The Sports Economist points to an article in the New York Times talking about foreign-born NBA players and their backgrounds growing up playing soccer in places like Canada, Brazil and Europe.

As a big fan of Arsenal, I’ve seen a lot of the basketball – soccer overlap. Spike Lee, a big hoops fan, has been wearing soccer jerseys for a while (I’ve seen or heard of him wearing Brazil, Arsenal & Inter Milan). The Arsenal team from several years ago were all big hoops fans, led by Patrick Vieira, Kanu and Thierry Henry, who is good friends with the Spurs’ Tony Parker.

With the global popularity of the two sports, it’s interesting that teams or leagues haven’t tried to work partnerships. Maybe we’ll see that in the future.