The NBA's Basketball Without Borders Asia camp
just wrapped up here in Canberra.
Current NBA players and coaches
were even there to help mentor
the 60 best 18 and under players
from across the Asia Pacific.
Players like Cleveland Cavaliers all-star Jarrett Allen
Pheonix Sun Cam Johnson
and Chicago Bull Coby White.
But among the campers was 17-year-old Carlin Briggs,
who attends the NBA Academy
at the Australian Institute of Sport.
He only arrived at the academy about three weeks ago,
but he says it already feels like home.
It's been great, everyone's welcomed me.
It feels like a family already
and the coaching, there's just
a lot of knowledge going around.
Yeah, I'm keen to see what the future holds
here at the academy.
All these guys are where I want to be in the future.
So I was trying to ask
a lot of questions,
pick their brains on stuff,
it was a really cool experience.
Australian players
Lulu Laditan and Roman Siulepa
took home the MVP awards for the camp
and credited the star-studded
guest coaches for their success.
It's an amazing opportunity,
learning so much from top athletes in Australia.
They've played at the international level overseas
and it's been a great opportunity to learn from them.
Australian NBA player Josh Green was also
in attendance as a guest coach.
He actually attended one of these Basketball
Without Borders camps back in 2018,
before he was then selected
by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2020 draft.
I went into this camp,
not really knowing what to expect.
I was a younger guy,
really loved basketball
and it was awesome.
It was able to bring a lot of these international kids together
and play the game that we all love.
So, you know, it was super cool.
It's amazing, coming back, to be able to contribute,
it's something that I've always wanted to do.
So when this opportunity
presented itself, I was all for it,
And I'm ready to go.
I used to dream of being in the AIS when I was a kid,
so it's cool, cool being here now and coaching.
Chris Ebersole is the NBA's Head of Elite Basketball
and worked closely with the AIS to establish the NBA Academy
here in Canberra,
which opened its doors back in 2017.
And in the last two years, three academy graduates
have already been selected
in the lottery of the NBA draft,
which Chris says puts the academy much further
ahead of schedule than he ever expected.
To have Josh Giddey
be our first NBA draft pick two years ago
and then this year have
two with Ben Mathurin and then Dyson Daniels
in this year's lottery,
it's a sign that things are working
and hopefully a sign that things will continue to grow.
There's a small number of these players
who will go on to the WNBA and the NBA.
We've had 105 Basketball Without Borders
campers go on to those two leagues.
But we've had over 3,800 campers
over the history of this program,
and so many more of those players
will go on to represent
their national teams,
return to their home countries and play
in their domestic leagues,
play collegiate basketball.
And so really, for us, it's not just about growing,
the international pipeline to the NBA and the WNBA,
but it's really about the overall
international basketball ecosystem.
And I think this program, Basketball Without Borders,
is really a huge part of strengthening that.
Patrick Hunt is serving as camp director,
and says the personal development of campers
is just as important as the basketball
and that he hopes the melting pot of different cultures
makes a lasting impression
on all 60 players present.
They'll learn from each other,
both about basketball
and about their different cultures.
That's going to be a terrific opportunity for them all.
And at the end,
we want the players to become good people
and be contributors
to society, as well as good basketball players.
And for players like Carlin Briggs,
whose dad also attended the AIS
on an athletics scholarship,
representing his Yorta Yorta and Wurundjeri culture
is front of mind as he begins his journey at the NBA Academy.
You know, it's a big thing for me,
representing my people, my culture.
And I just want to continue to open up pathways for
young Indigenous kids, and be able to be a role model
for them coming up, and I hope to open up doors for them in this sport.