NBA urges venue rethink for 2012

The sport's world-governing body FIBA will hold a crisis meeting in Berlin tomorrow to discuss the plan to scrap the building of a temporary venue that was to have held the early stages of the event.

While the semi-finals and final in 2012 will be at the O2 Arena which successfully hosted the pre-season clash between the New Jersey Nets and Miami Heat last night the latest proposal is for the early group stages and quarter-finals to be held at Wembley Arena.

NBA Commissioner David Stern said: "The O2 is spectacular and will be a great place for the finals. Unfortunately, despite the early assurances there would be some state of the art arena that would house the basketball competition, we understand only the semi-finals and final will be here.

"The rest of the tournament might be played at Wembley Arena which was relatively outdated when we played there in 1993. This is a giant step backwards. We will support FIBA because we want our sport to be showcased well, that's very important. There is a lot we can show to our fans in the UK at a good venue."

While Stern has reservations about Wembley, he has no such doubts about the O2 where his team sold out 18,689 tickets for a pre-season friendly for a second consecutive year, success which has convinced the Commissioner that a regular season game can succeed in London.

Stern said: "Though we have no plans on the drawing board, it has been suggested to us that over the next three years or so we should schedule regular season games here, more than just one.

"In the light of our success here this game sold out virtually immediately I think it's fair to say we will see a minimum of one regular season game here in the UK before 2012."

Last night, Jay-Z, a part-owner of the Nets, was among a host of celebrities at the O2 including fellow musician Dizzee Rascal, Olympians Tom Daley and Phillips Idowu plus footballers Alan Smith, Djibril Cisse and Darren Bent.

The Nets, shot into a 30-11 lead but allowed Miami to recover and set up an exciting finale in which Vince Carter hit the decisive free-throw with four seconds to go as New Jersey won 94-92. Carter led his team with 19 points, the same as Miami's Marcus Banks.

Miami star Dwyane Wade was stunned by the atmosphere at the O2. He said: "It's always great to hear fans react like that, you never know what to expect when you go overseas.

"I had the chance to make an appearance with Darren Bent in London on Saturday and it was great to meet him and interact with some of the fans. It was a lot of fun."