Basketball: why the NBA will not return to Paris before 2023

There will be no NBA game in Paris this season.

The great American basketball barnum who begins his long journey this week will not go through Europe during the 2021-2022 season.

And so, the NBA will not put its suitcases in Paris as was the case in 2020.

On January 24 of that year, the event was colossal: for the first time, an NBA regular season game was taking place in Paris, at the AccorHotels Arena.

For the occasion, the Milwaukee Bucks future NBA champions in 2021 faced the Charlotte Hornets of Michael Jordan and Nicolas Batum (116-103).

On the occasion, Adam Silver the big boss of the NBA had confided that the big league would return to the French capital in 2021 then in 2022. Only, there was another event that day, January 24, 2020: the first case of Covid officially identified in France.

And that upset the plans.

The world and the NBA have come to a standstill.

No Europe in 2022

The NBA therefore did not return as expected in January 2021. An enticing Brooklyn-Atlanta was yet stalled. Even if the big American league resumes the 2021-2022 season more or less normally with the public, it will not return in 2022 either. No NBA game is scheduled outside the North American continent because of the Covid: " We don't plan to travel next season, ”said Adam Silver a few weeks ago. The big boss has not changed his mind: no preseason match has taken place outside the United States while in a normal world, several exhibition meetings take place in particular in Asia on a continent still fond of 'admire the stars of the orange ball.

To see the NBA in Paris again, it will therefore be necessary to wait until January 2023. Because the NBA behind its omnipotence has one quality: it keeps its promises: "We will be in Paris for many years" had slipped Adam Silver a few months ago. . France is a big market for basketball. There is a long tradition, a first-class federation that produces a surprisingly high number of NBA players. There are also the close relations between France and the United States. It's a very attractive market for fans, not just Americans but all of Europe. "

Obviously, it is impossible to already know which teams will be playing on the banks of the Seine in 15 months.

We will not know until next spring when the League will have an idea of ​​its future calendar and that it will have sorted out the candidate teams for the trip.