The first time an international club played an exhibition against an NBA team was in 1978, when European powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv beat the defending NBA champion Washington Bullets in Israel as part of the inaugural NBA Global Games.
When the late David Stern became the commissioner of the NBA in 1984, he set out to make basketball a global game in part by increasing the frequency of inter-league matches, bringing them to Asia, Africa, South America and, eventually, North America for the first time in 1987. Now, international clubs travel to North America every preseason to test themselves against NBA competition.
