NBA COMMISSIONER David Stern (pictured) has re-emphasised today on how he is counting on the 2012 London Olympics to give the basketball league a foothold in Britain.

 

For the second consecutive year, the NBA has brought two teams to London to play a pre-season game - this time between the Miami Heat and the New Jersey Nets.

 

Stern said: "The future of the NBA with London is to grow the sport at the grassroots level, to grow the business of the sport, because this a huge market with huge potential."

 

Stern said the NBA wants to make basketball "as popular as possible during the 2012 Olympics, and then to use the Olympics as an even better springboard to develop the sport in this country."

 

Last year, Stern said proposals to base an NBA team in Europe would take about 10 years - with London being a likely favourite venue.

 

Stern said: "We're an arena closer, because we'll be opening up the O2 World in Berlin, but there's no timetable.

 

"Now we know we've got two great NBA-ready arenas here, one in London and one in Berlin, but it's a long process and that's not the way we measure ourselves."

 

Besides game on Sunday at the O2 Arena in London, the New Orleans Hornets and the Washington Wizards will play Tuesday at the O2 World in Berlin.

 

The same two teams will also play next Friday in Barcelona, Spain.

 

Last night in Paris, the Nets beat the Heat 100-98 in overtime.

 

Earler in the day, the general secretary of the world governing body FIBA, Patrick Baumann, had claimed that London 2012 officials were making the sport feel "unwelcome" in Britain because of the possibility of its venue being moved outside the Olympic Park, possibly to Wembley Arena, as part of cost-cutting measures.

 

But Stern claimed the NBA were committed to growing basketball in Britain.

 

He said: "It's a very long term agenda."

 

Part of that agenda will likely include returning to Europe for a fourth straight year in 2009.

 

Stern said: "I'm guessing that we're going to be back here because when we started Europe Live we decided it would be something that was our determination that we were going to be in the market on a regular basis.

 

"It's not about whether we have a league, it's about growing our sponsor relationships, our merchandise relationships, our television relationships, our online relationships."