Sacramento Kings: Harrison Barnes Rates Bollywood Basketball Scenes

The Sacramento Kings are scheduled to play a set of exhibition games in India at the beginning of October, and one of their players is already diving in to the culture.

NBA India’s Twitter account recently posted a humor-filled video of Sacramento Kings’ Forward Harrison Barnes sharing his ratings of characters playing Basketball in Bollywood Scenes:

The movies he watches clips from are:

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Translation: Something is Happening) Year Released: 1998: This is a movie starring Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, and Rani Mukherji, who are famous trio who have done many films together. It is considered a classic in Indian Cinema.

1st Scene Rating: 3/10: In the first scene Barnes describes actor Kajol who plays the Character Anjali Sharma as “Right Hand Dominant”.  She is playing one on one against Shahrukh Khan who plays Rahul Khanna. I agree with Harrison on this rating because of how she isn’t coordinated with her ballhandling at all. She has not yet grasped the fundamentals of basketball.

2nd Scene Rating: 2/10: In the second scene of the same film, Rahul plays against Anjali, and for a short time it turns into a romantic scene as Barnes describes. Later, Rahul makes a pivot-like move and makes a curled layup with the right hand. I do not agree with Barnes with the rating as Rahul has a little bit more of a better grasp of basketball and displays the confidence needed to do well. I would give him a 6/10.

Half Girlfriend Release Year: 2017: A film starring famous actors Shraddha Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor as Riya Somani and Madhav Jha.

1st Scene Rating: 8/10: In this scene, Riya fakes out Madhav with the behind the back pass and her teammate passes it back and she makes a nice jump shot! I disagree with Harrison. This is a 10/10 scene because it displays an outstanding basketball IQ.

2nd Scene Rating: 8/10: In this scene, Madhav attempts an in the between the legs dunk. I feel like Barnes should have given this 9-10/10 rating because this would be what an NBA player would do during warmups or in the dunk contest.

Koi Mil Gaya (Translation: Found Someone) Release Date:2003: A film starring Hrithik Roshan as Rohit Mehra and is about an extraterrestrial alien named Jadoo.

Scene Rating: 2/10: I agree with Barnes on this particular play because it involves enhanced abilities given by the alien Jadoo. This is unrealistic, but if this were real I would give it a 4/10 because of the hopping abilities of the players.

Final Thoughts

It was awesome for Barnes to take part in this, being able to see his reaction to Bollywood scenes. Given the lack of Indian players in the NBA, it is surprising for basketball to be promoted in Bollywood films since Cricket is the most popular sport in the country. When you think of Indian basketball, Sim Bhullar comes to mind, who played for the Kings. He currently plays in China, but he is not actually from India. He is Canadian, born to Sikh Indian parents.

Currently, there are two players for India trying to make it in Satnam Singh and Amjyot Singh who are both Sikh Indians from Punjab. The potential success for these players is important, because it will bring new opportunities for India which has

5% of 1.3 billion people

living in poverty.

If you would like to watch the above movies, you can find them on Netflix, Amazon, and Youtube. You can find the story of Satnam Singh here, titled “One In a Billion”.