Will he do for Sacramento Kings what he did for New Mexico State?
WASHINGTON, DC: Twelve years after the 1.37 billion Chinese people sent Yao Ming to represent them in the National Basketball Association league, the 1.25 billion Indians now finally have their representative in the NBA. Well sort of.
Gursimran “Sim” Bhullar, who was offered a contract by the Sacramento Kings last week, is a Canadian by birth. So the Ming analogy is not very apt.
The current Los Angeles Laker Jeremy Linn, born in Los Angeles to Taiwanese parents, would be a better comparison. He was the first player of Chinese or Taiwanese origin to play in the league.
The 21-year-old Bhullar now becomes the first player of Indian descent to sign with an NBA team.
At 7-foot 5-inch and 355 lb he is six inches taller and more than 100 pounds heavier than the average NBA center and is certainly a force to be reckoned with.
Apart from being a trailblazer, how good is the Indo Canadian? His school and college records say he should do pretty well in NBA.
At the Kiski School near Pittsburg, which he attended during the 2009-2010 school year, Bhullar averaged an incredible 26 points, 24 rebounds and 11 blocks, a triple-double.
Near the end of 2010, he withdrew from Kiski and transferred to Huntington Prep School in West Virginia where he dropped his weight from nearly 370 pounds to 330 pounds.
At New Mexico State, Bhullar averaged 10.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks during his freshman year. He improved slightly during his sophomore year and led New Mexico State to the NCAA tournament. He won the Western Athletic Conference MVP awards in 2013 and 2014.
In April of 2014, Bhullar left New Mexico State and his final two years of college eligibility and decided to head for the NBA draft.
Bhullar’s brother, Tanveer, is also a basketball center, and has hopes of making it into the NBA. Their father, Avtar Bhullar, standing at an impressive 6 feet 5 inches, and mother Varinder, much taller than most Indian woman at 5 feet 10 inches, did not think that either of their boys would play basketball until they enrolled both of them in local youth basketball programs.
Avtar had even wanted his sons to play cricket, until he realized their basketball potential.