New York (AFP)
Current stars Chris Paul, Trae Young, and former stars, Chauncey Billups, Paul Pierce, will challenge each other at HORSE, a televised shoot tournament to fill the void caused by coronavirus among basketball fans, the Thursday announced NBA.
The tournament, which will bring together eight players, will start on Sunday and will be broadcast on ESPN.
An event sponsor will donate $ 200,000 on behalf of players to front-line charities on efforts to respond to the coronavirus pandemic that forced the NBA to suspend the season a month ago.
HORSE is a game in which players must first describe the shot they are going to make before executing, dunks being prohibited. If the shot goes into the basket, their direct opponent must repeat the same shooting gesture. If he fails to score, he is penalized with a letter of the word HORSE. The first player to accumulate the five letters loses.
Confinement requires, this knockout tournament will be played on the basketball courts at the respective homes of the participants.
In one part of the table, the young Atlanta star Trae Young will face Chauncey Billups, former NBA champion with Detroit, and Tamika Catchings, quadruple Olympic champion with Team USA and just inducted into the Hall of Fame cuvée 2020, in the back of Utah Mike Conley.
In the other part of the table, Chicago point guard Zach LaVine will challenge former winger Paul Pierce, NBA champion in 2008 with Boston, while Oklahoma City star Chris Paul will play against one of the current stars of the WNBA, Allie Quigley.
The winners of these matches on Sunday will qualify for the semi-finals scheduled for next Thursday, followed the same evening by the final.
HORSE is the second NBA initiative to break the monotony of private basketball fans, after a virtual video game tournament that involved other League players.
© 2020 AFP