The King has landed in the United Kingdom. It’s unclear as to whether he had tea with the Queen on this visit.
LeBron James continued his quest for worldwide domination with a promotional tour that hit London, including a stop at Nike Town in central London’s Oxford Circus and a crab dribble through Lilian Baylis school in South London.
Not surprisingly, he chose not to make London the location for an annoucement about his future with the Cavaliers. According to the Associated Press:
The 2009 MVP reiterated that he doesn’t yet know whether he will stay with Cleveland or test free agency when his contract ends after the coming season.
“I haven’t decided,” said James, who added that he is looking forward to Shaquille O’Neal’s arrival in Cleveland.
“I think it’s going to be great,” he added. “It’s an opportunity to play with a Hall of Famer. He demands respect.”
Of course, he found time to talk about his new signature shoe at a Nike Town reception, filled with screaming fans:
Interestingly, Great Britain Basketball is in a huge development phase at the moment, attempting to grow the sport in Ol’ Blighty in preparation for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Already names such as Ben Gordon, Luol Deng and Pops Mensah-Bonsu have been brought into the national program and promotional activity has been ramped up.
The big challenge however, is gaining grassroots appeal for a sport that exists in a country where football (soccer) is King — not LeBron James. One of the most difficult aspects of basketball fandom in the United Kingdom, in my experience, can be lack of availability of courts. Most courts around London, for example, are locked in council estates, are multi-use courts used primarily for football or are in gymnasiums that are prohibitively expensive to hire for a group of youngsters looking to get into the sport.
An emphasis of James’ visit to Lilian Baylis Technology School was the construction of a new basketball court, with a “community focus”. The Cavs star noted that as a kid he spent a lot of time out there on the court playing, saying “I wanted to play ball no matter what time of the day it was, no matter what the weather was,” he said. “Playing ball for me was a release as a kid.”
Hopefully the development of courts like this one are continued signs of growth of basketball in the UK and will lead to increased participation rates down the track.
