball.
AthElite now hosts approximately 1,000 ballers every three months — reportedly more than 50 per cent Indo-Canadian — in Surrey and that number is significantly higher in Abbotsford.
Out on the island, 24-year-old Avneet Brar, a fourth assistant coach and former national champion at Vancouver Island University, is regarded as one of the most promising coaching prospects in the region. And, he says, there is much to be gained by players — regardless of background — by incorporating the traditional Indian upbringing into their games.
“One thing that really applies is sticking together through turmoil,” said Brar, a devout Sikh whose parents immigrated to Canada from the province of Punjab.
“It’s unfortunate that most often you see people come together when something bad happens. I truly wish people could come together for the positives as well.
“The Sikh philosophy of gathering as people who are all equal is very important for a team concept as well.”
Although all provincial and club organizations unanimously said they kept no records of player participation rates based on ethnicity because of ‘practical’ and ‘ethical’ concerns, the eyeball test is a telling indicator.
Enter any high-level tournament in the province and you would be hard-pressed to not see a number of potential college, university or NCAA Indo-Canadian prospects these days.
Sukhjot Bains (Northwest College, Wy.), Manroop Clair (Seattle University) Mindy Minhas (ex-Churchill Bulldog and B.C. Prov. MVP), Gary Minhas (Langara College) and Sagar Dulay (Tamanawis) and Jas Singh (Delta Secondary School) are just some recent standouts.
“I know for my DRIVE U15 (teams), it is pretty much all dominated by Indian players,” Bains said. “Look around B.C., too, a new wave is going to hit soon, girls included. There’s a likelihood that a lot of Indo-Canadians will be playing Division 1 basketball in the coming years.”
Across the world, the viability of the Indian market has already begun, with annual NBA trips, coaching clinics and rescheduled start times solely to accommodate New Delhi viewers.
“The biggest factor (for the growth of the sport) is the higher involvement of NBA and FIBA in the last sixeight years,” Inderbir Gill, a coach for NBA India, wrote from New Delhi.
Satnam Singh (Ballo Ke, Punjab) became the first Indian-born player selected in the NBA draft (52nd by the Dallas Mavericks in 2015) while two months earlier, Sim Bhullar — a Canadian-born Indian — became the first player of Indian descent to play in an NBA game — known as a Non-Resident of India (NRI).
And with that global push from all sides of the country, there are many in the B.C. Indo-Canadian community that believe it’s only a matter of if, not when, one of their own makes the big stage.
“There’s an established history now to B.C. with (Steve) Nash, Kelly Olynyk, and Robert Sacre, and I think that’s going to translate to an Indo-Canadian from B.C. who can make the NBA in the future,” Bains said. “Knowing a lot of coaches, I don’t think the Indian thing is a problem — if it ever was.
“So if a lot of guys are playing, working hard at an early age and our infrastructure keeps improving — what’s to say it can’t be an Indian in the NBA?”