WITH the aim of clinching the country’s first Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championship (Male) title, the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) is making a strong push to acquire the best players available overseas.

Indiana Pacers Darren Collison and AEK Athens’ Delroy James are atop the list of the GABF’s primary targeted players, with GABF president Nigel Hinds telling Chronicle Sport that his Federation is prepared to go ‘all-out’ to ensure that the best possible team is present for the June 24–30 tournament in Paramaribo, Suriname.

Guyana is placed in Group A of the ten-team tournament alongside rivals and host Suriname, and Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

James, a 6’8” power forward whose older brother, Gordon, represented Guyana at the CBC tournament in 2015, just ended a successful 2017/2018 with Greek side AEK Athens, where he was instrumental in the club winning their first FIBA Basketball Champions League (BCL) title, following a 100–94 points win over French side, Manco on Sunday.

Hinds also revealed that with influential help, the GABF is making a push to solicit the services of Indiana Pacers point guard, Collison, who just ended his run in the NBA playoffs after a gruelling seven game series with Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Collison is the son of Darren Collison and June Griffith (later Collison), who were standout athletes for Guyana. In fact, his mother attended the 1984 Olympics and is a Bronze Medallist (long Jump) at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Canada.

Hinds said the GABF is prepared to travel to the US to meet with both players, and others who are interested in representing Guyana.

“We would want to have all the overseas players in Guyana before heading to Suriname, so we will have to go to meet them and have a sit-down with them, so they could understand what’s at stake for us (Guyana),” Hinds said.

Meanwhile, locally, Hinds said trials will start on May 20 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall. As it relates to the composition of the coaching staff, the GBA president highlighted that they have received offers from coaches overseas, but will make a pronouncement soon, but, in the interim, local coaches have been identified and a selection panel is in place to shortlist the squad.

“I believe that we’re in a good position to win this tournament (CBC) when we look at the talent of players that’s available and those who are interested,” the GABF president reasoned.

Formerly known as the CARICOM Basketball Championship, the CBC Championship is the ‘Holy Grail’ for the sport of basketball in the Region, and Guyana’s best showing was a second place finish when the competition was hosted at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall in 1994.

Prior to 1994, Guyana finished third in the inaugural tournament in 1981, and also gained a third-place spot in 2001 behind Captain Lugard Mohan in 2000, in Barbados.

With an eight-place finish in 2007 (Puerto Rico) and seventh in the Bahamas (2011), former Indiana Pacers and Dallas Mavericks player, Rawle Marshall (first Guyana-born NBA player), captained the side to a fifth place finish in 2014 in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

The following year, 2015, a predominantly local team (with the exception of Gordon James and Keron McKenzie), finished 10th.

The CBC tournament will be known as the FIBA AmeriCup 2021 Caribbean Pre-Qualifier and will qualify two teams for the FIBA AmeriCup 2021 Qualifiers beginning in September.

The two qualified Caribbean teams will join the South American and Central American Pre-Qualifier Champions, along with the four-eliminated Round One-FIBA Basketball World Cup Qualifier–Americas teams.