On Monday night the NBA will play a pre-season game in London for the 4th consecutive year in front of a sell-out crowd. The NBA has wanted to expand it’s global appeal in the last few years and the UK has been one of it’s main target markets, with each of the pre-season games selling out 3 months before the game took place at the O2 Arena. All of this momentum has led to London being awarded the first series of NBA Regular Season games to be played outside of North America in March 2011 when the New Jersey Nets play the Toronto Raptors at the O2. Tickets for both of the games on the 4th and 5th of the month went on sale in September and sold out almost instantly, with large interest surrounding them it’s likely that both games will feature on national TV, even if both team have nothing to play for by March and the back end of the season.

However, until then the attention will be on Monday’s game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the reigning NBA champions the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers come into the 2010/11 NBA season with massive momentum, having beaten Boston in the NBA Finals in April. Since then they’ve added guard Steve Blake from city rivals the Clippers and centre Theo Ratliff from Charlotte. These were only 2 of the summer signings that they made but in doing all of these they managed to address all their main problems and they’ll certainly be the team to beat come the start of the season in the last week of October. Lest we not forget that they’re looking for their 3rd consecutive NBA Championship after wins in 2008 and 2009 and on paper Miami’s star studded line up looks like the only one that might challenge them to that feat.

As for Minnesota they’re coming off a 24-58 record in the 2009 season after star Al Jefferson tore his ACL in January. Since then the power forward, who was averaging 17 points per game, has been traded to Utah, which leaves the Timberwolves in a bad position for the upcoming season. Forward Sebastian Telfair and guard Luke Ridnour will likely have to carry the team during the upcoming season but expect the ‘Wolves to be at the bottom of the Northwest Division standings for most, if not all, of the season, and very near the bottom of the Western Conference standings. Both teams will be looking to fine tune their season’s strategies in London so be sure to watch the game, it promises to be a great show.

Tags | Basketball, europe, live, London, nba