NBA's European tour of duty helps form team togetherness

With today's preseason game between the Washington Wizards and New Orleans Hornets in Barcelona, NBA Europe Live wraps its third year of action. Some players could grouse about such a long trip before an 82-game schedule, but the tour does offer a chance to forge bonds that could lead to regular-season success.

"The most important thing is we're taking this trip together as a team. It is going to draw us closer together," said Wizards coach Eddie Jordan, whose team lost 96-80 to the Hornets in Berlin on Tuesday.

That early togetherness last year for the Boston Celtics helped on the road to the NBA title.

"That trip absolutely gave us the right jump-start," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "We had nine new players. You could warm up to each other when you're in Europe and you had to basically get along. … For a team put together like we were last year, and have the expectations that we did, we couldn't have timed that trip better."

The New Jersey Nets and Miami Heat played Oct. 9 in Paris and Oct. 12 in London, with the Nets narrowly winning each game. Miami forward Udonis Haslem, in his sixth year with the Heat, now understands the point Rivers was making.
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"When you're over there you stick together," Haslem said. "Being isolated from our family and friends for a while, just focusing on each other, that will help us become a better team."

Of course, there's no guarantee success is the ultimate outcome. Last year the Toronto Raptors, Minnesota Timberwolves and Memphis Grizzlies joined the Celtics on the tour. The Raptors (41-41) made the playoffs, but the Timberwolves and Grizzlies each finished 22-60.

NBA Commissioner David Stern has no immediate plans to play regular-season games abroad. But the preseason trip keeps the NBA brand growing.

"We've been playing in Europe since 1988," he said. "But three years ago we decided we wanted to do something that had a more permanent sort of sound to it. It's our acknowledgement the world is flat and we are increasingly going to interact with the basketball community on a global basis."

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Briefly

The Miami Heat will be without forward James Jones for three months after he ruptured a tendon in his right wrist while shooting Wednesday. Jones was signed this summer to give the Heat a three-point shooter the team lacked en route to the NBA?s worst record last season. The Heat already are without center Jamaal Magloire (six to eight weeks) because of a broken left hand. ... Los Angeles Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic has an avulsion fracture of his left ankle, the Los Angeles Daily News reported, and could be sidelined 10 days before being re-evaluated. The injury, which happens when a tendon or ligament attaches to a bone and pulls a thin piece off the bone, is thought to have occurred before Vujacic hurt his ankle two weeks ago on the first day of training camp. That day he aggravated what already was a fracture. ... New Orleans' Chris Paul, Cleveland's LeBron James, Miami's Dwyane Wade, Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant and Memphis' Rudy Gay open the Lumber Liquidators Pro Bowlers 2008-09 season Sunday in the Chris Paul PBA Celebrity Invitational (1 p.m., ESPN). "This gives me an opportunity to show a part of me, and it also gives an opportunity for the world to see how big of a sport bowling is," Paul said.