Sunderland manager Gus Poyet is trying to bring a piece of the NBA into the Premier League as he has started using basketball in training to help his players learn to defend.
Poyet, whose father Washington competed for Uruguay at the 1960 and '64 Olympic Games and brother Marcelo played professionally, has installed a hoop at the Academy of Light and has already been spotted at top British team Newcastle Eagles where he has obviously picked up some tips.
"I finally got a hoop put up at the training ground last week," he told reporters. "I was talking a lot about basketball. You see how players mark and how they move. I think you should play a bit more basketball, even if you are a football player.
"The way you turn depending where the ball is, and where the basket is, it is very similar.
"The problem is basketball is not very popular in England. I am going to make basketball popular in England! Though a football manager should probably not be getting involved in that!
"If we brought the Eagles' coach in to the training ground you would learn something for sure. To take the ball into their half, now you have a certain time to play it. The analysis is similar. You use your strengths and look for their weaknesses, isolate a player.
"There was a full-back last weekend, somebody was running at him and he was turning left and right, looking at the goal -- you cannot mark like that. You mark facing the player and the ball and that is the same in basketball."