When Juan Toscano-Anderson’s career was on shaky ground, Mexico supported him – now, he’s giving back

‘The support that I’ve gotten here over the years is inexplicable,’ says JTA of his ancestral home of Mexico.

For most of the NBA’s history, Mexico City was not exactly a hotbed of basketball fandom, with other, more established sports like soccer and US rules football outpacing local interest. But over the last few decades, the league has been increasing its footprint in the country as the local fans grew swiftly — now estimated at over 20 million in the country.

Much of that growth has been by design, with the NBA putting one of its Global Academies in San Luis Potosi to help generate interest in the sport in between instances of regular-season and exhibition games being played in the country as they have been since the 1990s. But some of that growth has also been organic, driven by players whose roots run deep in the US’ southern neighbor, such as Los Angeles Lakers forward Juan Toscano-Anderson.

Toscano-Anderson grew up in Oakland, California, but kept his culture inherited from a grandfather migrating to the US from Mexico alive at home, speaking Spanish and celebrating Mexican holidays as well as US ones.