\n\tABU DHABI: When Shai Gilgeous-Alexander capped off the 2024-2025 season by leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to the NBA championship and claiming both the regular season MVP and finals MVP awards, he became the latest alumnus of the NBA\u2019s Basketball Without Borders program, part of the league\u2019s global development pathway, to reach the pinnacle of the sport.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat pathway will be on display in Abu Dhabi this month with the first NBA Academy Showcase in the Middle East, hosted at New York University Abu Dhabi from Sept. 25-27. The event will bring together elite youth teams from Senegal\u2019s NBA Academy Africa, Australia\u2019s Centre of Excellence, France\u2019s INSEP Academy, and the US-based IMG Academy Ascenders, who will compete in front of NCAA coaches and NBA scouts as they look to take the next step toward college or professional careers.<\/p>\n
\n\tNeal Meyer, vice president and head of basketball operations for NBA Europe and the Middle East, told Arab News the choice of Abu Dhabi was no coincidence.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSince 2022, our collaboration with the Department of Culture and Tourism \u2013 Abu Dhabi has significantly accelerated the growth of basketball across the region, with Abu Dhabi emerging as a key regional hub for basketball development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe city\u2019s world-class infrastructure, commitment to creating opportunities for young people to play basketball, and international outlook make it an ideal location for this\u00a0first-of-its-kind elite event.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe showcase takes place just days before the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers face off at Etihad Arena on Oct. 2 and 4 as part of the NBA Abu Dhabi Games 2025 presented by ADQ.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe games will give fans in the region a rare chance to see some of the world\u2019s best players in person, with two of the NBA\u2019s historic rivals to meet in the UAE capital.<\/p>\n
\n\tMeyer believes the back-to-back events underline how Abu Dhabi has quickly established itself on the world basketball map.<\/p>\n
\n\tGlobally, the NBA Academy and Basketball Without Borders programs have produced more than 140 NBA and WNBA draftees, including Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid, the 2023 NBA MVP who fans will see in action at Etihad Arena.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe NBA Academy programs have alumni from more than 40 countries who earned NCAA Division I scholarships, underlining their role as a gateway to elite basketball.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThese success stories provide young boys and girls across the world with real-life examples to look up to and allows them to dream of a future playing elite basketball,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cBringing the live NBA experience to Abu Dhabi through preseason games has been a huge driver.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBut also everything we\u2019re doing to create more opportunities for youth to play the game, whether that\u2019s by expanding our Jr. NBA Abu Dhabi League that has reached more than 20,000 boys and girls since we launched it in 2022 or refurbishing community basketball courts in collaboration with ADQ,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\n\tSince the inaugural NBA Abu Dhabi Games in 2022, participation has surged by more than 400 percent in the capital. Across the UAE, basketball has grown by 60 percent, while the wider Middle East has recorded growth of more than 50 percent.<\/p>\n
\n\tWith initiatives such as the Jr. NBA Abu Dhabi League, refurbished community courts and now the inaugural NBA Academy Showcase, the NBA is laying the foundations for a long-term talent pathway in Abu Dhabi and the wider Middle East.<\/p>\n
\n\tArab players such as Lebanon\u2019s Rony Seikaly and Egypt\u2019s Alaa Abdelnaby and Abdel Nader have featured in the league before, but with Abu Dhabi driving the game\u2019s growth \u2014 and the showcase providing a new platform for young prospects \u2014 the stage may now be set for the emergence of the first Emirati player in the NBA.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cGiven the popularity, interest and now opportunities to play basketball in the UAE, there\u2019s no reason why we shouldn\u2019t start to soon see NBA-level players coming from the region,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOur grassroots efforts in Abu Dhabi \u2014 including events like these \u2014 are important steps in building a pipeline to one day produce the NBA\u2019s first Emirati player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABU DHABI: When Shai Gilgeous-Alexander capped off the 2024-2025 season by leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-147781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}