"This match (...) will build the incredible momentum around basketball and the NBA in France and across the region," Mark Tatum, the No. 2 player in the North American Basketball League, said in a statement.
The France has more players in the NBA than any other country outside North America, according to the league, including newcomers Victor Wembanyama (San Antonio Spurs), the first pick in the 2023 draft, and Bilal Coulibaly (Washington Wizards), drafted seventh overall.
Tickets will go on sale at "a later date" that has not yet been revealed.
Mikal Bridges during a game with the Nets against Philadelphia, in Brooklyn, April 20, 2023 © Sarah Stier / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/Archives
This is the third time in four years that Paris-Bercy has hosted a regular season game. The Chicago Bulls beat the Detroit Pistons last January (126-108), and Giannis Antetokounmpo's Milwaukee Bucks beat the Charlotte Hornets in January 2020 (116-103).
Since the 1990s, the NBA has organized regular season games outside the United States and Canada, in what it calls the "Global Games", first in Japan and Mexico, then in Europe, in addition to preseason games or promotional tours set up in the 1980s.
If the Nets have already had the opportunity to play once in Paris, during a pre-season game in 2008, it is a first on French soil for the Cavaliers, who count in their ranks Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell, exceptional back who scored 71 points alone against the Chicago Bulls in January. the best performance since Kobe Bryant in 2006.
Seven months after the meeting, Bercy will also host the final phase of the men's and women's Olympic basketball tournaments.
© 2023 AFP