The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a men's professional basketball league in North America; composed of 30 teams. It is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. The NBA is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by FIBA as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player.
Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is an American retired professional basketball player and current president of basketball operations of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played point guard for the Lakers for 13 seasons. After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that he had contracted HIV, but returned to play in the 1992 All-Star Game, winning the All-Star MVP Award. After protests from his fellow players, he retired again for four years, but returned in 1996, at age 36, to play 32 games for the Lakers before retiring for the third and final time.
The Portland Trail Blazers, commonly known as the Blazers, are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team played its home games in the Memorial Coliseum before moving to Moda Center in 1995. The franchise entered the league as an expansion team in 1970, and has enjoyed a strong following: from 1977 through 1995, the team sold out 814 consecutive home games, the longest such streak in American major professional sports at the time, and only since surpassed by the Boston Red Sox. The Trail Blazers have been the only NBA team based in the bi-national Pacific Northwest, after the Vancouver Grizzlies relocated to Memphis and became the Memphis Grizzlies in 2001, and the Seattle SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008.
EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements with real commentators such as John Madden, it soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing game series such as FIFA, NHL, NBA Live and Madden NFL.
The Palace of Auburn Hills, commonly referred to as The Palace, is a multi-purpose arena located in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It was the home of the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Detroit Shock of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), the Detroit Vipers of the International Hockey League, the Detroit Safari of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, and the Detroit Fury of the Arena Football League.
Arvydas Romas Sabonis Lithuanian pronunciation: [ˈaːrviːdaːs ˈsaːboːnʲɪs]; born December 19, 1964) is a Lithuanian retired professional basketball player and businessman. Recognized as one of the best European players of all time, he won the Euroscar six times, and the Mr. Europa Award twice. He played in a variety of leagues, and spent seven seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), in the United States. Playing the center position, Sabonis won a gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics, in South Korea, for the Soviet Union, and later earned bronze medals at the 1992 Olympic Games and 1996 Olympic Games, while representing Lithuania. He retired from professional basketball in 2005. Sabonis was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers, in the first round of the 1986 NBA draft, but he did not play his first NBA game until the age of 31, in 1995.
NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network that is owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Turner Sports; the NBA also uses the network as a way of advertising the league's out-of-market sports package NBA League Pass, and partner channel TNT. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regular season and playoff game broadcasts from the NBA and related professional basketball leagues, as well as NBA-related content including analysis programs, specials and documentaries. The network also serves as national broadcaster of the NBA G League and WNBA games. NBA TV is the oldest subscription network in North America to be owned or controlled by a professional sports league, having launched on March 17, 1999.
Gregg Charles Popovich is an American professional basketball coach. He is the head coach and President of the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Taking over as coach of the Spurs in 1996, Popovich is the longest tenured active coach in both the NBA and all major sports leagues in the United States. He is often called "Coach Pop" or simply "Pop."
The Larry O'Brien NBA Championship Trophy is the championship trophy awarded annually by the National Basketball Association (NBA) to the winner of the NBA Finals. The name of the trophy was the Walter A. Brown Trophy until 1984.
The 2006 NBA Europe Live Tour was an international basketball exhibition and competition produced jointly by the National Basketball Association and the Euroleague, as part of the NBA Global Games. The tour featured four NBA teams training and playing matches against European teams in Germany, Russia, France, Italy, and Spain. Four standalone games were played, along with two tournaments in Moscow and Cologne. The tour took place between 5 October and 11 October 2006.
ESPN Brasil is a group of cable television network, launched in March 1989. ESPN Brasil was the first country-specific version of ESPN outside the United States, launched in June 1995. The channel has covered major sporting events, like the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics; the 1998 and 2006 FIFA World Cup and the 1999, 2003 and 2007 Pan-American Games. High ratings and prestige in the segment have been marks of the channel; it also won the APCA award twice, in 1995 for "Best Sports Programming" and in 1998 for "Best Coverage of the 1998 FIFA World Cup".
The 2007–08 Boston Celtics season was the 62nd season of the Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association (NBA). This marked the season powered by the acquisitions of perennial All-Stars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in the offseason, the Celtics finished with a record of 66–16 and posted the best single-season turnaround in NBA history. They finished first in both the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference, and achieved the league's best record. The 66 wins were also the third-most in franchise history, behind the 1972–73 Celtics’ 68 wins and the famous 1985–86 Celtics’ 67 wins including 40 at home. Kevin Garnett was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year, while Danny Ainge, who executed "the most dramatic NBA turnaround ever", was named NBA Executive of the Year. The Celtics also sold out all 41 regular-season home games.
The 2007 NBA Europe Live Tour was a basketball exhibition tour featuring teams from the NBA and teams from Europe's top professional leagues, as part of the NBA Global Games. The hosting countries were England, Italy, Spain and Turkey. The NBA teams traveled to Europe to begin their training camps, and played a series of exhibition matches against the European teams, and preseason games against other NBA teams. The games took place from October 6 to October 11 and the NBA teams prevailed 5 games to 2 over the European teams.
NBA Live 09, sometimes called NBA Live 2009, is the 2008 installment in the NBA Live series, developed and published by Electronic Arts. The original release date was October 7, 2008. The game features Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs on the cover in most markets. The Wii version of the game, developed by HB Studios, is titled NBA Live 09 All-Play and launched under EA Sports' new All-Play brand exclusive to the platform. This was the final NBA Live game released for the PlayStation 2 and the Wii.
The 2009 NBA Europe Live Tour was a basketball exhibition tour featuring teams from the NBA and Real Madrid from the Euroleague, as a part of the NBA Global Games. The hosting countries were England and Spain.
The 2010 NBA Europe Live Tour was a basketball exhibition tour featuring teams from the NBA and the Euroleague, as a part of the NBA Global Games. The hosting countries were England, France and Spain.
The following is a list of NBA versus EuroLeague games. The list includes only games in which NBA clubs have played against teams that participated in that same upcoming season's top-tier level EuroLeague competition. The first game was played in the year 1978, by the defending NBA champion, the Washington Bullets, and Maccabi "Elite" Tel Aviv, prior to the 1978–79 basketball season.
The 2012 NBA Europe Live Tour was a basketball exhibition tour featuring teams from the NBA and the Euroleague, as a part of the NBA Global Games. The hosting countries were Turkey, Germany, Italy and Spain.
