The NBA is committed to build India's basketball culture at the grass roots level through its youth programs.

Through a beautiful photographic journey across India, we recreated 4 of the NBA’s most famous player’s dunks, in an authentic Indian way. The famous Jordan dunk was set against the stunning backdrop of the Taj Mahal. Shaq’s slamdunk was captured in the deserts of Rajasthan. Kobe’s superdunk was photographed in the holy city of Benares and Lebron’s iconic dunk was snapped in Mumbai’s Gate Way of India.

Turning these dunks into a nationwide campaign to find India's next basketball star.

With a population in the billions, India is melting pot of a billion cultural nuances. Across the country, language, taste, and clothing all differ. But the one unifier is cricket. From the poorest villages to the most metropolitan cities, Indians live and breathe it. Cricket is not just the unofficial national sport, but a religion.

In a country that’s this obsessed with cricket, it’s no wonder that other sports like basketball are branded as ‘foreign’. Viewed as unrelated and irrelevant to the Indian experience. Especially when basketball courts are few and far between, predominantly only found in cities. So, when NBA entered India, the first task was to convince an entire nation to view basketball as quintessentially Indian.

That meant starting at the grassroots and injecting basketball into the very heart of Indian culture. With thousands of dialects, language wasn’t a viable option. But body language is universal. And so, we searched for everyday portraits of unapologetically Indian moments from hidden nooks and crannies across the country. Moments that seamlessly intertwined both culture and basketball, leading to us finding 23 in a billion.

Situation: India is a country that lives and breathes cricket, revering it as a religion. Other sports, including basketball, are branded as ‘foreign’ and irrelevant to them.

Brief: How does NBA build a genuine connection between basketball and Indians in a country that’s obsessed with cricket?

Objectives: To reach the farthest depths of the Indian subcontinent through the NBA Academy and inspire India’s youth to believe the next 23 in a billion could be found and nurtured amongst them.

The campaign was a study in movement. It involved painstakingly photographing candid, authentic snapshots of Indian life across the length and breadth of the country and zeroing in on the movements that came closest to emulating the signature dunks of the most valuable players of the NBA.

We chose black and white photography to create an impact and hone in on the motions and expressions of the children. This photography style also enabled us to keep the focus on NBA and tell a singular, powerful story, in an otherwise colourful and cluttered Indian landscape.

The campaign was shot by a renowned Indian photographer, known for his skills in capturing the gritty moments and finer nuances of life.

The communication was strategically placed at all sporting stores, sporting venues and neighbourhood courts in tier 1 and tier 2 cities with the help of the NBA Academy.