Born in war-torn Sudan, raised in the boroughs of South London, before crossing the pond and working his trade in the United States, Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls is truly a globetrotting basketball phenomenon. A 2012 NBA All-Star, Deng has broken through into the game’s elite band of top players, alongside such basketballing royalty as Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, and the king of the court LeBron James. And yet for all that, Deng’s status in his adoptive home of Great Britain has remained modest, reflecting the relative lack of interest basketball attracts from the British public, in large part a result of the lack of a strong professional league within the UK. The London Olympics have however provided Deng with the perfect stage, both on a personal level, enabling him to capture the hearts and minds of the thousands of Brits who flock into the Olympic venue, and to help raise the profile of basketball in Britain as a whole.
While the NBA may be the undisputed dominant league in worldwide professional basketball, continental Europe boasts several national leagues which both promote the sport within their own borders, as well as often serving as influential proving grounds for the NBA stars of the future. Spain, Turkey, Lithuania, and France all boast popular competitions, and while the BBL (British Basketball League), does sanction an official British league, it maintains only a very select following. The opportunity for a stronger British league has not gone unnoticed, and in 2007 the British Basketball Association was created, with the stated intent of founding a new, elite British competition, looking to propel British basketball into the upper echelons of Europe and attract some of the world’s best players. As yet, the plans have yet to fully come to fruition, with the BBA still in the developmental stages.
With the seemingly captive audience who have packed out the arena for all of GB’s games so far in the London games, including a 1-point defeat to powerhouse Spain spearheaded by Deng, it would appear that there is certainly a strong chance that with shrewd marketing the BBA could well seize the initiative and successfully raise the profile of basketball in the United Kingdom. This in turn ought to see the national team move from the middle of the pack into the top sphere of international competition. It is no coincidence that amongst the European sides, those nations with the most prominent leagues also boast some of the strongest teams internationally, even if their best players do tend to move across the Atlantic.
One model which may provide some sense of the potential for the BBA is the rise of the MLS within the United States. Similarly tasked with popularizing a sport traditionally lacking a significant following on home shores, Major League Soccer has certainly succeeded in forming a well established league that is beginning to attract some of the game’s heavyweights away from the traditional centres of footballing excellence. Whether or not Deng may one day return to grace the courts of Great Britain as Henry and Beckham have passed in the other direction remains to be seen, but what seems certain is that the profile of basketball within the UK can only ascend greater and greater heights.
-Oliver Fletcher
~first published at charlesrussellscore.wordpress.com~
Memories of Fordlândia 