The NBA gets worldly

A Madrileño who I met on the town´s basketball court a few days ago invited me to watch the big game tonight with him and a few friends. The big game pitted the NBA´s own Toronto Raptors against the Spanish league´s Real Madrid.
Three guesses who won?
Go with the logical answer and you´ll be wrong every time.
Real Madrid beat the Raptors.
The final score was 104-103, but the numbers were a little closer than reality, as Toronto hit a meaningless three at the last second.
To be fair, the Raptors were missing their biggest star, Chris Bosh. Still, an NBA team losing to a Spanish league team?
Gut instinct says that´s unprecedented.
It´s not so unprecedented. Just this month the Memphis Grizzlies lost a close one to Unicaja 102-99. (Both Memphis and Toronto have two players each from Spain. Like Yao Ming´s Rockets, huge in China, these teams are big draws here.) And last year, the Philadelphia 76ers lost 104-99 to Sant Jordi (see Memphis link).
It´s not all bad news for the NBA, though. After their loss at Unicaja, Memphis dismantled the Spanish League team Estudiantes later in the month.
Also, these are pre-season games, so even when the NBA teams do field full line-ups, the players aren´t going full-bore.
But Spain has proven something basic -- its teams are competitive with at least the middle of the NBA pack.
Tonight, three Spanish boys crowded around a TV where national pride hung in the balance. And all across Madrid, all across Spain, similar scenes played out around other TVs.
Imagine the market for the NBA if it that N for "National" became an "I." Imagine the excitement that kind of expansion would create back here in the states, and all around the world.
Why not?