"Basketball is a Chinese sport"

Source: pemainbolakeranjang

Now, is the title controversial enough as much as the Utusan version of “Apa lagi orang Cina mahu?”.

Historically, basketball was brought to Malaysia (known as Malaya) in the early 1920s by teachers who came from China to the Chinese schools in Malaya back then.

As quoted from MABA website:

...Later, it spread to the Chinese Sports Clubs, and in the early thirties enthusiasm was aroused by the visits of University and Club teams from China and Hong Kong. Since then, the game has become one of the most popular sports among the Chinese communities in Malaysia. In 1934 Inter State Tournament for Malayan Chinese was organised.

Culturally, basketball has been one of the most popular sports among the Chinese communities in Malaysia. This is due to the fact that teachers in the Chinese schools were the one who introduced the sports to Malaysia. And it was the Chinese who fought for the growth of basketball in Malaysia by setting up a committee and by organizing all of these tournaments.

There’s much to it, historically and culturally, as we should appreciate and acknowledge their contributions toward the development of basketball in Malaysia.

However, just like other sports, basketball grow and evolve.

When we talk about the Non-Chinese (NC) basketball in Malaysia, a lot of people do not understand the existence and the need of it and people sometime even took it out of context by saying something racist. Due to its history and Malaysian cultures, the NC department was a needed action to “develop” basketball in Malaysia.

Develop

How many years will it takes Malaysia basketball to develop and be on par on its South East Asia neighbors?

You can’t expect to compete at the highest level when your talents pool consist of only 40% of its population.

How long would you wait for this culture to change and develop by itself? Do not blame the players when they got their ass whopped, beaten and ashamed by the world powerhouse. And with the trend nowadays, most countries are looking to get better by recruiting outside talents through naturalization.

In my 6 years of experience playing Petronas/MABA Cup (Malaysia Non-Chinese Basketball National Championship), none of the good NC players came out from the Petronas/MABA Cup program. All of the national level NC players are good because they play with and compete against the Chinese players.

Even SBPs couldn’t produce national level NC players. While SBPs does produce a lot of new NC players, half of these talents can’t even compete outside of the SBP level.

Meanwhile, only NCBL could be best described as a development league.

While NCBL could boast with its number, 52 teams with approximately 750 players in 2013, the fact remains that only the top three teams out of 52 teams in NCBL could have play within the same par against a division two Agong Cup state level. The rest of the league still has a long way to catch up.

The only indirect impact that could be seen are when Swoosh won the Johny Walker tournament in 2012 and when UiTM becomes the back to back Majlis Sukan Universiti Malaysia (MASUM) champion in 2012 and 2013.

UiTM benefited the most out of NCBL as most of its students, including those in the branch campuses, who plays basketball, would hone and develop their skills in NCBL and with that UiTM just has the biggest talents pool among all the other universities. Still, it took UiTM four years within its current coach to finally grab its first gold Medal for MASUM in basketball for the first time in 50 years.

Of course another successful NC development program would be J-Three basketball club. But is that it? Is basketball in Malaysia really is a Chinese sport and the NCs are just belong in the development league?

Wake up NC basketball!

NC basketball is a comfort zone. It is time for NC basketball to stop lingering around in the development phase and start competing with the best. The best basketball players in Malaysia are the Chinese. We should start acknowledge that and all of us should stop stereotyping racism only then maybe basketball in Malaysia is not just for Chinese anymore.

How to be the best? You play AGAINST and WITH the best.