LeBron, Carmelo and Paul Drop Out of Global Tour

Photo credit: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

     LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul have dropped out of the World All-Star Classic. This tour contains six games, with trips to four different continents. The tour was going to start off on Sunday in San Juan, Puerto Rico and then make stops in London, Macau and Melbourne, Australia.
     Although Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and Amare Stoudemire plan on playing in the Classic, the absence of these three superstars puts the tour in danger. More information on this issue can be found at this website.
     LeBron, Carmelo and Paul told reporter Chris Broussard that they wanted to take advantage of the NBA Lockout and spend more time with their families. The three said they made their decision together after talking about it throughout the past week.
     Oklahoma City's superstar Kevin Durant also told ESPN's Ric Bucher that he was considering not participating in the World All-Star Classic.
     However, this trio was not the first group of players to withdraw from the global tour. Chicago Bull's Derrick Rose who won the NBA Most Valuable Player award last year, and Oklahoma City Thunder's Russel Westbrook also pulled themselves out of the tour.
     Rose told reporters, "The scheduling was just too tough." Rose is currently involved in a basketball exhibition in Hawaii, and thought that dealing with both that and the Classic would be too hard on him.

Ben Rieden (Poptart)