{"id":192746,"date":"2025-10-06T05:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T05:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/192746\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T05:03:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T05:03:12","slug":"exclusive-came-to-japan-from-india-for-basketball-now-cant-go-back-the-harsh-reality-of-being-an-indian-hoopster-more-sports-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/192746\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | ‘Came to Japan from India for basketball, now can’t go back’: The harsh reality of being an Indian hoopster | More sports News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ExclusiveArvinder Singh (Special Arrangement) NEW DELHI: Being away from home never gets easier. Every day, you stand in front of the mirror, wondering what your family is doing. The pain doesn\u2019t fade, it quietly settles in. Your mother\u2019s warmth becomes a few seconds of buffering on a video call, and your father? He watches silently from the sidelines.No one leaves home because it\u2019s easy. They leave because it\u2019s necessary. For better opportunities, better facilities, and a better chance at chasing a dream that refuses to let go. As Tony Stark says in “Iron Man”, “Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk.”For Indian basketball player Arvinder Singh<\/a>, it doesn’t stop at running; it\u2019s about dribbling, defending, diving for every rebound, and keeping his balance not just on the court, but in life. And right now, he\u2019s doing that not in India, but in Japan, thousands of kilometres away from his home in Barnala, Punjab.\"Arvinder<\/p>\n

Arvinder Singh (Special Arrangement)<\/p>\n

\u201cAkela toh feel hota hai (I feel alone sometimes),\u201d he tells TimesofIndia.com from Yamaguchi, his home away from home. \u201cBut I train every day, listen to music, go to the gym. That keeps me occupied.\u201dIt\u2019s been only a few weeks since he landed in Japan. Playing for Yamaguchi Patsfive in the Japanese B3 League, the Punjabi boy is leading a life that is simple, but lonely.\u201cI cook for myself. Since I\u2019m a vegetarian, it\u2019s difficult to find veg food here. So I watch YouTube, try to make roti and sabzi myself. Sometimes my mom guides me on call,\u201d he says, with a small laugh, somewhat suggesting that scoring a three-pointer is much easier than making a perfectly round roti. But this is what chasing dreams looks like when your home country doesn\u2019t offer you one. India, despite producing players of immense potential, still doesn\u2019t have a stable basketball league.\"Arvinder<\/p>\n

Arvinder Singh in action (Special Arrangement)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough. Leagues start in India but don\u2019t continue regularly,\u201d Arvinder says. \u201cIf we had regular matches and exposure trips, we would all be better players. That\u2019s how we improve. Since that\u2019s not happening in India right now, I accepted this offer from Japan to play here and develop my game further.\u201dHis comments, though, are not an epitome of frustration but merely a representation of muted disappointment, the kind that comes from knowing what could have been.Arvinder, now 23, has always been one of India\u2019s most promising players.A product of Ludhiana Basketball Academy (LBA) in Ludhiana, which has been a cradle for budding Indian cagers. Growing up, he was a shotputter untill he turned 13 and a LBA coach Rajinder Singh, spotted him and requested his father, an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) in Punjab police to thrust the boy in basketball. And withing a year, Arvinder as drafted in NBA academy in Greater Noida. The 23-year-old was also part of the Indian team that beat Kazakhstan, India’s first in 27 years, in the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers last year. But the team couldn\u2019t sustain the momentum in the main tournament as they finished winless in the Asia Cup earlier this year.\u201cWe lacked experience,\u201d he explains. \u201cAll their players play in professional leagues regularly. Playing consistently against tough opponents gives them exposure. Their game vision and court awareness improve naturally.\u201dIt\u2019s this understanding that brought him to Japan.But it\u2019s not easy to fit in.\u201cI\u2019ve been here for weeks,\u201d he admits. \u201cCoaches and players mostly speak Japanese. But we have a translator who helps. A few Japanese players also speak English, so they help too. You also learn a lot from body language, and we use signs and gestures on court to communicate plays.\u201dHe laughs, but there\u2019s a trace of fatigue under his smile. Loneliness is a quiet companion here.What hurts more, though, is the possibility that he might miss representing India this time in the World Cup qualifiers in November as a result of playing basketball in Japan. His Japanese club is against the idea of releasing him.\u201cThere\u2019s a chance I\u2019ll miss it,\u201d he admits softly. \u201cOur league runs for seven months, and the Japanese staff are very strict. Even if I want to go, I\u2019d need to leave a month early for the national camp. The selection happens after the camp. If we skip it, we lose our spot. Going to India isn’t possible right now.\u201dThen, after a pause, he adds, \u201cThoda afsos hai (It hurts a little). Playing for India is always special.\u201dStill, he doesn\u2019t sound defeated: \u201cIf you perform well abroad, you\u2019ll always get your chance in the national team. I believe in that. I believe in myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poll<\/p>\n

Do you believe it’s worth moving abroad for better opportunities in sports?<\/p>\n

For Indian basketball, nevertheless, some hope is left. The Basketball Federation of India, along with ACG Sports, has announced the country\u2019s first-ever professional basketball league, set to begin in 2026.When Arvinder talks about it, his voice suddenly picks up hope: \u201cThat\u2019s a big step. It\u2019ll help players a lot. It\u2019ll help the game grow. We\u2019ve waited for this for so long.\u201dAnd then, when asked what basketball means to him, he smiles. You can hear it in his tone.\u201cBasketball has given me everything. Exposure, a job, a purpose. My parents are happy that through basketball, I\u2019ve found my path and that I\u2019m making the country proud,\u201d adds Arvinder, who represents Railways in nationals.Somewhere between the bouncing of the ball and the silence of an empty apartment in Japan, Arvinder Singh is learning what it really means to “run before you can walk”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arvinder Singh (Special Arrangement) NEW DELHI: Being away from home never gets easier. Every day, you stand in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[121783,64,63,726,5740,121785,121782,121786,121784,121787,121789,85,121788],"class_list":["post-192746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-arvinder-singh","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-fiba-asia-cup","tag-indian-basketball-league","tag-indian-basketball-player","tag-indian-hoopster","tag-japan-basketball-league","tag-ludhiana-basketball-academy","tag-nba-academy","tag-sports","tag-yamaguchi-patsfive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}