The Nets still have two games "stateside" before they head to London for games vs. the Raptors at the end of next week but London is getting ready. On Friday, the city's mayor, Boris Johnson, inaugurated the first ever UK-NBA Basketball Week near the city's Tower Bridge and talked about his hopes for the London Games.
Two weeks into the NBA season, the free agents from last season's disastrous 12-70 team are still having difficulty finding work.
Devin Harris and Brook Lopez have recorded a series of videos promoting ticket sales for the Nets' two "home" games vs. the Raptors in London next March 4 and 5. The videos are aimed at British fans and tell them how to obtain tickets online or at the O2 Arena box office. Each video is tagged with the players saying "Come be a part of NBA history."
In an interview with Sohu, the big China website, Brett Yormark talks about how he hopes Chinese firms will use the Nets as their global entre, in spite of the team's trade of Yi Jianlian in the off-season.
The Nets keep talking about branding themselves as the World's Team. The NBA's first international owner wants it. And certainly, they're pushing the product. A game against an Israeli team to open preseason, an Open Practice in Russia, two preseason games in China, and two regular season games in England. But is that enough?
The Nets were at the end of the runway at Newark Saturday evening, two and a half hours after their buzzer-beating win over the 76ers, bound for Moscow, Beijing and Guangzhou.
Off they go into the wild blue (red?) yonder. The Nets' round-the-world tour, with stops in the former Communist capitals of Moscow and Beijing, as well as Guangzhou, begins on Saturday and really doesn't end until they return from Boston on October 20.
Brett Yormark, in Moscow to meet with Mikhail Prokhorov--and potential sponsors, told the leading Russian sports site that the team will soon put up a Russian language website and plans a "Russian Night" when Andrei Kirilenko and the Jazz visit New Jersey on January 19.
The Nets have signed Andre Brown, a 6'9" power forward who averaged 26 points a game in China last season, to a non-guaranteed training camp contract. He and Eddie Gill round out the Nets' roster.
It's ticket time. You can obtain tickets for the Open Practice in Newark starting Monday. Also on Monday, Access for tickets through the Nets' social media sites begins Monday at 9 a.m. On Thursday, individual game tickets go on sale at the Prudential Center box office or online via Ticketmaster. The Nets will institute variable pricing this season.
