When the NBA made the momentous decision to add a G League team south of the U.S. border in Mexico City, it made history. The world’s premier basketball league had established a presence outside of the United States and Canada for the first time in its seven-plus decades of existence.
The possibility of pulling not only the NBA’s fans in a nation of over 120 million souls closer, but all of Latin America via lucrative broadcasting rights deals also had a subtext: What might come later should the Capitanes — Mexico City’s G League team — be successful.
Would an NBA team ever make its home in the Mexican capital or elsewhere in the republic?
Fast forward several years and the Capitanes are among the best-attended and most-beloved clubs playing in the NBA’s developmental league just as that league was leaned on more by their Association counterparts.