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Tickets at Ticket Master
The NBA's exhibition opener between the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz in Mexico City on Sunday is more than just a preseason game for Eduardo Najera.
``For me, it's important to play here in Mexico City in front of my people,'' said the Mavericks' 27-year-old backup forward, who's from the border state of Chihuahua.
It also may be significant for Dallas -- which has a large Mexican-American population -- and for the NBA, which hopes to improve its appeal in Latin America as well as among Hispanics in the United States.
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Najera appeared at a pregame news conference wearing a T-shirt with the word
``Frijolero'' -- a reference to a song by the Mexican rock group Molotov that
denounces bigotry on both sides of the ticketmaster border, but particularly
in the United States.
Mavericks coach Don Nelson said Najera would start for Dallas -- ``wherever he wants to play.''
``It's my hope that at the end of the night he will have the most minutes,'' Nelson said.
Otherwise, Nelson and Utah coach Jerry Sloan said they'd concentrate on the basics as they get their first look at heavily revamped teams in game conditions after only a few days of full practices.
``It's just learning to play together,'' Nelson said.
``We'd like to see if we can run an offense against a good team,'' Sloan said.
While Najera is not Mexico's most famous athlete, as the only Mexican now in the NBA -- and the second ever -- he's still a national figure, with an endorsement contract for a major brand of white bread ticketmaster that has put his face on billboards around the country.
While soccer is Mexico's most popular sport, basketball has an enormous grass roots following, especially in rural, Indian towns in southern Mexico where basketball courts are becoming traditional fixtures of town squares.
When the Zapatista rebels recently held a major, three-day gathering for thousands of people, the main entertainment was a tournament among local village basketball teams. At least a few people shot hoops wearing Zapatista ski masks.
Najera said he'd like to see NBA games in other large Mexican cities.
``What I'd like better,'' he said, ``is a team in Mexico City -- an NBA team. That could happen, couldn't it?''
Najera noted that ``there's money here'' as well as ticketmaster people -- nearly 20 million in the city and its suburbs.
``If they have
a team in Mexico City,'' Najera added, ``I'm coming here.''