NBA Basketball Returns To Seattle's KeyArena For Exhibition Game

KeyArena on Saturday hosted the H2O6 Charity Basketball Classic, the "first NBA-sanctioned game in Seattle since the Sonics left" in '08. The crowd of 5,070 for the 2½-hour exhibition was "smaller than expected," and a "handful of local players who were slated to play" did not. The game "pitted Seattle-area NBA standouts against various players from the league." Also, a five-person panel that included T'Wolves F Martell Webster "discussed the chance of an NBA team returning to Seattle." Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sat courtside (SEATTLE TIMES, 7/24).

Meanwhile, a group of NBA stars including Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul and NBPA President Derek Fisher played two exhibition games this weekend in the Philippines, drawing sellout crowds at the Araneta Coliseum. A source said that the "exhibition agreement calls for a return trip to the Philippines in August" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 7/24). The PHILIPPINE STAR's Nelson Beltran writes of the NBA players, "everywhere they went, they were mobbed like the pope."