<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The National Basketball Association (NBA) today announced that it has postponed the international preseason game between the Utah Jazz and the CSKA-Moscow team, scheduled for Oct. 8, 2004, due to the unstable situation in Russia threatening security of the game. The league will work together with the CSKA club to reschedule the game at a date to be determined.</div> Link
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting kobebryant89:</div><div class="quote_post">I still don't exactly get why they cancelled it.</div> Because the NBA see's Russia as "unstable" right now. They care about the safety of their players, and due to the recent tragedy in Russia, it was agreed it was to risky to carry on with the trip. It may be played at a later date, so it isn't exactly cancelled.
I think it was a good idea to cancel the game. If you think about it, if the terrorist knows an American Basketball team is going to be playing in Russia, it would be the perfect attack, since it seems some of the biggest terrorist attacks have been towards US and Russia. Also, someone could make the argument that the Jazz will be on a private jet, but once they get to land or in the arena, its hard to get out of there. Anyways, its just a PRESEASON ball game.
Moscow fumes as Utah Jazz pulls out of NBA date <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">MOSCOW : Russian basketball champions CSKA Moscow said they were disappointed that NBA giants Utah Jazz had pulled out off a planned exhibition match here because of security fears. "We were hoping the match would take place here in time," said CSKA president Alexander Gomelsky. "The situation in Israel is also far from perfect but the organisers there have held the Euroleague final four tournament this year without any incidents." CSKA insisted that they had done all they could to guarantee the Americans' safety for the October 8 match. "Moscow city hall had supplied our North American partners with all possible security guarantees but unfortunately the NBA headquarters decided to avoid any possibility of a risk and called off the match," said Gomelsky. "We understand the reasons for the decision and share their fears concerning the current situation in Russia, but we are not supposed to give up and will definitely hold the match here in 2005." </div> Link NBA giants Utah Jazz? BTW, congrats members, the Jazz forum now has 2000 posts. .
I don't think that they should have cancelled the game. They didn't cancel the Olympics when there was thought to be a strong terrorism threat. They didn't cancel games (however they did postpone them) in New York City after September 11. I feel disappointed for CSKA and Russia that this game has been cancelled. Much of the proceeds to this game was to go to the victims of the terrorists. I wouldn't advocate anybody putting themselves in legitimate danger, but for us to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan on the premise of fighting against terrorism doesn't it seem hypocritical that we are against playing a game to help in the recovery efforts of a country that was just a victim of terrorism. I personally would have loved to see how both J.R. Holden and Marcus Brown of CSKA would have matched up against the Jazz. I think that it is chicken sh*t on the part of David Stern (or anybody else involved) that this game isn't being played. I know someone will probably reply that the game hasn't been cancelled but instead postponed to 2005 but in my estimation a one year postponement is the same thing as saying that it has been cancelled.
