NBA commissioner wants Abu Dhabi to become basketball hub for Middle East’s top talent

The NBA’s top executive wants Abu Dhabi to become a hub for basketball in the Middle East, giving the region’s best young players a platform to one day reach the pinnacle of the sport.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver was in the UAE capital to watch the first of two games between the Dallas Mavericks and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA Abu Dhabi Games, part of a multi-year deal with the city’s Department of Culture and Tourism.

He said he hoped a regional hub would lead to more players from the region competing in the NBA – one day leading to a player born in the UAE reaching the world’s best league.

“Part of the discussions we're having here is the potential for Abu Dhabi to be a hub, an academy for great players from a very expanded region, proximate to the Emirates, to all come to one location,” he said.

Silver said the hub would allow the best young players from across the region to compete against each other regularly.

“One of the wonderful things about this sport is that you can practice alone shooting, you can play one-on-one, but if you want to become a great team basketball player, you must play with other great players and you must play in top notch competition,” said Silver.

“Great players cannot develop in isolation. The only way for great players to truly develop is to size up against other great players. We've learned that's what is necessary.

“It's one of the things in the United States that we have. I think it's not an accident that you see, for example, in the World Cup, you have a German team that has played together beginning in their youth and learned how to play as a team and with many of those players playing in the NBA. We see the same thing in other countries.

“But we know that's a prerequisite