Princepal will be the fourth Indian basketball player after Satnam Singh, Palpreet Singh Brar and Amjyot Singh Gill to be enrolled in the NBA G-League. While Satnam in 2016-17 and Amjyot in 2019 played for their respective G-League teams, Palpreet remained dormant after being drafted in 2016.
Consequently, Princepal will be the third Indian player to play in the G-League. He will represent the 21-member NBA-Select team. Since 2018, the NBA has started to give the best young potentials from all over the world a chance to start their professional career. You will receive a direct contract from the NBA.
In the G-League, Princepal will be coached by Brian Shaw, five-time NBA champion with nearly 30 years of experience as an NBA player and manager.
“I am really excited to have this opportunity. I am looking forward to this new beginning of my life, “Princepal told TOI.
“At the moment, I don’t have many details about the contract, I don’t know when I will go to the United States, but the only positive thing is that I am living my dream and I hope to be able to play in the NBA soon,” he added.
Princepal belongs to the village of Dera Baba Nanak in the district of Gurdaspur, an area close to the border with Pakistan, known for its militancy and drug trafficking. Raised in such a famous neighborhood, he knew nothing of the basics of basketball until he was 14 years old. His father Gurmej Singh is an electrician.
“He played volleyball in his village. He even came to Ludhiana’s Guru Nanak stadium complex to sign up for volleyball. He had never seen a basketball stadium until then, ”said Jaipal Singh, who taught the ABC of basketball in Princepal.
At the time, Jaipal was a coach at the Ludhiana Basketball Academy (LBA) and saw Princepal, therefore 6 feet 6 inches tall (he is now 6 feet 10 inches), who was rehearsing for volleyball.
“I called him and asked him, ‘do you want to play basketball?’ His first reaction was ‘Oo ki honda coach saab?’ (what is basketball sir?). It took me a month to teach him the basics of the game and I vividly remember the first time he entered the field. He looked like a natural player. I didn’t see such a fast student in my coaching career. ”
Within a year at the LBA, he beat 450 other applicants to win a $ 75,000 scholarship for three years at the Spire Institute in Ohio, United States, along with a place on his team. A visa refusal meant a lost opportunity.
In 2018, Princepal was selected to play on the Indian men’s team for the Super Kung Sheung Cup International Basketball Invitation Championship in Hong Kong. Earlier this year, he was a member of the Indian men’s basketball team when they defeated Iraq’s hosts in the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifying in Baghdad. With the win, India also ended the three and a half year drought at the continental competition.
Princepal trained at the NBA Elite Global Academy at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) center of excellence in Canberra with 13 elite student athletes from around the world since 2018. Language is still a barrier for Princepal but he is solving it with special lessons in English.
Princepal now hopes that his father will stop working once he gets the contract.
“I have seen his fight very closely. He worked 12 hours a day to feed us. Now I want you to relax and enjoy life, “he said.
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