The National Basketball Association, along with basketball’s international governing body, announced plans on Monday to host a developmental camp for male and female players in Cuba, in the first such initiative by a US professional sports league since the US and Cuba embarked on a diplomatic thaw in December last year.
Retired NBA stand-outs Steve Nash and Dikembe Mutombo and former WNBA star Ticha Penicheiro are to lead the camp, set for April 23-26 in Havana.
The NBA also plans to work with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to refurbish three basketball courts and host youth basketball clinics at two Havana locations.
Cuba has a long history of basketball and has participated in four world championships, but its players’ links to the NBA have been limited by a 50-year standoff between the Cuba and the US.
Mutombo, a Congolese-American elected to the US Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday, said “this visit to Cuba will be a fantastic opportunity to teach the values of our game and learn from one another.”
The US and Cuba agreed on Dec. 17 to restore diplomatic ties after more than a half century of tensions, and US President Barack Obama called for an end to a long-time US economic embargo.
FIBA president Horacio Muratore said in a statement it was “extremely gratifying” to see Cuba hosting the camp.
Cuba’s men’s national basketball team has participated in six Olympic Games, winning the bronze medal at the 1972 Games in Munich.
The NBA said Cubans have played basketball since 1906, when the game was introduced after being learned in North American colleges and YMCA gymnasiums.
The NBA said two players and one coach from Cuba are to be invited for the first time to participate in an upcoming camp of Basketball without Borders, a global NBA and FIBA basketball development and community relations outreach program.
“To have both the NBA and FIBA collaborate on youth instruction and the development of the game in our country is magnificent,” Cuban Basketball Federation president Ruperto Herrera said in a statement.
Cuba allows some of its top athletes to play in professional leagues abroad as long as Cuban sports officials retain the right to recall those players for international events or domestic competition.
However, so far that system has not been tested in US sports, because of restrictions imposed by the US embargo.
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