World Basketball Festival: United we rise, undivided we ball

Shocking fact. New York is not the birth place of basketball, but it might very well have gotten its soul there. With over 500 playgrounds scattered in the city, the Big Apple lives and breathes, bounces, dribbles and shoots basketball.

“No matter where basketball’s top icons call home, the game will always be synonymous with New York City. Basketball is rooted in the Big Apple. So many of the seeds that feed the game are cultivated here. It’s only fitting that NYC’s marquee basketball venue is called ‘The Garden.’” Bounce magazine could not have put it better.

Not-so-shocking fact. I know nothing about basketball (gasp!), but I dig the gear. Skinny jeans paired with basketball shoes is a big check on my list, and I used to wear a lot of Lakers jerseys on top of shirts — just because. Maybe it’s my way of being curious about things I know almost nothing about. “But you don’t play basketball,” I’d hear someone say. “So what?!”

Okay, confession time — the last time I played this game was way back in first grade, in the school gym, with a neon yellow tennis ball. Yes, you heard it right — we called it “improv.” Then again, you can’t be Filipino and know nothing about the game. I know the giants, the guys who walk into the clubs who tower above everyone — I’m proud to call them my friends. We all grew up with the PBA, watching Jaworski make a star turn from top player to coach to become (then) senator of this land. We may have even watched the films of Alvin Patrimonio, Jojo Lastimosa and Jerry Codiñera way back when Mother Lily cast her movies from the hard court. And who in this country does not know James Yap? (We’re not related.) I rest my case — we Filipinos have a love affair with basketball.

What better place to head to than New York, this concrete jungle where hoop dreams are made of, for me to be able to dissect this love affair between man and balls. That might not have sounded right, but you know what I mean. All eyes were on the World Basketball Festival, a joint effort between Nike, Inc. and USA Basketball that blends sport and culture, spread over four days of celebration that featured the world’s best basketball teams and top musical performers. This particular festival featured the national teams of the United States, China, Brazil, Puerto Rico and France. The theme? “United we rise,” an initiative aimed at improving communities through basketball and to share the company’s innovative spirit. Just do it, yes!

Nike has committed to make this a biennual event, with the first one just happening this past week. I was part of the Philippine delegation that covered the event, and I must say, my respect and appreciation for the sport and the culture that surrounds it went notches deeper.

The Stars Shine Brightly in the Big Apple

Of course, there are the stars. Kobe Bryant, who shared with us how much he loved Manila (and Manila loves him back!) during his last visit here, made an appearance at Harlem’s famed Rucker Park and later that day, at Niketown. We also met Kevin Durant, who, at 21, is basketball’s former next-big-thing. With the United States basketball team heading to Turkey for the world championship devoid of stars like Bryant, Dwayne Wade and LeBron James, Durant is the man. “It’s Durant’s time — now.”

At Radio City Music Hall, we got to meet the 7 foot tall man, a very humble man who tinkered with his Nokia phone when the media wasn’t busy asking him questions. Durant was hesitant to claim leadership to his team, and instead deferred to stalwarts of the game like Chauncey Billups and Lamar Odom. “We need teamwork, more than anything else, to bag the gold. You have to be humble and work hard for everything that you get.” Spoken like a true champion. Later that night, when we watched the showcase game, Durant the straight-shooter, did not disappoint.

Solar Sports’ Jinno Rufino, a veteran of basketball coverage, being a sports show host and producer, plus PBA courtside reporter, wasn’t star struck at all by the presence of the NBA stars. It was him and Rogue’s James Gabrillo, and later on, sports blogger Banjo Albano that would brief me on all these legends walking around us. The biggest star in Jinno’s book was Coach K, or Mike Krzyzewski, Team USA’s coach, and perhaps “the most respected leader in the basketball business,” says Bounce magazine. And rightfully so, as Coach K brought to the US an Olympic gold in Beijing, and continues to coach college basketball. I made sure to get great photo ops between idol and fan. In fact, in the World Basketball Festival YouTube video distributed by Nike, I make a small cameo appearance right beside Coach K. How’s that for positioning?

“This festival is all about raising the bar for basketball,” Coach K told us about the four-day fest that we were about to take in. ”Rucker Park — that’s all about neighborhood basketball. That’s where you become a man.” Yes, we did go to Harlem, not once but twice, as we observed games played between junior leagues of competing countries, and even a sample game between Puerto Rico and Brazil. On a fine morning, the legend Michael Jordan even showed up, unannounced, as this was his testament for his love of the game, and of the significance of Rucker Park in basketball’s history.

Other World Basketball Festival Highlights

There were the limited edition “All Black” sneaks of Jay-Z, who also performed at Radio City Music Hall (to the tune of $3M, I heard), DJ battles, documentary screenings, store openings, countless meet-and-greets, star spottings (Tony Parker and Eva Longoria, of course, Rihanna in our hotel lobby on her way to her concert after-party, David Beckham, who I met at another club — oh that’s a different ball game) and shopping, of course!

An unforgettable stop for me was the 255 Studio store on Elizabeth Street, where everything can be personalized to your liking. There, Jinno and James went crazy with the shirts and hoodies, putting their own designs, completing the sentences on “home courts” and “against the world” b-ball adages. Jinno even designed his own ID’s, proving that “no two pairs are alike.” How’s that for limited, limited edition?

Harlem’s The Ball Room (nope, this was not a space for dancing), the pseudo-museum interactive space, celebrates the sport’s past, present and future through the lens of the TriBrand experience of Nike, Jordan Brand and Converse all coming together for the first time at the World Basketball Festival to celebrate 100 years of basketball innovation. There was a “Jersey” wall that featured the oldest jersey style to the latest in product innovation; a “Legends” wall which paid homage to the sport’s most iconic shoes, figures and moments; a Footwear wall that displayed the evolution of the basketball shoe and the “Innovation/Future” display that showed us in detail how a specific shoe was made. Touch screens were the highlight of the “Make Me Better/Evolution” wall which showed top athletes, their moves, and how each shoe made the moves better. It felt like we were on the set of Men in Black meets White Men Can’t Jump.

Another significant stop was the “Nike x Make Something” space, founded by East side Alleged Gallery owner and art scene mover Aaron Rose. Teenagers from around the New York area were given the chance to be designer for a day, learning about the process of creating a product collection fit for the world’s best athletes. Three more weeks of art, performance and community workshops conducted by world renowned artists resulted into the “Make Something” space, a work in progress that marries sports, youth, creativity, art and global culture. For me, this was about a brand investing in its best asset — the future.

And so it did feel like watching the future of basketball set in the present as we watched USA defeat France, and Puerto Rico beat China in a double header right smack center of Madsion Square Garden. The energy was palpable — this was a testosterone-and-everything-else-overload as basketball fans cheered for their favorite teams, screaming all at the same time in their common love for the sport, in a city where the game’s spirit truly lives.

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Shoot that ball and follow me at twitter.com/iamtimyap.