NBA coming to town: Rockets-Pacers at MOA Arena

(UPDATE 4) Finally, local basketball fans will get to see NBA action live.

NBA Philippines on Tuesday announced that James Harden, Jeremy Lin and the Houston Rockets and Paul George, Roy Hibbert and the Indiana Pacers will face each other in a preseason game in October.

In a press conference in Manila, NBA Commissioner David Stern announced in a video message shown on a jumbotron that the preseason game will happen on October 10 at the Mall of Asia Arena.

"We look forward to putting on a great show for the Filipino fans," Houston Rockets coach Kevin McHale added also in a video message played during the media event.

Stern called Filipino fans among "the most passionate in the world."

Hans Sy, SM Prime Holdings president which owns the MOA Arena, added that Filipinos do love basketball.

"This love for basketball deserves no less than the biggest basketball league in the world. We have long wanted to bring world-class basketball in a world-class venue," Sy said.

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Sy revealed that the organization extended its invitation to Stern as early as last year, and their efforts were finally rewarded with this, the first-ever official NBA pre-season game to be held in the Philippines.

In 1979, the Washington Bullets led by the great Elvin Hayes played an exhibition game at the Araneta Coliseum against a collection of PBA locals and imports, while in 2011 a team of NBA superstars led by Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant played two games against a PBA selection and Smart Gilas.

However, neither event was officially sanctioned by the NBA, and this will mark the first time that two NBA teams will play against each other in the Philippines as part of an official league activity.

"The whole teams will be here," said Scott Levy, NBA Senior Vice President and Managing Director of NBA Asia. "They gotta get ready for the (2013-14) season. A couple weeks after this game, the season tips off."

Levy added that all other personnel that are part of the team's operations and game activities will also be here.

"The entire team will be here: the manager, the dancers, the mascots," he said. "The whole NBA experience."

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"It’s as though everybody in this arena will be teleported to a game in the U.S.," added Francesco Suarez, Vice President for Business Development and Marketing Promotions of NBA Asia. "It’s exactly how it happens there."

Asked about the possibility of holding a regular-season game in the Philippines, NBA Asia's Carlo Singson said they want to take it one step at a time.

"Our activities in the Philippines are regular," he said. "For the games, we’re focusing on doing this first one and doing it right, and then we’ll look at other opportunities in the future."

When asked why the NBA chose the Pacers and the Rockets for this historic game in the Philippines, Levy said the decision was not done lightly.

"It’s a complicated process that’s based on a lot of factors," he said. "That determine which teams could travel when and where. We think these are two great teams that are coming and they’re going to put on a great show."

The Pacers-Rockets showdown is part of an eight-game Global Games schedule that the NBA is putting together in October. After playing at the MOA Arena, the Rockets and Pacers head to Taipei, Taiwan - the home country of Rockets star Jeremy Lin's parents - for another game. Also on tap are a pair of games between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers in China and a Chicago-Washington clash in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.