BASKETBALL players like international India captain and Arjuna Awardee Abbas Moontasir, internationals and top level hoopsters like Abdul Hameed, Afzal Khan, Gulam Rasool, Esmero Figurado, Hanif Patel, Mohd Riyaz to name a few, have been the household names in the basketball fraternity. Some of them played for the country and some represented the state/Railways as well. What was most striking feature about these top and renowned hoopsters, were they all were products of Nagpada Basketball Association, formerly known as NNH (Nagpada Neighborhood House).
NBA – the nursery of basketball in Mumbai
The NBA’s floodlit court, at Municipal playground at Nagpada , has been named after the late Bachoo Khan– who was pioneer of promoting basketball in the city. No wonder now it is thus called the nursery of basketball players in the city.
For the last 15-16 years, the NBA has been conducting State Level basketball tournament for teams in the men, women, boys in the age groups of Under-21, under-16, under-13 sections in memory of the coach Mustafa Khan (alias Bachoo Bhai) . That they have been uninterruptedly holding such an event is solely because of the backing of their municipal corporator, Rais Shaikh, himself a basketball player and Afzal Khan, also former basketball player.
Any visitor, who happens to go around Nagpada in the evenings , will find children from age groups from 7 years either practicing or learning of their own and or being trained by coaches, – some of whom are former internationals – day in day out. What has been mostyd remarkable feature of these young boys is during the tournament, they also work in various capacities. Such is the love for the game these young future champion hoopsters have.