It will be the biggest summer showcase yet — what the promoters are humbly calling a “showcase of unprecedented proportions” — with a galaxy of NBA stars.
Just ignore the few black holes.
Even after some defections there will be a World All-Star Classic tour, starting in Puerto Rico on Oct. 30 (Sunday). From there the tour has been scheduled to go on to London, Macau and Melbourne, Australia but none of those games has been confirmed. Meaning, if you live in Australia I wouldn’t plop down money on tickets quite yet.
It is a tour with star power — Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Carlos Boozer and Tyson Chandler are all in. Chris Kaman, too. Can’t leave off Kaman.
But LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul are out (as is Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook). That dimmed the star power, but the show must go on.
Tickets for the Puerto Rico game will go on sale Thursday, promoters said. Team captains will select teams for the game, like on a schoolyard. Which should be entertaining (our man Ira Winderman asks what happens if Wade chooses Stoudemire over Bosh?).
If you want to see it… well, I don’t know what to tell you yet. The promoters are trying to line up television broadcast rights both globally and back to the United States. Said promoters have spoken to a number of entities that do not hold national NBA rights — including Comcast regionals, Fox and CBS — but as of now there are no deals, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo. (That may be a tough sell as no company that may want to bid on future rights wants to cross the NBA on this.)
But you can bet there will be live streaming. And highlight packages. And little to no defense. Still, at least it’s a distraction while the NBA lockout talks drag on.