Nets, Raptors to play pair of regular-season games in London

[Dpantherman]

By Art Garcia, NBA.com

Posted Aug 9 2010 11:26AM - Updated Aug 9 2010 4:16PM

The NBA is breaking new ground by going across the pond. Monday's announcement of two regular-season games in London is a first for a league with a long history of taking its teams outside of North America, while also continuing the buildup to the next Olympics.

New Jersey and Toronto are taking part in the first games in Europe during the season, March 4-5 at London's O2 Arena. The landmark games are part of a growing initiative throughout the United Kingdom to promote the sport of basketball.

"I believe that that is a very important lead in to the 2012 Olympics, because in Beijing, basketball was the hottest ticket," NBA commissioner David Stern said in a conference call Monday. "We don't necessarily expect that to be the case in London, although if things break right with respect to Team Great Britain, I think that there's a good possibility that basketball will assume a role that folks in the United Kingdom might never have anticipated.

"So we are very excited about that and we see this as sort of a multi step process, a development of Team GB, the friendlies this autumn and the regular season games in March. We want as much as possible to demonstrate the power and fun of this sport of ours."

http://www.nba.com/2010/news/08/09/london.newser/index.html?ls=iref%3Anbahpt2

Nets and Raptors??? maybe they should leave them in London...

[Future of the Funchise]

thats cool and all, but the question is who cares about the nets and raptors lol.