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Cape Town - National Basketball Association (NBA) vice-president and managing director for Africa, Amadou Gallo Fall, has promised that the third NBA Africa Game will be exciting.
The match will be played in support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Gallo Fall said that this year the NBA would honour Madiba in what would have been his 100th year.
He added that the game would feature new players and some who were not featured last year to create diversity.
"We are celebrating diversity because more than 20 percent of players in the NBA are from outside the US," he said.
Gallo Fall said they were bringing the game back to Africa because they had seen increasing interest among local fans.
The NBA Africa Game will again feature Team Africa vs Team World.
Team Africa will be represented by players born in Africa or with direct family ties to the continent, and Team World will consist of players from the rest of the world.
There are more than 80 current and former NBA players from Africa with direct ties to the continent.
Last year, the event was sold out at the 20 000-seater Dome, north of Johannesburg.
"This game and the community events will further build on our efforts to use the transformative power of basketball to foster positive social change," Gallo Fall said.
Last year, Basketball Without Borders, an NBA National Basketball Players Association project, built homes in Orange Farm and Lenasia in Gauteng.
Another project, NBA Cares, has built 77 centres in Africa where children and families live and learn to play basketball.
Last year's NBA Africa Game was played in support of charities that included Unicef, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and SOS Children's Villages SA.
Gallo Fall said that there would be local and international celebrities at this year's event.
Football legend Thierry Henry and musician Akon were two of the high-profile guests at last year's event.
The NBA Africa Game will be played on Saturday, August 4 at the Time Square Sun Arena in Pretoria at 17:00.
Tickets cost between R265 and R2 555. Book at computicket.co.za
