LeBron James, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony withdraw from world tour: NBA News
Just at the time when the negotiations between the NBA owners and National Basketball Players Association seem to have a finishing line in sight, a star studded crew of NBA players is all set to embark on a six-game world tour which begins on Sunday.
The World All-Star Classic games are scheduled to take place in four different continents of the world. However, the tour will be without three of the biggest names, who initially showed their intentions to participate in the event.
According to ESPN, LeBron James of Miami Heat, Carmelo Anthony of New York Knicks and Chris Paul of New Orleans Hornets have withdrawn their participation from the six-game expedition as the labour talk between both the parties have picked up steam. The decision of trio comes one day after Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose and Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook rejected the proposal of joining the event.
The six-game exhibition tour is still going to feature 14 big names of NBA including Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Amare Stoudemire, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Kevin Love, Tyson Chandler, Carlos Boozer, Rajon Rondo and Chris Kaman.
The tour is planned to begin on 30th October with first games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, two games in London, one game in Macau and the remaining two games in Australia. Although the world tour opener will tip off on Sunday at Jose Miguel Argelot Coliseum in San Juan, however, considering that there has been progress in the labour talks, the expedition may not continue to its other destinations as scheduled.
The organizers of the event have also not confirmed the occurrence of any games outside Puerto Rico officially.
After the NBA owners and the players union decided to re-start the negotiation process on Wednesday, new hopes of an agreement were raised. The two parties started at noon on Wednesday and sat till the wee hours of Thursday. After a 15 plus hour session, they then re-assembled on the next day and engaged talks for seven and a half hours. At the end of these talks, both parties insisted that the deal was within striking distance, with David Stern going on to say that if a breakthrough is not achieved on Friday, it will be a failure for both parties.
The developments have forced the three star players to increases their participation in the matter and they have therefore cancelled their plans of the world tour.
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