NBA team in London? Kirilenko says "its physically impossible"

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London:  The Brooklyn Nets visiting London is becoming commonplace after the Nets played a preseason game in 2008 and also two regular-season games, which were the NBA’s first ones in Britain, against the Toronto Raptors in 2011.  Add this week to the list of European appearances when they take on the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday at the O2 Arena.

Most NBA fans know Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov is Russian and in turn he has done everything he can to promote the game in Russia the same way that the Houston Rockets did when they had Yao Ming in China.

The game is becoming more and more international with the number of players coming from outside the United States each year so the NBA sees a big upside to the globalization of the sport.

The question is, “can it really be possible to have an NBA team in Europe?”

Andrei Kirilenko doesn’t seem to think so.

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“I don’t think it’s realistic only because of the traveling,” Nets forward Kirilenko said to ESPN NY.

“Maybe if it’s going to be a whole division, like the Euroleague is a division for the NBA, like the West or Eastern Conference — so once a year you go to another continent and play three games there and then come back and adjust, maybe it’s going to work.

“But it’s definitely not going to work coming to London, then coming back. It’s physically impossible.”[/quote_box]

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I have to say I haven’t really though of the Global NBA process the way the AK47 did with his idea of making an entire division in Europe.

Of course he is 100 percent correct in stating that it would be close to impossible to make professional athletes travel around the world daily with the logistics and toll it would take on their bodies but a entire division isn’t such a far reach.

If the NBA were to create a division in Europe with six or eight teams, it could be somewhat of a European D-League, eventually it might actually turn into an additional division of the league and then we would get a real World Champion.

One thing that we all know for sure if the NBA can make money on something they will damn sure try their best to make that happen.  Take the “nickname” games for example……..

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