NBA - National teams' stars take center stage as new season tips off

NEW YORK (NBA/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Less than a year ago, the NBA was in turmoil.

Team owners had locked out the players and shut down league operations on 1 July 2011 after the expiration of the old Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

The two sides haggled over money.

The main issues were the division of revenue generated by the league, the structure of the salary cap and the luxury tax.

Players and owners eventually found common ground and agreed to a new CBA, ratifying it in early December.

The season, with 66 games and not the normal 82 for every side, finally tipped off on Christmas day and the Miami Heat, led by LeBron James, eventually won the title.

Miami beat the Kevin Durant-led Oklahoma City Thunder in the best-of-seven showdown, 4-1.

James and Durant then joined forces and led Team USA to a second straight Olympic gold medal in London.

Every year, leading international players like James run onto the court for their NBA teams and on Tuesday, that will be the case yet again when the Heat host Boston on opening night.

The 2012-13 NBA season will have no shortage of international players as a record-tying 84 of them - from 37 countries and territories - are on the rosters of 29 of the 30 teams.

USA stars James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh might be the biggest names in action as the season tips off on Tuesday night, but the list of international leading lights is impressive.

Just look at the players who will compete in Tuesday’s other two games, the Washington Wizards at the Cleveland Cavaliers and Dallas Mavericks at the Los Angeles Lakers.

Washington will have Jan Vesely of the Czech Republic and France’s Kevin Seraphin while for Cleveland there will be Anderson Varejao of Brazil, Omri Casspi of Israel, Tristan Thompson of Canada and Kyrie Irving, a future playmaker with Team USA.

All of the players have a realistic shot of playing at the 24-team FIBA Basketball World Cup in Spain.

In Dallas is France’s Rodrigue Beaubois and Germany’s Chris Kaman and Dirk Nowitzki, while the Lakers have Kobe Bryant (USA), Pau Gasol (Spain), Robert Sacre (Canada) and Dwight Howard (USA).

Nowitzki just underwent knee surgery and is out of action for several weeks for Dallas. Bryant's status for the season opener is in doubt because of a sprained right foot.

There are plenty of sides stocked with leading international players.

The Minnesota Timberwolves have signed Russia’s Olympic bronze-medal winners Andrei Kirilenko and Alexey Shved.

The T-Wolves already had Spain’s Ricky Rubio, Team USA’s Kevin Love, Puerto Rico’s Jose Barea and Montenegro’s Nikola Pekovic on the books.

The Phoenix Suns have Goran Dragic of Slovenia, Luis Scola of Argentina and Marcin Gortat of Poland.

Dragic will be the face of EuroBasket 2013 since Slovenia are hosts.

The EuroBasket will be the qualifying event on the old continent for the FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Gortat will also be at the EuroBasket, while Scola will be a headline name in Caracas, Venezuela, at the FIBA Americas Championship.

Ike Diogu of Nigeria attempted to make the Suns’ roster but was cut, yet his countryman Al-Farouq Aminu will be with the New Orleans Hornets along with Venezuela’s talisman, Greivis Vasquez.

The San Antonio Spurs always have their share of international players, but they've set a new record this season with a total of eight players representing six different countries. They include star player and US Virgin Islands native Tim Duncan, Scola’s Argentina teammate Manu Ginobili and Brazil’s Tiago Splitter.

The Spurs also have four point guards, in fact, who are national team stars in veteran Tony Parker of France, Canada’s Cory Joseph, Australia’s Pat Mills and Parker’s fellow French Olympian, Nando de Colo.

Boris Diaw is a third Frenchman in the Spurs line-up.

In all, France boasts the largest contingent of foreign players in the NBA with a total of 10.

Lithuanian rookie Jonas Valanciunas and veteran Linas Kleiza are north of the border in Toronto with the Raptors along with Spain playmaker Jose Calderon and Italian Andrea Bargnani.

The Houston Rockets are a side that has several prominent national team players in Turkey center Omer Asik, Argentina sharpshooter Carlos Delfino, Lithuanian Donatas Motiejunas, Brazilian Scott Machado and since Saturday, Team USA’s James Harden.

Many more clubs have national team stars that will cause a stir on a weekly basis this year in the NBA.

One big factor heading into the new season is the impending departure of long-time NBA commissioner David Stern.

Just last week, Stern, announced that he will step down on 1 February, 2014.

That will be 30 years to the day that he first became commissioner as the successor to Larry O’Brien.

Stern also announced last week that he will be succeeded by Adam Silver, his deputy commissioner.

FIBA