Andrei Kirilenko on the front line as NBA basketball continues overseas campaign
Ian Whittell
If any one basketball player personifies the rampant globalisation of the NBA it is Andrei Kirilenko. The Russian Olympian will be appearing at London’s O2 Arena on Thursday evening in front of a
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If any one basketball player personifies the rampant globalisation of the NBA it is Andrei Kirilenko. The Russian Olympian will be appearing at London’s O2 Arena on Thursday evening in front of a sell-out 17,000 crowd as his Brooklyn Nets take on the Atlanta Hawks.

While basketball seems to have failed, spectacularly, to capitalise upon the London Olympics, at which Kirilenko won a bronze medal, the American league continues to grow in popularity in Britain.

Tomorrow’s regular season fixture, the 13th NBA game played in this country since 1993, sold out in four hours and Premier League footballers — Brad Friedel, Lukasz Fabianski and Lukas Podolski among them — rubbed shoulders with hundreds of children from Special Olympics GB and London Youth as they attended