The NBA has done a lot to make basketball a popular sport around the world. New Commissioner Adam Silver has followed the same plan as his predecessor David Stern. Although the global games first began in 1978 and into 1979, there was a five year gap until Stern entered as the Commissioner.
NBA teams were matched against teams from inside and outside the league almost every year throughout his tenure, and there’s been at least one global game played since 2002. Now that Silver has taken over, it would be wise to continue the trend. The game has gotten a lot of traction throughout the world and the league is more popular than ever.
We’ve already seen the Cleveland Cavaliers take on new head coach David Blatt’s old team in Maccabi Tel Aviv in Cleveland. The Cavs are currently in Brazil where they’ll meet the Miami Heat this coming Saturday. Matthew Dellavedova posted this photo to Instagram from Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio De Janeiro.
The San Antonio Spurs were actually just beaten yesterday by Alba Berlin in Germany, and are now visiting Turkey before they take on Fenerbache Ulker in Istanbul this Saturday as well. Spurs forward Austin Daye posted this photo to his Instagram Thursday.
Also heading out of the country are the Sacramento Kings and Brooklyn Nets. They’ll face each other twice in the preseason in China. On October 12th they’re scheduled to play in Shanghai, China, and again in Beijing on October 15th.
Team USA and Nets big Mason Plumlee shared this photo on Wednesday on Instagram.
His caption for the photo was “Off to Shanghai #nba #globalgames”.
The global games are good for the NBA. They help market the game outside of the country, giving fans who would otherwise not get the chance to see possibly some of their favorite players in person. It’s also great for players and teams to see the amount of fandom and excitement they receive from these countries.