Deluxshan’s love for basketball began when he was cut from his grade eight basketball team. While this would have discouraged some, he took it as a learning opportunity and spent the following summer at his neighborhood basketball court in Flemingdon Park working on learning the game. His goal was to not just master the game, but to become one with it. He spent the next decade excelling in the sport through various channels.
However, playing the game just wasn’t enough. With exposure to coaching basketball periodically throughout high school, Deluxshan wanted to focus on honing his coaching skills as he got older. In 2014, he volunteered as the Head Coach for an U13 team with the Markham Unionville Minor Basketball Association (MUMBA) and won an Ontario Basketball Association (OBA) championship gold medal. His coaching career picked up in 2015 when Deluxshan became the Lead Assistant Coach and Recruitment Coordinator for the Men’s Basketball Team at Durham College. Having been with the team for three seasons, he has helped transform the program and develop the players. Deluxshan recently had a player who has now gone on to play professional basketball successfully. The player has mentioned in interviews that he owes a lot of his success to Coach Deluxshan, which is quite rewarding to hear from the perspective of a coach. In addition to coaching at the OCAA level, Deluxshan took on various roles within the Ontario Basketball Association (OBA). Most recently, he served as an Assistant Coach for the U14 Ontario Provincial Team and continues to partake in OBA’s elite high-performance programs.
This fall, Deluxshan will be looking to build on his coaching success at an international level. He will be heading back home to Sri Lanka as a guest coach for the U18 National Basketball team. Deluxshan will be using his skills and experience to develop the team in preparation for the Youth Olympic Games this upcoming October in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This will be the first Summer Youth Olympic Games to held outside of Asia, with over 200 countries and 4,000 athletes participating in the games. Deluxshan has stated that he is extremely grateful to the Sri Lankan Basketball Federation for reaching out to him to be apart of the team and for providing a great opportunity for him on an international level.
“This is very special to me as I have never been back to Sri Lanka since my family migrated to Canada when I was one-year-old," he said. "I am excited that basketball is providing me with opportunities on an international level to go back to my motherland and assist in growing the game."
Follow Deluxshan’s coaching adventures and journey to Sri Lanka, via his Instagram page @deluxshanp.
Coaching the Durham Lords
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