The NBA is considering bringing its All-Star Weekend overseas, with Commissioner Adam Silver calling Europe "the likely host over Asia given the shorter amount of travel involved for players," according to Frank Pingue of REUTERS. With Toronto currently hosting the league's first All-Star Weekend outside of the U.S., Silver acknowledged that "finding ways to bring its midseason showcase overseas was being discussed." Silver: "We're always talking about it. It's logistically more difficult than it may seem because there's a ripple effect in terms of the number of days we take off on the rest of the schedule. ... It's something we'd love to do one day. It's not going to happen in the next two, three, four years, but I think down the road it could be a really exciting element for the NBA." The NBA, which had 100 int'l players from 37 countries and territories on opening night rosters when the current campaign began last October, has played "a number of regular season games overseas," mostly in London or Tokyo. But the NBA, which is the only American sports league with a "significant following throughout Asia," said that getting the All-Star Weekend there "could prove too difficult to pull off." Silver said, "If we do get to the point where we believe we can experiment with playing an All-Star Game outside of the U.S. and Canada, I think in the first instance we probably would not be looking to go to Asia" (REUTERS, 2/13).
