Although he had long admired the iconic Catholic nun, who ministered to some of the poorest of India's poor until her death in 1997, Korver never thought he would travel halfway around the world to see the legacy of her work in person.

That was until the NBA decided to send its first-ever delegation to India as part of its Basketball Without Borders program. Korver jumped at the chance to make the trip and arranged to fly out a week early to work at the mission.

"It's so easy to lose perspective and so easy to get caught up thinking how you live is normal," said Korver, who admitted at times during the trip he was left thinking: "The continent where we got born decided so much of our life for us."

It was an experience that Korver can only describe as "humbling." He spent his first day in Calcutta touring the mission and was taken aback by the 10-foot by 10-foot room that Mother Teresa called home.

She had chosen to live above the kitchen, sparing somebody else the misfortune. The heat in Calcutta was suffocating to begin with, Korver said, but Mother Teresa's room was the hottest in the entire building.

Korver also was struck by photos of Mother Teresa's feet. They paid the price for years in which she wore battered shoes - or none at all - while trying to relate to the people for whom she was ministering.

"Her toes were so mangled they pointed sideways," Korver said. "They hardly looked like feet."

'Like playoff basketball'

Korver made the trip along with two friends from Philadelphia and a Converse representative. They attended Mass every morning at 6 and were joined by 50 people from around the world who also had come to serve.

One man had been there for close to 11 months, Korver said. Only the five or six Americans had any idea he was a professional basketball player.

On his second day, Korver toured two slums - one boy proudly invited him into his home - as well as a hospital for the mentally disabled before he visited the Loretta school for girls. It was a Sunday and the only girls there were known as Rainbows.

They were girls ages 8 through 13 who had been rescued from the streets. Some had been abused, some had been abandoned, but Korver said they looked beautiful in their traditional Indian dresses.

"They had such a cool energy to them," Korver said. "They were so much fun and so funny and they all wanted to play basketball."

The school was home to one of the few courts Korver saw in his entire time in India. He and his friends played with the girls for more than an hour, as the games grew more and more competitive. "It was like playoff basketball," he said. "It was so much fun."

That was the highlight of the trip for Korver, but the most eye-opening experience might have come when he visited a hospital for the terminally ill. It was located in a tough part of town and the men inside were almost ghostly.

"I was like, 'I don't know if I can do this,' " Korver said.

Some of the men needed help just going to the bathroom. Others struggled just to swallow their medicine. With no washing machines, Korver helped hand wash soiled hospital gowns, which were rinsed in four buckets before being hung on a line to dry.

'The sun times 100'

After three days at the mission - including a return visit to the Loretta school - Korver flew to New Delhi for the NBA's camp. He was one of four players who took part, along with the L.A. Lakers' Ronny Turiaf, Orlando's Pat Garrity and Phoenix's Linton Johnson III.

They drove five hours one day to see the Taj Mahal, which shined so brightly Korver said it felt like "the sun times 100." But Korver said he couldn't help but feel such a lavish monument, one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World, was a waste with so much poverty elsewhere in the country.

"Just how much good could you do with what that thing costs?" he asked.

The four-day camp brought together 53 of the best youth players from across Asia. Korver has participated in Basketball Without Borders three times in his career - traveling to China, South Africa and Brazil - but said the latest trip was the most rewarding.

He returned home Monday after a 15-hour flight, happy to be done with Indian food as well as the "unbearable" traffic. "It's like no one really was taught how to drive and so everyone's trying to figure it out," Korver said.

More than anything, the trip was a reminder of the blessings of life in America so often taken for granted.

"No matter how many times you see it in pictures or on TV, until you see it in person, you can't understand," Korver said of India's poverty. "I just think it's a really healthy thing to see."

rsiler@sltrib.com