Remember those old McDonalds Championship games, where the champion from each major league would face off - the NBA champion being the jewel in the crown?  The NBA did this to try to expand its fanbase and and reap the benefits of cashing in on a previously untapped market.  Well, years later Jeffery Delong of the Winston-Salem Journal looks at the effects of this NBA move, concluding that they were successful on both counts.

For evidence he needs to look no further than his own teams' backyard, where Hornets forward Jerome Moiso first saw Charlotte take on the Golden State Warriors in the first professional game he saw in person, beginning a love for the game which has landed him in the highest of all leagues.