GALLINARI, DIENG, ADAMS, SPLITTER BRING NBA BASKETBALL TO WORLD YOUTH

GALLINARI, DIENG, ADAMS, SPLITTER BRING
NBA BASKETBALL TO WORLD YOUTH

– First-Ever Basketball without Borders Global Camp at All-Star
to Feature Top 39 Campers from 23 Countries –

NEW YORK, Feb. 5, 2014 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) today announced the 39 campers from 23 countries who will travel to New York City for the first-ever Basketball without Borders (BWB) Global Camp. The camp will be held February 13-15 at Baruch College in Manhattan as part of NBA All-Star 2015 in New York City, and Nike will be the official partner.

This marks the first time that BWB, the NBA and FIBA’s global basketball development program, is being held in the U.S. The BWB Global Camp will become an annual All-Star tradition.

The campers, ages 16-18 and coming from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, will train with select NBA and FIBA players and coaches including Danilo Gallinari (Denver Nuggets; Italy; BWB Europe 2003), Gorgui Dieng (Minnesota Timberwolves; Senegal; BWB Africa 2009), Steven Adams (Oklahoma City Thunder; New Zealand), and Tiago Splitter (San Antonio Spurs; Brazil).

The campers will work on movement efficiency and athletic performance training, positional skill work, 5-on-5 games, and shooting/skill competitions conducted by NBA personnel. The daily shooting competitions will see campers divided into four regional teams, with the winning region crowned “shooting champion” at the conclusion of the camp. An overall BWB Global Camp MVP will also be named at the conclusion of the camp.

The campers will attend the BBVA Compass Rising Stars Challenge, State Farm NBA All-Star Saturday Night, and the 64th NBA All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden.

As part of the league’s seasonlong NBA Cares All-Star community efforts to engage one million youth across the five boroughs with fun, fitness-related basketball activities, BWB Global campers will participate in the NBA FIT All-Star Celebration, a city-wide event which brings fitness programming to kids throughout New York City with the support of Kaiser Permanente. The campers will also participate in daily life skills seminars focusing on character-building and leadership development.

Nike, a BWB global partner since 2002, will outfit the campers and coaches with Nike apparel and footwear.

The inaugural Basketball without Borders took place in Europe in July 2001. Vlade Divac of the Los Angeles Lakers and Toni Kukoc of the Milwaukee Bucks, together with five other FIBA/NBA players and former teammates for the Yugoslav national team, reunited to work with 50 children from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia and Montenegro at La Ghirada in Treviso, Italy. Since then, Basketball without Borders has reached more than 2,200 campers from 120 countries and territories, with 33 BWB campers drafted into the NBA. The NBA and FIBA have staged 39 BWB camps in 22 cities across 19 countries on five continents. More than 150 current and former NBA, WNBA and FIBA players have joined nearly 140 NBA team personnel from all 30 NBA teams to support BWB all over the world.

The following is a complete list of players participating in the inaugural Basketball without Borders Global Camp:

Featured photo courtesy of http://sports-kings.com/

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