NBA Africa, Stanbic Bank and the Luol Deng Foundation have launched the first Jr. NBA League in South Sudan at the new Stanbic basketball court unveiled at St. Mark’s Orthodox School in Juba last December.  

The Stanbic Jr. NBA League, featuring 30 boys and girls teams ages 16 and under, tipped off its inaugural season on March 7, with the regular season set to be played through July, followed by the playoffs and finals in August.

The Stanbic Jr. NBA League format will emulate that of the NBA.  Each team will represent one of the 30 NBA teams and has received corresponding NBA team-branded jerseys for their games.  The league has tipped off with a draft where the participating school and community teams selected an NBA team to represent during the season.  Two-time NBA All-Star and South Sudan Basketball Federation President Luol Deng participated in the activities. 

The Jr. NBA, the league’s global youth basketball participation program for boys and girls, teaches fundamental skills as well as the core values of the game at the grassroots level in an effort to help grow an improve the youth basketball experience for players, coaches and parents.  Jr. NBA programming has directly reached more than 170,000 youth across 18 African countries.