Basketball: No plans for NBA to come to Australia

Australian NBA player Matthew Dellavedova takes the ball to the hoop for the Cleveland Cavaliers...
Australian NBA player Matthew Dellavedova takes the ball to the hoop for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Charlotte Hornets. Photo: Reuters

The NBA has no plans to play a game in Australia.

Scott Levy, the NBA's Asia managing director, said today they would continue to build their "business lines" in Australia and hold the Basketball Without Borders camp in Victoria in June for elite young players.

But, Australian basketball fans hoping to see the likes of Steph Curry, LeBron James or Boomers' stars Andrew Bogut, Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills playing with their NBA teams will have to wait.

"We don't have any plans to bring a game now and I don't think we'd be willing to put a timeframe on that right now, but we do appreciate there's a lot of fans in Australia that are passionate about that," Levy said.

"We hope the rest of our business will continue to grow as it has been to justify that in the long term."

Australia's NBA players - Bogut, Dellavedova, Mills, Joe Ingles, Cameron Bairstow, Aron Baynes and Dante Exum - have all said they are keen to take their teams to Australia to play.

They cite how Australian basketball fans buy more NBA League Pass subscriptions to watch games online than any other international territory.

Bogut, the starting centre for the reigning champion Golden State Warriors, has been the most vocal about the NBA's reluctance to bring a game to Australia.

In a column he wrote for NBA Australia in January Bogut said the NBA's decision to skip Australia and take games to nations like China was financial.

"Money talks, and the money is in China, so we're not quite big enough to draw the attention," Bogut wrote.

NBA teams have played games in China, Japan, Mexico, England, the Philippines, Brazil and Germany.

Levy said the NBA would continue to build its businesses in Australia, citing a relationship it has with Rebel.

"It's really about growing those business lines and over time we will look and see when the right time to bring a game is," he said.

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