[Vorkunov] The Spurs and Pelicans will play in Europe next season. A game in Paris on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2027, and at Co-op Live in Manchester, England, on Sunday, Jan. 17, 2027
Spurs are probably going to be playing games in France for the next 15+ years lol
Spurs, Wizards and Valkyries are all locks.
Storm in the future soon. Dom Malonga is next up.
Especially if Sarr becomes an all star
Maybe Salaun develops for us and we get put in the rotation as well lol.
They’re going to be playing in the championship, too
It’s been a very fun hatewatch.
So will the Pelicans. Considering Louisianan history.
French people don’t give a fuck about acadia and new orleans and such. Basically no cultural ties since the end of the XVIIIth century. Locals in the cities stopped speaking french during the XIXth. We just find it funny that it has a French name, but so do Saint Louis and Détroit.
And for the creole and caribbean cultural aspect of it, France has Guadeloupe and Martinique and they are the cultural backbones of the French creole identity.
However if the Canadiens want to play in Europe one day I believe they could grow some fan base in France, despite the french being clueless about ice hockey, just for the Quebec aspect of it.
Yawn. The Saints have been playing in Paris yearly for like 5 years now. New Orleans lowkey has a following in Paris already. Not to mention that people in Acadiana still have families in France as well, so the connection is still there..
What are you on? The Saints never have played in Paris before. The NFL game in october will be the first ever in France. They never were a targeted market for the NFL until very recently as Soccer and Rugby union are dominant here.
I am French, I live in Paris, I come from Normandy and Brittany, believe me: nobody bats an eye about New Orleans and the Pelicans and don’t even mention the Saints. This will obviously be sold as a PR ploy by the NBA, but it has no basis in real life.
Now this does not mean that there is no french flavour still lingering on in the Region; The cuisine most obviously has a strong French influence and is one of the very few in the USA that those picky french eaters would appreciate.
Anyways, ask 100 people in a French street who the Acadiens are, I doubt you would even get 5 barely cogent answers. Some would guess that it must have had something to do with Quebec at some point because it rings similar but beyond that…
Agree, even 5 is really pushing it. 1 or 2 would already surprise me.
Nothing really is close to the Spurs following in France I’d say anyway.
I just learned who they were on this very thread lmao
Should’ve been vs. Minnesota with gobert. Ant vs wemby in England would also be electric.
They probably don’t know if he’s getting moved or not.
There’s always 2nd Rudy Gobert Joan Beringer.
realistically i dont think they put 2 contenders together overseas. These games have been irrelevant.
No offense
Absolutely no one in England would care about that, they dont even care about basketball.
Rubbish, the games are always sold out instantly (granted many of those go to celebs and sponsors)
Dumb take. Probably enough Americans and some locals for the novelty factor to sell out. Doesn’t mean anyone there, in meaningful numbers, cares about basketball.
Man U vs Real sold out the big house when they played in Michigan. 99% of Americans couldn’t name a single player on those teams.
I’m not cheering in this game until you change the name to Manchester United States.
Yes, they are always sold out, that is absolutely true. However, as you said, a bunch of those tickets go to celebrities who dont care about basketball at all, they only care about public exposure and good pictures. Its hard for a regular Joe who actually watches the NBA to even buy a ticket, and most of those who would buy them are probably from Spain, France etc.
They choose London since its a large city with a lot of celebs, but England just doesnt care about basketball and it will always be like that.
i think thats changing
i meet a new person every week who plays basketball and my local park in the sleepy north east does a basketball tourney once a month
Do you think they picked the Pels intentionally to make the Spurs look good? I’d say sorry Pels fans, but they seem more doomer about their team than neutrals.
probably New Orleans and French ties
Saints will play the first NFL game in Paris in October!
Just glad they didn’t pick my Kings just because we have an actual Frenchie and like the Pels, we’d also be The Generals to their Globetrotters.
Watching Victor, the chosen one, execute a team called the Kings in Paris would’ve been pure poetry.
All the far-right French bootlickers would be Kings fans for a day, so real Kings fans at least get some entertainment from the loss.
It’s like setting up your homecoming opponent I guess
Saints and Pels playing in Paris is pretty cool to me. New Orleans is still a very French place, as you can tell by the Fleur-de-lis being everywhere.
Wizards would be fun too, Sarr and Bilal vs Wemby
someone’s gotta be the generals
Europeans do like Queens, so maybe they think Derik Queen will do well over there
2 years ago they put Spurs against Indiana. Indiana made the ECF, while the Spurs finished 22-60.
They split the b2b in Paris 2-0 and were both competitive games.
I wouldn’t look much into it, since the sample size is just 2 occasions (2024 and 2026).
Against each other?
Do they not want them fans to get a competitive game?
idk about that…
Zion Low Key Bullies Wemby Every Time They Play (He has a 3-1 record vs him)
Game 1: Dec. 17, 2023 | Pelicans 146 - 110 Spurs
Game 2: Feb. 02, 2024 | Pelicans 114 - 113 Spurs
Game 3: Oct. 24, 2025 | Spurs 120 - 116 Pelicans (OT)
Game 4: Jan. 25, 2026 | Pelicans 104 - 95 Spurs
it’s funny to see those claims about X is guarding wemby better or score better on, stuff like that, because his progression rate is so crazy that the next matchup he can totally erase that counter and nothing will ever be said afterwards
looking forward to it !
You sure about that?
Also two of Zion’s wins were during Wemby’s rookie season when the Spurs were tanking.
I have all 4 of the matchups on the post with dates.
They were 1-1 vs the pels THIS season and in one of them, Zion shot 55% at the rim vs him.
Even watching the games, you can see that Zions mass and explosiveness gives Victor issues.
Their most recent game Zion got the better of Wemby for sure, but saying he “always bullies him” is disingenuous. That’s why I posted the clip.
Also bringing up stats from rookie Wemby vs year-4 Zion doesn’t mean much for future games
Spurs because of the French star, and Pels because of the French history.
Regarding competitiveness, we just don’t know. You can have the two best teams in the league and both games are blowouts.
But you can look at their 4 games vs each other this year, with how horrible the Pels were this year, and all 4 games were competitive. Spurs won the series by a combined 5 points over 4 games. All 4 games were within 3 points within the final 3 minutes. Not one of the games was decided by double digits.
The Pelicans roster has some juice when healthy. But That’s a big If.
i hope english and french people can have fun watching whatever pelicans basketball is
But what about Spurs - Ouizards ?
Why England though? Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Lithuania all have huge basketball communities who create incredible atmospheres.
Is it because they can sell much more expensive tickets in England or am I missing something else?
This is pretty much what they did for Magic Vs Memphis. Paris and England are next to each other makes logistical issues better. England is also a proven market.
Didn’t last 2 english basketball leagues basically dissolve in last 3 or so years?
I mean maybe there’s a market for that one NBA game a year but even then the arena was pretty dead with a lot of empty seats last time I was there
What’s a Co-op Live?
Co-op Live is an indoor arena in Manchester, England, sited in the Etihad Campus next to the City of Manchester Stadium. It opened on 14 May 2024 and is the largest indoor arena in the United Kingdom by capacity. It can accommodate 23,500 attendees.
Wikipedia
Oh… literally “at” Co-op live. I thought it was the name of an exhibition or something.
Are the tickets much more expensive?
Yes, it’s twice as expensive in Paris.
Source: I have attended Spurs games in Paris and at the Frost Bank Center for the last three years
Ok thank you
How is Wemby’s popularity compared to Mbappe/Griezzman for example? Any Frenchie’s expand.
soccer players always tend to be way bigger than basketball players around the world, but Victor is probably the #2 most popular athlete from france if I had to guess behind Mbappe.
Eh, Wemby is popular here but there’s gonna be a bunch of football players before him (Dembele, Griezmann, Kante) because football is much bigger. You then have rugby which is very big in France with Dupont and LBB. Then you reach sports with popularity below those 2, with Teddy Riner in Judo, Leon Marchand in swimming and Wemby in basketball. The games being between 23-6AM here heavily restricts how much you can follow the NBA, it’s either highlights or having a sleep schedule which allows you to do that.
Didn’t read the sub name and was perplexed to see “spurs will play in Europe”
Why wont they play in Budapest Belgrade or Athens sometimes
Berlin, Bologna and Kaunas too
Berlin had a game this year and is getting another in 2028, it was announced last year.
Basically the four-year schedule is: 2025: Paris and London 2026: Berlin and London 2027: Paris and Manchester 2028: Paris and Berlin
It would of been cool if the Bulls came back to Paris to play but sadly we suck too
Might need to pop down to Manchester to see the Wemby experience
Yes they’re giving Wemby his home continent tour and Zion’s stomach a food tour.
The pelicans??????
How to get tickets??
How would Dejontay feel?
Giving the pelicans a game in Europe should count as a form of terrorism
What the fuck did the pelicans do to deserve getting spanked 2 times in 4 days on wembys home turf 🤣🤣
Haha ffs, waited my whole life to see San Antonio in person and the one time they come to my country it’s not in London. Guess I’m travelling up north if I can get tickets