As I walked under a temporary seating stand in the O2 Arena, in the spot where the stage would be on concert nights, I encountered a 7ft tall, furry green dragon, a trio of entertainers towering above me on stilts, and a gaggle of children and adults practising a dance routine. The circus was not in town, but the NBA was.
I’ll preface everything that is to come in this article with a disclaimer: for the best part of two decades, I’ve had a difficult relationship with basketball. At school, I was a keen fan and actually a fairly handy player, but over time, I became somewhat jaded by the realisation that being vertically compromised was an insurmountable barrier to a professional career on the court.
