Stern Warning? NBA commish hints at China plans

While we were wondering why neither ESPN Asia nor Star Sports on our satellite system was showing the Dallas Mavericks-Golden State Warriors game this morning, we noticed a clip on ESPN video that talked about NBA commissioner David Stern expressing interest in setting up a joint venture hoops league in China. We stopped going to Shanghai Sharks games a few years ago because the team didn't seem to care too much about its fans, so we think this has to be good news:

"We will see in the next couple of years, coming out of the Beijing Olympics, the possibility of some joint venture between the NBA and someone in China about an NBA-sponsored and -branded league in China."

Stern added that "an NBA of China" is closer to happening than what he called a 20-year plan for having five franchises in Europe, and that, "domestically, we have enough teams."

Maybe the NBA will see to it that players on the bench don't need to wear winter coats.