NEW YORK (USA) - World Basketball Day will be celebrated on December 21 for the second time.
That the United Nations adopted such a resolution last year in 2023 is not only a testament to the international appeal of the sport, but also the vision of a man who sees possibilities for positive change with the help of the FIBA Foundation Basketball for Good.
That man is David Hollander, Assistant Dean of the Real World program at New York University and Clinical Professor with the Preston Robert Tisch Institute for Global Sport. He is also a member of the Basketball For Good advisory committee.
A New Jersey native, Hollander teaches a popular course at NYU called "How Basketball Can Save the World" and has also written a book "How Basketball Can Save the World: 13 Guiding Principles for Reimagining What's Possible."
In it, he drafted a United Nations resolution for a World Basketball Day.
"The world needs a common language," he said last week to FIBA.basketball, "if the world wants to address the problems that are global: climate, disease, hunger, water, etc.
"The world needs a place to begin working on the end goals of meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development goals and other goals that only a whole world can solve.
"Basketball, because of its unmatched combination of global ubiquity and influence, provides that starting point. World Basketball Day: One thing, one day, all of us, everywhere. We can do this."
"Whatever existential questions may face the world, basketball has the answer."
The resolution to have World Basketball Day was adopted by the United Nations on August 25, 2023. Hollander was then invited to speak about it at the United Nations almost four months later, on December 21 - the first World Basketball Day.
It's one thing to call for a resolution in a book but something else to have it adopted.
Hollander enlisted the help of his students.
"I made it a class project to send slide decks - 150 students - to UN Ambassadors explaining why their country should put forward the resolution at the 2023 General Assembly," he said. "The Philippines took us up on the offer. They were the exact right country to lead it."
Four months after the announcement that there would be a World Basketball Day, everyone gained some insight to Hollander.
The Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the United Nations organized a special session, in cooperation with the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, and invited not just Hollander to speak but also NBA legend Julius "Dr J" Erving.
"We convened a special session at the UN with me, Julius Erving and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame plus dozens of diplomats from many different countries," Hollander recalled.
"So many shared why basketball meant so much to them personally and to their cultures. After that session, we organized a Diplomats Basketball game at the local YMCA. It was a perfect representation of what WBD is all about."
It was at the session when Hollander recalled one of the greatest experiences of his life, with Dr J sitting beside him.
I was watching superheroes, real life mythical figures named Super John, Mr K, the Whopper and their leader, Dr J.
On May 10, 1974, Hollander was in the stands when Dr J led the New York Nets to their first American Basketball Association Championship.
"Thousands of fans flooded the floor, I screamed my throat hoarse," Hollander said that day at the UN. "I was watching superheroes, real-life mythical figures named Super John, Mr K, the Whopper and their leader, Dr J.
"I was shook. For this nine-year-old boy, I felt like I was bearing witness to the dawning of all creation."
At that same UN special session, Hollander gave impactful words from his book on the 13th principle, "Transcendence".
"So often in our work together to make the world a better place," he said that day at the UN, "we hear about problems described as 'intractable', impossible to see a way out, to find a solution.
"Basketball is the only sport with an elevated goal. It asks us to ascend, to leave the ground, to defy gravity, to fly. We know we cannot defy gravity. We know we cannot defy our earthly condition. We know we cannot fly.
"But no great society has ever solved the problems on the ground or that's in front of its face. We must look up. We must fly. Or we must dare to dream to fly.
"That dream is a basketball dream. We must imagine that which seems unimaginable and go there. We must think it's possible, what they say is not possible and do that, make the leap, jump. That is what basketball stands for."
Hollander told FIBA he wants World Basketball Day "to become the sacred day on the world calendar."
"Clocks will stop, babies will not cry, a global sense of peace and balance will be felt in every heart," he envisioned. It clearly resonates with FIBA’s mission to bring people together and unite the community.
Another of the principles that he writes about in "How Basketball Can Save the World" is titled "Position-less", which is a word that resonates with coaches, players and fans of basketball but also has meaning for everyone.
"The world is a rapidly changing place," Hollander said to FIBA. "The facts and circumstances of that change tell you what your position must be, not the other way around. That life. That's the fastbreak. You do what you need to do, be what you need to be, in order to solve what you need to solve in front of you with other people."
He also writes about the principle "Sanctuary". For many, that sanctuary is a basketball court, a place players go to not only compete but to switch off the noise of everyday life.
"I think 'sanctuary' should be recognized as a protected fundamental human right," Hollander said. "That's how important I think sanctuary is."
"I have never thought of basketball as anything but international."
Hollander calls himself "a very special kind of American, originally from the great state of New Jersey."
"When I was 6 years old, my father built a half basketball court in our backyard," he said. "I learned a special language in that space. I have been speaking that language in spaces like that all over the world since that time."
He played both organized and pickup basketball. Even now, if he's not in his office or classroom, Hollander can often be found on a court at NYU, maybe playing pickup with students.
A fan of national team basketball, when Hollander hears the words international basketball, he says, "I have never thought of basketball as anything but international.
"If there is something good created in the world, then it should be for the whole world. Basketball was intentionally global at its origin."
And when asked if had ever envisioned some of the sport's best players being from other countries, like Serbia's Nikola Jokic, Slovenia's Luka Doncic, Greece's Giannis Antetokounmpo, France's Victor Wembanyama, and those that have retired like the Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki and Manu Ginobili, Hollander answered: "Oh yes.
"In fact, when you watch Nikola Jokic play, one ought to see that it's almost like the game is being re-explained to all of us."
Jokic, who led Serbia to the bronze medal at the Olympics this summer, has been named the NBA's regular season MVP three times over the last four years.
The integration of the sport, with players from all over the world competing in the NBA, and Americans competing in Europe, South America, Asia, has been a huge positive.
"The game is meant for everyone," Hollander said. "I fail to see how great players from all over the world playing with and against each other could possible be contemplated as a bad thing."
The game is meant for everyone
The overriding message from Hollander, though, is that our beautiful sport has the power to be used as a force for positive change and spread Basketball For Good globally.
He said: "In the 133 years since basketball was created, wars have been won and lost, nations have formed and deformed, corporations have established and dissolved, trends have come and gone.
"But in that same time the game has only increased dramatically in ubiquity and influence in every corner of the world.
"It would benefit the world to ask why? And learn from it. Whatever existential questions may face the world, basketball has the answer."
FIBA