So I Go Into A Basketball Clothing Shop Here in Riga....

[diego]

That's too bad. Not even some Manu or Splitter stuff? I see you're in Chile, so I guess it doesn't stretch across country lines. I wonder how hard it is to get Spurs stuff in Argentina or Brazil?

Not sure what the global appeal of the Rockets is. Yeah, I get they took the Chinese market because of Yao Ming. But a) he's long retired. and b) why does that make them popular in countries as varied as Latvia and Chile?

You'd think as the world champs we'd get some market penetration.

i've been to brazil, argentina and uruguay since last june, its basically the same everywhere (granted the big cities in arg and brasil should have more if you look harder). in argentina in a few shops there was a little bit of manu gear, and a little indoor basket with a print of him on the backboard, but its knockoff/ non official crap and really pretty rare to see- its funny that everyone assumes he is extremely well loved in argentina, when he is really not very popular (especially since arg senior team hasnt won anything since 04). i saw more rose(!?) / kobe / lebron jerseys than anything else.

Once i was at a speaker store and the guy behind the counter was wearing a duncan jersey. I start giving him props and he tells me "yeah never heard of em a friend gave it to me". The only people here who know anything about the NBA are people who actively play basketball.

[BillMc]

"yeah never heard of em a friend gave it to me".

Yet, Marco gets naked magazine covers in Italy.

But, it makes sense. I am surprised Manu isn't bigger in Argentina. But as you see the national team hasn't won since '04. A long time in sports.

I once high-fived a guy wearing a DeJuan Blair jersey when I was living in Eastern Ukraine. He had no idea who Blair was either. Such is life.

That said, you do get a lot of hard core basketball fans around the world who know as much or even more than their American counterparts. All down to the individual.

[Cellophane_eyes]

Hi BillMc

I'm in Riga on vacation - could you please post the adress of the newly opened NBA store in Riga? (or the name of the shop? etc.). Google searches dosn't give me much to go on�� or perhaps it's my missing skills in the Latvian native tongue that is the problem.
My son and I really like to go see the shop.