The NBA is going Euro

The first thing we always check online? Nope, not our email? Nope, not that website that shows girls making out (that’s #2). The first thing we look at is the Euroleague website, and this morning, they’ve announced that four NBA teams will be holding training camp in Europe and participating in a preseason tournament with some clubs over there.

Each of the four NBA teams will be based in a different European city during the first week of October. The 76ers will hold training camp in Barcelona, Spain and take part in an exhibition game against Winterthur FC Barcelona at the Palau Sant Jordi. The Suns will conduct training camp in Treviso, Italy at La Ghirada, a state-of the-art training center one hour north of Venice, and will play a game against Virtus Lottomatica Roma in Rome at PalaLottomatica on Oct. 6.

The Spurs will travel to Lyon, France for training camp and play a game against the French team Adecco ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne at the Astroballe on Oct. 5. The team will then travel to Paris for a game against two-time Euroleague Basketball Champions Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv at the Paris-Bercy on Oct. 8. The Clippers will travel to Moscow for training camp at the Universal Sport Hall CSKA and play games against CSKA Moscow and Unics Kazan Oct. 6-8.

The NBA is returning to Russia for the first time since 1988. It’s the home country of Clippers rookie Doofy Slasvitool, who gave up his Communist ways to play in the NBA. This is all pretty scary, really. Shouldn’t we wait until the Cold War is over before doing something like this? We went into this whole issue more in-depth recently on our political blog.