'London would be a fantastic host for its own NBA franchise' - Top official backs European basketball expansion

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James Benge11 January 2017

London could one day play host to an NBA franchise of its own after the success the capital has enjoyed welcoming the USA’s major teams, according to a top official.

Tomorrow the Denver Nuggets host the Indiana Pacers in the sixth regular season game to be played at the O2 Arena, a game for which tickets sold out in under an hour for the third consecutive year.

For a sport with global appeal and a league with an increasingly cosmopolitan make-up — five of the Nuggets’ 15 players were born outside the States — expansion beyond the US represents an attractive prospect, though new franchises won’t spring up overnight.

Enlargement across the Atlantic was mooted in 2015 by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who suggested that the league may consider four new franchises outside the US.

The association’s managing director in Europe, Ben Morel, is convinced that when the time comes London would be ready to welcome basketball’s finest on a regular basis.

“The NBA has always said that it remains an aspirational goal to have franchises in other parts of the world,” Morel said.

“As far as Europe is concerned from a scheduling standpoint we would need four or five teams.

“Of course London would be a great city for one of those four or five teams but we couldn’t just do it with one city.

“London is a fantastic host for sport, with venues like the O2 we can really replicate what the NBA truly is.

“When you look at the size of the opportunity in the UK and how much room there is to develop the sport here it’s a natural host.”

The NBA’s packed schedule, which demands every team fit 82 games into a window of 169 days before a gruelling series of play-offs determine the league champion, offers few windows for eight-hour flights to the capital.Though a batch of teams in Europe would only add to the pressure on NBA players, Pacers’ centre Myles Turner would be keen to play more games on the continent.

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“I love it in London, it’s my first time here and it’s pretty cool,” Turner told Standard Sport. “I heard basketball fans over here fill the O2 like crazy, it’s incredible that we sold this out in an hour.

“Franchises in Europe? I wouldn’t mind travelling out here… if you give us some time to rest! I know the NBA is an ever-growing organisation — it’d be cool to see it out here.”

A London team may be a long-term aspiration for the NBA but there will still be plenty for basketball fans here to look forward to in the coming years.

Morel confirmed that the NBA was “really happy” with the success of its British excursions — he hopes one day the league’s prestigious All-Star Game could bring LeBron James and company to the UK — and was considering ways to expand beyond a single regular season game in Europe.

One possibility may be to arrange fixtures for a group of three to four teams over a week across Europe, or even to repeat the back-to-back games between the then-New Jersey Nets and Toronto Raptors in 2011, but sporting needs must take priority over basketball’s global ambitions.

“Factor number one to consider is to make sure that this is not disruptive to our teams and their schedule, not just when they’re overseas but before and after,” Morel said. “That’s the critical parameter in deciding games.”

If the players can muster up the energy it may just be that we are about to see a lot more of basketball’s brightest stars in the capital.

NBA

The Denver Nuggets host the Indiana Pacers at The O2 in London tomorrow as part of NBA Global Games London 2017. From 8pm watch the game live on BT SPORT Facebook, on BT SPORT 2 or BT SPORT SHOWCASE

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