Basketball Without Borders is a basketball instructional camp organised by the NBA in conjunction with FIBA, it presents itself as a "basketball development and community outreach program that unites young basketball players to promote the sport and encourage positive social change in the areas of education, health, and wellness".
Organised annually since 2001, 41 BWB camps have been held across 23 cities in 20 countries with in excess of 2,300 participants from more than 120 countries and territories, 33 of whom were later drafted into the NBA. Around 150 different current and former NBA/WNBA players have joined nearly 140 NBA team personnel as staff.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
History
Billed as a "summer camp for 12-14-year-olds designed to promote friendship and understanding through sport" the initial editions focused on peace and international relations, bringing together youths from former Yugoslavia in 2001 shortly after the Yugoslav Wars and from Greece and Turkey in 2002 amidst tense Greek-Turkish relations, with leading participation from the UN in both cases.
From the 2003 editions onwards, basketball became the focus of the camps, the age of the participants grew (17 on average) and participants are now mostly selected for their potential although the selection process by FIBA and national federations is an inclusive system that sees consensual selections from weaker basketball countries.
That year also saw the first edition of the camp in Africa, seen as uncharted basketball territory at the time, the camps would later expand to the Americas in 2004 and Asia in 2005, including youth from all around the globe (those from Oceania have attended editions in the two last mentioned regions).
A global camp was first organised in 2015 in New York City as part of the All-Star Game Weekend, it gave an opportunity for the selected players, identified as the best in their regions, to have a taste of the game at its highest level, it was announced as an recurrent annual event.
The camps have gradually become a hotspot for scouts, with an impressive number of former campers who have made it into the NBA (see Attendees) and/or College basketball it is seen as a means of spotting unheralded talent with high upside, players such as Luc Mbah a Moute or Bruno Caboclo are noted examples.
Though basketball skill is now at the forefront of the camp, the social goal is also still pre-eminent, few campers are expected to make it as pros and a declared goal of the camp is to develop its attendees life-skills, with an emphasis on leadership and personal relations, to make them leaders of change in their home countries. Ideally the personal goal for them is to enter a high school or college in the U.S. to get an education they can use in the future, in a given year it was estimated more than sixty former participants were playing and studying in American colleges.
There is a camp for girls as well, with coaches from FIBA and the WNBA, however it receives far less exposure than the boys tournaments.
Basketball Without Borders, and program director Masai Ujiri, are profiled in Hubert Davis's 2016 documentary film Giants of Africa.
Mvp Basketball Camp Video
Format
It brings together young players (called campers) usually aged 18 and under to a single location for a few days (3 or 4 on average), they are identified by the FIBA, NBA and participating federations with input from international FIBA/ NBA players from the region, for example for BWB Africa some have been chosen through Sprite Slam camps in the past.
The youths are divided into teams (sometimes after a draft) named after real NBA teams and managed by coaches, those are either NBA or FIBA players and coaches, both current and former. They attend daily clinics of basketball fundamentals (passing, shooting, dribbling...) with these coaches and participate in individual and/or team shooting games for prizes before playing in tournament style games against the other teams.
Also offered are seminars for the campers to improve their life-skills (character, leadership, and health concerns...) normally run by local non-government organizations (NGO's).
The camp ends with an All-Star game featuring the camps best players, a game and a camp MVP are then elected (starting from the 2007 edition).
In parallel the organisers also implement social responsibility programmes, with daily community outreach activities in the local area, for example through organising seminars for local youths or Special Olympics. These are supplemented by product donations to local organisations such as schools and usually a NBA Cares initiative such as building or refurbishing playing and educational infrastructures.
The NBA and its corporate sponsors pay for transport, lodging and meals for the campers and the entourage of personnel (including a full training staff for injuries), some of many examples include the La Ghirada center in Treviso that was used in early camps was leased for free by Benetton Group, the campers in BWB Africa flown in by South African Airways whilst Nike has outfitted the campers in multiple camps.
Camps
Notable Attendees
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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