The passion for global basketball development was born early in Jama Mahlalela, a now ex-Raptor clinician and assistant who finds himself helping increase the sport’s share of a burgeoning Asian market.
The 29-year-old Mahlalela, Swaziland-born and É«É«À²-raised, has left the Raptors after almost a decade to become the director of basketball operations for NBA Asia, continuing a career arc he’s been building for much of his life.
It’s a job he cemented by dipping into his own pocket to work at the NBA Cares week-long clinic in Africa last summer.
“I wanted to volunteer, I wanted to do it,” said Mahlalela, a former É«É«À² high school standout at Oakwood Collegiate. “It’s so important and so special. I spent the week and at the end of the weekend, I think ... they said, `we love your energy, we love your excitement, the passion for the game – do you want to be involved?’”
From there, it was just a short step to landing the NBA Asia job based in Hong Kong, where he’ll be in charge of leading clinics, running programs for young kids across Asia and elite-level development. He’ll also work on helping the other side of the operation get up and running. He started last week.
“It’s a business suits and shorts kind of job,” he said.
Seemingly perfect for a young man who helps runs his own grassroots basketball enterprise in É«É«À², Swaziland, Kenya and Brazil and who has become known for conducting the various youth clinics the Raptors hold.
“It’s a small grassroots enterprise but it really affects the lives of a lot of young people,” he said. “That was part of what attracted the NBA to me, I do this international work already so I have a sense of what it is to land in Hong Kong and figure it out; land in Thailand and figure it out.”
Mahlalela was promoted from the Raptors’ community relations department to basketball development at the beginning of this season but had been no stranger to the basketball side at the league level.
“It started a few years ago when I started volunteering for the NBA,” he said. “I started doing programs here in É«É«À²; the NBA would come and do one in every market and some of the people in New York were like, `this guy’s all right in É«É«À².’ ”
As much as É«É«À² helped shape him, Mahlalela’s African background is at the heart of his desire to see the game grow globally. He was born in Swaziland, moved here as a toddler before returning to his homeland for junior high school.
“Those formative years, for me, helped to guide how I see the world now and gave me my perspective,” he said. “Those Grade 7 and 8 years really showed me that, wow, there is something different than North America.”
NBA Asia, which is responsible for the sport’s growth across the continent with the exception of China (where a separate business entry handles that task), is just one of the league’s forays into international growth. Commissioner David Stern said during all-star weekend the league has already opened an office in Africa and well as Asia and is eyeing other key markets.
“And this year will also see us opening offices in India and in the Middle East, because the ultimate compliment to our players is that the world is really embracing our game and the way it’s played,” he said.
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