The NBA continues to search for ways to bring about awareness of basketball in India, and it appears they’ve found a fan in another Bollywood star.
Following in the steps of Dino Morea and Lara Dutta, who visited the Lakers in LA in 2008, popular actor Ranbir Kapoor recently attended a New York Knicks-Los Angeles Lakers game at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Ranbir didn’t seem very familiar with the sport, but nevertheless seemed to be enjoying himself. Strangely, he donned a NY Knicks hat, but then proclaimed his support for the Lakers. Either way, it was great to see him at the game, and hopefully this experience will lead to more interesting collaborations between Bollywood and Basketball!
The January 22nd game itself actually turned into a rather historic and powerful platform to bring about awareness of the devastation caused by recent earthquakes in Haiti. At half-time, former US President Bill Clinton spoke to the crowd, giving his eye-witness account of the situation in Haiti, and announced recent initiatives taken by players, like the Knicks’ Italy-born Danilo Gallinari and the Lakers’ Spanish-native Pau Gasol, to raise funds to support relief efforts.
So the game, which the Lakers won 115-105, featured stars like the Knicks’ 5-foot-8-inch-Two-Time-Slam-Dunk Champion Nate Robinson and the Lakers’ MVP guard and 4-time NBA Champion Kobe Bryant, was a very star-studded, international event, bringing attention to human issues that transcend sports and basketball.
NBA website looks like they take same ideas from this here to there . 1 thing differs, they said ranbir is an avid nba fan when hoops says clearly ranbir is NOT familiar with basketball . I think hoops wud be rite bc he said in interview he is not up to date on basketball and knows no basketball rules .
one thing we shud say, he was in new york also with priyanka chopra for the filming of Anjaana Anjaani . piggy shud surely have come also! we’ll see next time!