10 things you should know about Satnam Singh Bhamara
India’s Satnam Singh Bhamara created history on Friday after he became the first Indian basketball player to be drafted into the NBA. The 19-year-old was picked as the 52nd pick at the 2015 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks, thereby realizing not only his but also a country's dreams.
Here are a few things that you might not know about Satnam
1.Satnam Singh Bhamara was born on December 10th 1995 in the small village of Ballo Ke, with a population of 463, in Punjab to a poor farmer.
2.As a kid, Satnam was nicknamed “Chottu”, which means,”Little One” or “Small” in English and spent his early childhood in his father’s farm. Incredibly, his father also stands at the same height as him and his grandmother is also part of the same bracket, standing at a height of 6’9’’.
3.At the recommendation of his father’s friend, to pursue basketball, Satnam was sent to Ludhiana at the age of 10. Surprisingly, he first thought he was going there to play volleyball, and not basketball.
4.As a kid, Satnam idolized Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant and also admired India’s Jagdeep Singh Bains.
5.Satnam represented India in the Under-16 FIBA Asian Championships in 2009 and also helped his state side Punjab win the Gold medal at the National Youth Championships in Trichy.
6.His biggest turning point came at the age of 14 when he was picked for the IMG Reliance tryouts in Delhi, where in 50 students, he was among the 8 chosen ones, to be awarded a fully-funded scholarship to train at the IMG Sports Academy, located in Florida, United States.
7.After training under some experienced coaches in the academy, Satnam found praise from some of the trainers, who felt that while he still had a work to do on certain aspects of his game, his body size, physical strength and an excellent work ethic were very impressive for a 19-year-old.
8.In the 2014-15 season, Satnam averaged 9.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game in under 20 minutes for IMG.
9.In April 2015, Singh became the first player since 2005 to have declared himself for the NBA Draft in June, without having any prior experience of playing either in college, the NBA Development League or anywhere overseas, professionally.
10.On June 26th 2015, history was created as he became the first Indian player to be drafted in the NBA after he was picked as the 52nd pick by the Dallas Mavericks.
[Facts, courtesy Hoopistani]