Moments of Greatness

By Ayaz Memon

I am consumed by nostalgia this week. A year earlier almost to the day I was on the long haul from Delhi to Phoenix via Chicago as part of a small troupe of journos from India to watch the All Star game, and in many ways the world has not been the same since.

I must confess now to lingering skepticism on the flight. The NBA was not unfamiliar, nor some of its legends: of Kareem Abdul Jabbar's influence I have written in these columns earlier; of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson I had heard often enough from my friend, the actor Tom Alter who is of American origin and a hardcore basketball fan. And whoever has not heard of Michael Jordan was obviously living on some other planet.

My doubt was whether the NBA would live up to its hype. One had heard and read so much; my fear was that a real-life experience would be a downer as usually happens when expectations run sky high. I remember another journalist from India telling me while we were waiting in transit in Chicago. ``I hope this does not turn out to be another case of just American hard-selling.''

Hard-selling, the All Star game turned out to be over the next few days, but not without credit or merit. The glitz and razzmatazz accompanying the event was quintessentially Yankee, and also allowed us from India a clear idea of where the inspiration for the Indian Premier League cricket tournament -- started in 2008 -- had come from. (After all Lalit Modi, chairman and commissioner of the IPL had spent the early part of his youth in America).

But what these few days also emphasized was the clockwork precision and professionalism of the NBA in holding such an event, and the unstinted emphasis on the quality of the product (i.e. the actual play). When the economic system is determined by market forces, where the consumer is king, it perhaps could not be otherwise. Behind the glamour and the brouhaha, the hard edge of running a business became evident gradually.

The game itself was one-sided, West beating East 146-119. But beyond the perfunctory, nobody was quite interested in the result per se. It had been a carnival like atmosphere in the lead-up to the game, and when the two teams took the court, the 17000 strong crowd seemed to enjoy every moment of it, never mind who won or lost.

In a sense, the All Stars match is to unleash the NBA's star power and showcase its grand scale by adding a plethora of `marquee' names that come to watch it. This is the NBA's statement of acceptance as well as power-- to the world of sport, to the corporate world, to the glamour world – to the world at large.

Among the stellar celebs I noted last year were Beyonce and her beau Jay-Z, Spike Lee, and Maria Shriver minus the kilos of Arnie Schwarzenegger accompanying her. Then there was Republican Senator John McCain, a basketball junkie I was told who had found solace in lecturing young hoopsters on team building and team spirit. But above all, there was Muhammad Ali.

Here I must make my second confession. I am a diehard Ali fan. I believe he has been not just the greatest boxer of all time, but also the greatest sportsperson of the last century. There's more. He dominated not just his sport, but also global socio-political consciousness in the 1960s and 70s with his brilliance in the ring and his righteous protests against war and racism off it.

Ali looked a pale shadow of the man who could take on the world. Big rimmed sunglasses failed to conceal the wear and tear of age and a debilitating disease. His gait was slow and unsteady and his smile wan. When he threw a couple of mock punches on public demand, his hands trembled. He was no longer floating like a butterfly, and there was clearly no sting left in his jabs. Mortality does not spare anybody, even the seemingly superhuman. But who would argue that he has been a titan of our times; or perhaps The Greatest, as he would prefer it.

Of the match itself, I watched intently to see how the so-called rivalry between Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant would play out on court, but both were on their best behavior. O'Neal had, of course, only just moved from Lakers to Phoenix Suns and was pretty much the favourite of the crowd. He became an even bigger star I suspect by putting on a sensational pre-match dance performance that looked like a mix of hip-hop, break dancing, salsa, jerk and what have you. The crowd was on its feet quickly.

The result of the game, as mentioned, was inconsequential to the enthusiasm of the spectators or indeed my own experience. My deeper interest was in understanding the NBA's future plans and I was pleasantly surprised to find the league's commissioner David Stern up to date with how India was shaping up as a sports destination in the global market for basketball. Evidently, he was on the ball.

In the year since, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, to use a cliché. The NBA has made its presence felt in India – slowly but surely. Why, only last week at the campus I attended in Pune to speak on sports, a student asked me how I could talk so vividly about an All Star game, which he had heard so much about and so badly wanted to see.

``I was there,'' I said to him triumphantly.