If there was ever a 90 degrees turn to a sporting career, Talwinderjit Singh’s switch of disciplines quite literally fits the bill.

Prodded by a father — who was an athletics coach in Punjab — to leap the furthest horizontal distance in long jump and fed up by the monotony of charging into sand pits, Talwinder sneaked out to an adjacent basketball court six years ago and has now acquired a reputation as a 6-foot dunker. Talk of his vertical antics-jumping to cling to the rings-often precedes his arrival.

The 20-year-old ball handler spikes his hair, speaks in a yankee modulation and sports a tattoo to complete the NBA-package. But look beyond this impersonated exterior Talwinder unbashedly confesses to being a showman and Indian basketball has found a talented ball player, who backs his penchant for stylish drive-in dribbles and dunks, to average proportionate points. If nothing, the game has run into a new persona- who can keep the crowds rooted, if not quite claim to pull them.

Talwinder caught the attention after a stint with India juniors, and guided Punjab to the National final last year, slotting in three-pointers at will, to shock Tamil Nadu, then reigning champions in the semis and pocket the best player trophy. Earlier, the wiry player had trained at the Baba Lodhiana Academy which is throwing up a good many internationals, and was later selected to attend a week-long NBA camp at Beijing.

12,000 kms separate Philadelphia from Punjab and ten years plus several non-quantifiable units of talent separate Talwinder from his hero-76ers point guard Allen Iverson, but the idolising has almost shaped the Indian’s outlook towards the hoops. ‘‘He is as tall as I am, for 6 ft is not tall enough in basketball!; but if he can dunk, so can I,’’ Talwinder said.

‘‘AI is a one-man army and scored 60 on his own against Orlando last season; I want to play like that,’’

Talwinder gushes as he names his 41 points of the 83 that Indian Juniors scored in an ABC tournament at Bangalore, as his best performance to date. The youngster even admitted to practicing at the University back home since the courts were frequented by NRIs, who put a lot of store on stylish lay-ups and fancy maneuvers.

Get him talking on dunking, and the modus operandi was quoted like Sehwag simplified his square cuts. ‘‘First I aimed for the net, then the board and then touched the ring; it needed some years of practice,’’ he said.

All the dunking display makes Talwinder a challenging charge for any coach, and while the state head Dr Subramanian conceded that Pipli has some fine speed, jumping ability and skill, he adds that the individual brilliance needs to gel into the team-theme. ‘‘He needs to mature still, because sometimes he gets carried away and plays to the gallery,’’ he said.

High-fliers, they said, operated best when they stayed grounded off-court. For Talwinder, the grooming is still only partly complete, like the half-done dribbling-panther tattoo Talwinder wore on his arm. ‘‘It’s one hard process,’’ the man himself admitted.