Jr. NBA At Home Program Helping Kids Stay Fit, Connect With NBA And WNBA Stars During Coronavirus Pandemic

As he puts on an “at-home three-point contest,” Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks says he wants “to remind everybody that we need to practice social distancing” but “at the same time, continue to stay active and keep your mind intact.”

In a yoga lesson, Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner advises that, “If you can’t do the poses, it’s okay,” adding that participants should “just relax and try to follow along.”

“I grew up dribbling in my basement going through sequences with my dad,” Denver Nuggets point guard Jamal Murray relates as he shares a series of dribbling and ball handling drills. “This is just another part of something that we’ve done growing up.”

The videos are all part of the Jr. NBA at Home initiative, which was launched by the NBA and WNBA as an “interactive content series providing basketball skills and drills to help young players around the world stay active and develop their game in a safe and healthy way” during the coronavirus pandemic.

The concept behind Jr. NBA at Home is to use the NBA’s various social media platforms to not only promote both mental and physical fitness during a time when many kids around the world are having to spend more time at home, but to also give the youth a way to connect with NBA and WNBA players and coaches while league activities are suspended. The videos primarily feature basketball and fitness drills which can be performed in the small spaces at home where many are now confined.

The program has already attained an extensive reach, with its videos reaching over 100 million views around the world. Localized content has also been produced, with locally-produced Jr. NBA at Home videos in Southeast Asia garnering nearly 5 million views.

To learn more about the Jr. NBA at Home program, I interviewed Dawn Smyth, who is the NBA Director of International Grassroots Basketball, and is responsible for overseeing the NBA's grassroots youth development programs globally, including the Jr. NBA and NBA Basketball Schools.

Joel Rush: What is the Jr. NBA at Home initiative, and what are its objectives?

Dawn Smyth: Jr. NBA at Home is our global program in which we work with 60 million kids in 70 countries to create a community and a family that interact in introductory experiences and grassroots development in basketball around the world. With the coronavirus pandemic that's occurred, and its impact on our entire world as well as in our communities, we have worked together to launch our Jr. NBA at Home program that reaches out to that community and that family.

In our Jr. NBA program, there are 13 different types of programming. It's in the schools as well as leagues and clinics, and it’s generally delivered in person. And so with this epidemic, in keeping the safety of all our participants really close at heart and in mind, we created Jr. NBA at Home and launched it around the world.

We've had an amazing response. Dozens of NBA and WNBA players and coaches have been involved in creating these videos and encouraging youth to participate in safe physical activity given their current constraints. The activities are video-based and put out all over social media channels around the world, and it really encourages all of the athletes and coaches to get involved with it in a safe way. That could mean sometimes with a ball, sometimes without a ball, sometimes basketball-related, and they’re things you can do on your own, generally within a seven-by-seven-foot radius, knowing that social distancing is really important.

We've had amazing engagement. We've had over a hundred million views on our videos, and have created more than a hundred videos' worth of content. It's been picked up really well, and we've been really happy to provide some safe physical activities for that community and family around the world.

Rush: Before the coronavirus pandemic happened, what has the Jr. NBA program generally done?

Smyth: We work with over 70 countries around the world and each market's a little bit different, so we work to tailor to the needs of the basketball communities in those markets. Our programs can span anywhere from organizing skills clinics and skills competitions for the youth, and we've got several leagues throughout Europe and South America and Africa for youth to participate in.

We also do Jr. NBA coaching academies, so we work with schools and bring teachers in. India is a very popular market as well as Asia-Pacific with this program, and we work with the schools to teach the teachers more about basketball and then help teach it to the kids in the physical activity programs within their schools' environments. So it's a really broad range of delivery programs, generally targeted toward youth under 14 but in some of our markets that can be a little bit broader, and we work with anyone from teachers to coaches to kids within the communities around those 70-plus countries.

Rush: The Jr. NBA at Home initiative seems to primarily be delivered as a video series, but is there anything outside of videos that it entails?

Smyth: So, we've been doing video series in terms of exercise programs, but we also have some live workout, longer workout events where you can tune in and work out alongside your NBA and WNBA stars.

We also have something really interesting coming up, and it's our Jr. NBA Leadership Conference. That has an amazing lineup of speakers from coaches to players, so it's a really great opportunity to engage that community of the coaches and the teachers that we generally work with, who will be able to tune in and watch the leadership conference around the world.

Generally, the conference is held in person; it was supposed to be live in Chicago. But it's really neat this year because we are doing it on social platforms, so it really engages our global communities. Obviously, safety is of the utmost importance to us, so with guidance from our public health advisors we decided to shift this to an online talk forum. So it's a pivot that we took to make sure that we protect everyone's safety at the forefront, and in doing so, I think the silver lining of that is that it's accessible to countries around the world, countries in our community.

[Note: This interview was conducted prior to the Jr. NBA Leadership Conference, which was held on May 15, and can be viewed at Jr.NBA.com at this link.]

Rush: If the NBA season resumes this summer, but there are still some countries or regions in lockdown-type situations, will the Jr. NBA at Home initiative continue beyond that time?

Smyth: In terms of Jr. NBA at Home, the start of the NBA season is something that we're monitoring to see how the pickup of the season goes, and see how some of the countries start to open. First and foremost, we want to make sure that we're providing programming. But I think what has been really neat, and one of the opportunities this situation has allowed us to realize, is how online programming can reach a broader audience, and that there is a space for this and something we're looking at and considering in the future, so that we can really reach people and provide content and programming for more people around the world. So it isn't something we've decided on one way or not for sure, but I think it's opened our eyes to the possibilities around it, and has us putting our thinking hats on as to what else we can do and how else we can support grassroots basketball around the world.

Rush: On the web page for Jr. NBA at Home, the program is described as an “interactive content series.” What is the interactive aspect of the initiative?

Smyth: The program is part of a larger program which is our NBA Together platform that was launched by the NBA during this pandemic. As part of that program, there are some Q&As that occur live on Instagram. But with the Jr. NBA at Home what often happens is players will record themselves doing the physical activities that a lot of our coaches and players do and share it.

Then often it gets shared in some of our local markets like Asia-Pacific as well, where they have initiatives where they prompt the community for questions, and they can send their questions in to our local international basketball operations team, which is a team of our local coaches that get into the community and deliver a lot of our Jr. NBA programs. Then they'll go through answering several of those questions. Some of them are related to COVID, like, "How can I continue to develop as a player at home?" And some just have to do with general training questions. So there are definitely interactive components where youth and kids and coaches can get involved and get some answers.

Rush: What is the process of the Jr. NBA helping its participants to achieve success stories, as we have seen a notable example recently in Kai Sotto, who graduated from the Jr. NBA Philippines program and has now signed with the G League?

Smyth: In terms of specific stories, we're really excited about this one! But the way that the Jr. NBA sits is sort of at the bottom of the NBA pyramid. And with the 60 million kids across the world, and introducing them and growing them in their relationship with basketball, the whole idea is really to have more success stories like this, and to pass them through our programming.

We have Basketball Without Borders, which we've had in Japan and filtering into our academy programs and then producing successes to filter into our pro leagues. And so really, Jr. NBA is setting the groundwork for that. It's trying to reach our regions to provide these opportunities and provide more programming and introductions to basketball and get more of these success stories around the world. They're almost like graduate programs. The Jr. NBA program, we work within the same department as Basketball Without Borders, but we're looking to sort of feed into it. So we do some identification throughout the Jr. NBA around the world to feed into some of the other elite programs.

Rush: In terms of expanding on or building on what you're doing with the Jr. NBA at Home program, is there anything else in the works?

Smyth: We're continuing to look at evaluating the current ways in which we're engaging, which ones inspire our communities the most, and continuing looking to provide that content. It's been so wonderful to have our WNBA and NBA stars involved, and those obviously are a lot of the popular items, and being able to provide examples of role models and what it looks like to be training in our current environment which have been really impactful.

So we continue to work with our teams and our players, and provide meaningful content for all the users and coaches around the world. In India, there are some Indian-descent coaches that will be speaking to the coaches there, so we're definitely looking at several options online, and this leadership conference will provide some opportunity to engage more coaches. We’re continuously looking at our programs and what's going on with our safety guidelines to see what else we can provide.

Rush: I imagine you’re looking to reach not only kids who have Internet access, but also those who don't. Is there any way, through the schools perhaps or other channels, for Jr. NBA at Home content out to people who may not have Internet access?

Smyth: Right now, social media is our main distribution point, and I think making sure that everyone has access is certainly a priority for us, and something that we want to make sure that occurs. We provide our content to teachers around the world, so the teachers that do have it are able to connect with their students and pass on some of that information, so that's one way it can be passed on to kids as well.

Our regional offices have also been unbelievable with taking over a hundred videos and providing some additional localized content, and subtitling a lot of them as well. So whether they subtitle it in English to allow for easier translation or reading, or then in some of the regions they're doing subtitles in localized languages as well, again our commitment to making sure that the videos are usable and accessible has been a high priority for us to make sure that the youth are able to engage.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.