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Mike Curtis: Asked Cooper Flagg about playing in the altitude in Mexico City, which is over 2,000 feet higher than Denver: “I’m not gonna lie. It was tough. I was breathing really, really hard for most of the game. At the end of the day, it was something everybody was dealing with.”
The NBA has seen tremendous growth, with an estimated 33 million fans in the country, said Raul Zarraga, vice president and managing director of NBA Mexico, which opened a Mexico City office in 2008. That’s an increase from an estimated 19.7 million fans in 2019, the last time the Mavericks played at Arena Ciudad de Mexico. “For fans outside of the U.S., the opportunity for them to enjoy a live experience of an NBA game is very limited,” Zarraga recently told The Dallas Morning News. “This is part of our commitment to provide this live experience to fans all around the world.”
One notable ambassador for the Mavericks and the Mexico City Game is Eduardo Najera, one of six players from Mexico to play in the NBA. Najera, who was a Maverick from 2001 to 2004 and in 2009-10, encouraged his home country to embrace the Mavericks in March when the franchise donated a basketball court in Monterrey. “The Mavericks should be the team of Mexico,” Nájera said in a prepared statement. “This was my dream, when I was playing with the Mavericks, to do this type of event in Mexico. We want to continue the growth of basketball, specifically with the Dallas Mavericks throughout this country.”
Marc Stein: In an @AP story from Mexico City, Dallas’ Anthony Davis is quoted telling local reporters before today’s practice: “It is going to be day to day, But I feel better — that is for sure.” Davis left Wednesday’s win over Indiana with what the team listed as left lower leg soreness.
As one of the league’s few active players of Mexican descent, Jaquez’s connection to the region runs deeper than most. After playing in Mexico City as part of the NBA Global Games last season, he expressed strong support for the city’s readiness to host a full-time NBA franchise. “Yeah, it was a great experience,” Jaquez told RG.org. “The fans had a great time and really embraced us and the NBA. I definitely think it’d be a great location if the league wants to expand. It’s a beautiful city with a lot to do down there. I think it only makes sense — there’s already a team in Canada, so to have one down in Mexico would be great.”
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Marc Stein: Anthony Davis is expected to be ruled out of Dallas’ game Saturday in Mexico City against Detroit after exiting Wednesday night with left lower leg soreness. An official status update remains TBA after Davis was listed earlier in the week with bilateral Achilles tendinopathy.
Dink Pate has agreed to sign with the New York Knicks. Pate went undrafted this week after spending the 2024-25 season in the G League with the Mexico City Capitanes.
Adam Silver: There's cities worth thinking about. Dan Patrick: How many cities would you say are on that wish list? Silver: Well, let me begin by saying it. It's not obvious to me we should expand. I think it's likely over time we will. And and the reason I say it's not obvious is because as a global business, you know, where something like two billion people will connect with us on social media, over a billion people over the course of the year will watch some portion of the game: Adding another US city, arguably, it's unclear how much growth we'll get as a result of that. And when you're adding expansion franchises, you're diluting your competition. Let's say we expand by two teams, two more teams that you know are going to be competing for those same players and you're diluting your economics to the extent we have locked in television money now for the next decade you have two more partners. Having said that, I do believe certain markets potentially can be additive to the NBA and that's what we’re gonna look at. I think part of it is geographic it's a big country you know making sure we're represented you know all around the country and then over time maybe there's more we can do in Canada and Mexico City as a city we've talked about before.
Mexico will get to see NBA stars play in a regular-season game in the 2025-26 season. The league announced on Tuesday that the Dallas Mavericks and the Detroit Pistons will be the teams sharing the court in a game in Mexico City in November. “The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Zignia Live today announced that The NBA Mexico City Game 2025 will feature the Dallas Mavericks and the Detroit Pistons playing a regular-season game hosted by Zignia Live at the Arena CDMX in Mexico City on Saturday, Nov. 1.,” the leagues' statement read (via the NBA's official website).
NBA Communications: The NBA and Zignia Live today announced that The NBA Mexico City Game 2025 will feature the @dallasmavs and the @DetroitPistons playing a regular-season game hosted by Zignia Live at the Arena CDMX in Mexico City on Saturday, Nov. 1. Complete release: https://pr.nba.com/mavericks-pistons-mexico-city-2025/
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The Mexico City Capitanes have just finished their third home season in the G League, where they led all teams in attendance, merchandise, single-game ticket sales and general overall ambience. The reward is a place on the NBA’s expansion list alongside Seattle and Las Vegas, and whether Mexico City is next in line or third in line (and the latter is more likely), there is now hard and anecdotal evidence that an NBA franchise could prosper in that bilingual culture. “That’s what Capitanes are fighting for,” said Nuño Pérez-Pla de Alvear, the team’s president. “All the work that we have been doing these last few years has been to prove to the NBA that having an NBA team makes sense here in Mexico City.”
G League executives were learning about the city on the fly. Before the team played its official home opener at Arena CDMX in 2022-23, the league was informed there would be drums pounding throughout the game — a tried and true tradition borrowed from soccer — and the league had to alter a rule prohibiting that. Mariachi bands would be roaming the stands, as well, with firm instructions not to play during the action. But they were tempted. On the operations side, there were questions about whether travel in and out of the county would be seamless for players and referees, and the answer, according to Abdur-Rahim, was yes. A trip from Dallas to Mexico City was 2 hours, 45 minutes; from New York was 5 hours, 30 minutes; from L.A. three hours, 40 minutes. It was no different from the NBA’s winding, coast-to-coast travel, other than the teams flew commercial.
This past January, the Capitanes drew a G League-record crowd of 19,328 for a game against the South Bay Lakers and finished with an unofficial season attendance total of 155,610, an average of 6,477 per game. The ticket prices were moderate, with the premier courtside seats going for $200 and dropping incrementally to between $90 to $150 in the first few rows to between $35 to $40 in the lower bowl, to $3 or $4 in the upper bowl. The team also led the G League in single-game ticket sales, largely because Sherman said the Mexican culture is to purchase “walk-up” tickets rather than season tickets or group sales. The front office is diligently working to change that.
But the team’s crowds on the road are perhaps the biggest eye-opener of all. At first, groups of as many as 2,000 Hispanic fans would organically attend Capitanes games. But now there are Hispanic Heritage Nights or Mexican Nights in a bevy of G League cities such as Los Angeles and Greensboro that include mariachi bands and pop-up taco stands — doubling the Capitanes rooting section to about 4,000 fans. “You have tons of Mexicans living in the U.S. and over 80 million Latins living in the U.S. that … are going to support a Latin team,” Pérez-Pla de Alvear said.