The NBA plays on a global stage
     When Phoenix Suns President Rick Welts was running the NBA's international business activities, he likened his work tothe music business.
      "You make your money selling CDs, but once in a while you have to show your product live in concert," Welts said.
      That's why NBA fans worldwide have seen the Suns in Italy, the San Antonio Spurs in France, the Philadelphia 76ers in Spain and the Los Angeles Clippers in Russia. The NBA rocks internationally and has done so since 1988, when the Atlanta Hawks played in the Soviet Union. The NBA took a game America cultivated and fed the world. The league featured roster players from 38 nations last season. Half of the 2006 Western Conference All-Stars are foreign born.
      The NBA has held games in 13 nations and territories. The practice is for more than basketball goodwill-it's good business.
      "For our popularity, awareness of the NBA, our international business and our TV overseas, the most important thing we can do is to play games live," said NBA Vice President of International Communications Terry Lyons. "From fans who see the games to business partners, everybody comes away energized. It's an absolute boost."
   "This effort, combined with the world championship, is a wonderful [world] focus on basketball," Lyons said.
   There is the thought that showing the world's best basketball bolsters the talent pool by engaging young foreigners. Zydrunas Ilgauskas' 7-foot-3-inch frame may have led him to the NBA anyway, but the seed was planted when his father took him to the Hawks-Soviet Union game in Lithuania in 1988.
    "Sometimes, it's about getting a kid in Treviso [Italy] to start bouncing a basketball," Lyons said. "You just never know where the next guy is going to come from."

Vocabulary Focus
liken (v)--- to say that something is similar to or has the same qualities as something else
rock (v)--- to cause someone to be excited due to its popularity
bolster (v)--- to support something or make it stronger
seed (being) planted (idiom)--- the act of an idea being introduced and then fixed firmly in the mind

Specialized Terms
NBA (n phr)--- （美国职业篮球协会的缩写）美国职篮 abbreviation for National Basketball Association; the leading, organized group of U.S. basketball teams that have paid players
roster (n)--- （球员）名单 a list of team members' names, often with the positions they play