NBA returning to China for pair of Suns-Nets preseason games in 2025, AP source says
Sports
The Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns will play in China’s gambling hub of Macao
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The NBA is returning to China next season, striking a deal to play preseason games there more than five years after the league was effectively banned over Commissioner Adam Silver not punishing Daryl Morey for tweeting support of anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
An agreement will be announced on Friday, said a person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because neither the NBA nor Chinese officials have spoken publicly on the matter.
The Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns will play in China’s gambling hub of Macao on Oct. 10, 2025, and again two days later, the person said, adding there are plans for two more preseason games in China in 2026.
The teams will play at Macao’s Venetian Arena, which is owned by the Las Vegas Sands Corp. — which is a casino operator there as well. Sands president and chief operating officer Patrick Dumont became governor of the Dallas Mavericks late last year after his family acquired the team.
The Nets are owned by Joe Tsai, the chairman of Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
There will be an NBA presence at that Macao arena this weekend: Basketball Hall of Famers Tony Parker, Ray Allen and Tracy McGrady, along with former NBA standouts Stephon Marbury, DeMarcus Cousins and Cuttino Mobley, will headline a celebrity game on Saturday.
It’s all part of a long series of moves toward some sort of return to normalcy between China and the league.
The NBA, on some level, has been welcomed back for a while: Miami’s Jimmy Butler, who has an endorsement deal with Chinese apparel company Li-Ning, has toured the country and drawn large crowds in each of the last two offseasons, while Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox drew enormous crowds when they visited in September.
Then in October, Silver said he thought the league would “bring games back to China at some point.”
