Perbasi Ready To Depart 15 Young Basketball Players To Lithuania

Ketum Perbasi Danny Kosasih (kalima from the right) at a press conference, Friday, April 5, 2024. (doc. Cosmas Kopong Beda).

JAKARTA The All-Indonesian Basketball Association (Perbasi) is ready to send 15 young basketball players to participate in the Indonesia Patriots program in Lithuania for six months. This program represents a collaboration between the Lithuanian Basketball Federation (LBF) and Perbasi. The two federations signed their memorandum of understanding (MoU) in October 2023. There our program is developing talented athletes. We agreed to send 15 people, but athletes are high and have good talent, said Perbasi General Chair, Danny Kosasi. The names to be sent there are selection results carried out by the federations in several cities in Indonesia. In Lithuania later, they will undergo training camp, basketball school, basketball, matches, and others. Indonesia Patriots is a long-term program of Perbasi in developing young players and basketball in the country. Young basketball players from this program are also expected to be able to lead to a better national team. I think, if this youth team is not well worked out, then don't dream that our senior team will develop, Danny said. Lithuania is one of the suppliers of tough basketball players for the NBA. In addition, the country has also received three Olympic medals, three European champions, sixth-order finish in the 2023 FIBA World Cup. Deputy Consul General Lithuania, Gianita Kadarisman, said Lithuania as one of the great basketball powers in the world has a good environment to develop young players. This is a great environment.'' This is also one of the things we need to record because they are very disciplined. In addition, they are also very stay forward, he said. The Indonesia Patriots program itself has the support of the Indonesian Men's Basketball National Team Manager, Rony Gunawan. He further expected that the program would be a new generation nursery. He further hopes that the Indonesia Patriots program to Lithuania could produce players who will later strengthen the Indonesian Basket Team in the future. This is also one of the countries that have a basketball curriculum. We hope that the mindsets can be open. They can learn a lot of players and develop as senior Basket Indonesian players,'', he said.