Basketball Without Borders

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.^[1]

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.^[2][3]

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.^[4]

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,^[5] players such as Luc Mbah a Moute^[6] or Bruno Caboclo^[7] 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,^[8] in a given year it was estimated more than sixty former participants were playing and studying in American colleges.^[9]

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.

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.^[10]

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.^[9][11]

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).^[11]

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.^[12]

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,^[2] the campers in BWB Africa flown in by South African Airways ^[13] whilst Nike has outfitted the campers in multiple camps.^[12]

Camps

Year	Edition	City, Country	Dates	Attendees	Camp MVP
2001	BWB Europe 1[14]	Treviso	30 June to 2 July	50
2002	BWB Europe 2[15]	Istanbul	4 to 7 July	48
2003	BWB Europe 3[16] BWB Africa 1[17]	Treviso Johannesburg	28 June to 1 July 2 to 6 September	46 106
2004	BWB Americas 1[18] BWB Europe 4[19] BWB Africa 2[20]	Rio de Janeiro Treviso Johannesburg	28 June to 2 July 24 to 27 July 8 to 11 September	49 42 99
2005	BWB Americas 2[21] BWB Asia 1[22] BWB Europe 5[23] BWB Africa 3[24]	Buenos Aires Beijing Treviso Johannesburg	30 June to 4 July 11 to 17 July 28 to 31 July 7 to 12 September	57 50 49 106
2006	BWB Asia 2[25] BWB Europe 6[26] BWB Americas 3[27] BWB Africa 4[28]	Shanghai Vilnius San Juan Johannesburg	8 to 11 June 30 June to 3 July 16 to 19 July 6 to 10 September	46 51 48 114
2007	BWB Asia 3[29] BWB Americas 4[30] BWB Europe 7[31] BWB Africa 5[32]	Shanghai Sao Paulo Paris Johannesburg	5 to 8 July 31 July to 3 August 6 to 10 August 5 to 9 September	49 51 48 97	Not Awarded Jayson Granger Nika Metreveli Not Awarded
2008	BWB Europe 8[33] BWB Asia 4[34] BWB Africa 6[35]	Istanbul New Dehli Johannesburg	4 to 7 June 1 to 6 July 3 to 8 September	46 45 98	Nikola Mirotić Vishesh Bhriguvanshi Not Awarded
2009	BWB Asia 5[36] BWB Americas 5[37] BWB Africa 7[38]	Beijing Mexico City Johannesburg	30 July to 2 August 6 to 9 August 2 to 6 September	47 49 63	Not Awarded Santiago Nicolas Scala Cyril Bilong Sonna
2010	BWB Asia 6[39] BWB Africa 8[40] BWB Europe 9[41]	Singapore Dakar Barcelona	28 June to 1 July 5 to 8 August 16 to 19 September	44 55 50	Tom Daly Michel Ange Enanga Mateusz Ponitka
2011	BWB Americas 6[42] BWB Europe 10[41] BWB Africa 9[43]	Rio de Janeiro Ljubljana Johannesburg	29 July to 1 August 8 to 11 August 1 to 4 September	40 50 60	Gabriel Deck Boris Dallo Benoit Mbala Mendzana
2012	BWB Asia 7[44] BWB Africa 10[45] BWB Europe 11[46]	Tokyo Johannesburg Moscow	13 to 16 June 30 August to 2 September 13 to 16 September	56 58 42	Yuki Togashi Romeh Elsadani Sameh Ali Nedim Buza
2013	BWB Americas 7[47] BWB Europe 12[48] BWB Africa 11[49]	Buenos Aires Lisbon Johannesburg	25 to 28 July 15 to 18 August 29 August to 1 September	50 50 60	Bruno Caboclo Federico Mussini Gerson Domingos
2014	BWB Europe 13[50] BWB Asia 8[51] BWB Africa 11[52]	Rome Taipei Johannesburg	2 to 5 June 13 to 16 June 5 to 8 August	50 47 50	Luc Loubaki Mohammad Yousof Vand Ryogo Sumino Luca Lunneman
2015	BWB Global 1[53] BWB Europe 14[54]	New York City Las Palmas	13 to 15 February 3 to 6 June	50 50	Dragan Bender Ömer Yurtseven
2016	BWB Global 2[55] BWB Europe 15[56]	Toronto Lohja	12 to 14 February 7 to 10 September	53 40	Harry Froling Arnas Velicka

Notable Attendees

References

External links

• "Basketball Without Borders at.", FIBA. Retrieved on 4 May 2015.
• "Basketball Without Borders at.", NBA. Retrieved on 4 May 2015.
• (2008). International Cases in the Business of Sport., Case 26: Sports development meets sports marketing in Africa: Basketball without Borders and the NBA in Africa. Butterworth Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-7506-8543-6.
  Accessible at eLibrary.