Expect a long wait at customs when you get to LA.

Get in touch with the Mavs organisation as they will help with ticketing to the game.

Get to LA first, and book your return flight from New York (or vise versa). Buy all your other flights internally in the US.

For the next 12 months watch the US dollar every second. Buy it when its good (if it ever gets good again), or at least better.

Book accommodation now... You won't get anything in Dallas during the AS weekend if you leave it too late.

Being AS weekend you'll have troubles getting franchises to look after you with good seats etc.

Personally I'd by-pass the event and go a few weeks earlier or later, and visit a few cities.

Your heading to Texas, why not do the Texas Triangle and see games in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio??

Fly into LA so you can catch a Laker game. Fly to Dallas and then do the AS game or the Texas Triangle, head up to Chicago and see MJ's statue, and then duck over to New York to watch the Knicks in MSG. You can squeeze in Boston if you fly out of New York.

Email each home team and tell them that your traveling to the States to watch your favorite team (lie if you must, but do some homework beforehand) play and they will sometimes organise a locker room excursion and a meet and greet with some players.

I'm heading over in mid 2010 for 4 weeks of pure NBA and a few college games.

Thanks guys.

All Star weekend is the plan but yeah, I'd like to go to a couple of other cities, see the sights and see some games. It's possible I may skip the ASG, because really all I want to see is some NBA and logistically it'd probably be harder to wrangle ASG tickets.

Is there any particular reason I'd have to land in LA? do flights from Australia only service LA? if that's the case, LA -> Boston -> NYC may be a plan, catch a game in each city...

Dracula, check STA Travel for good deals on LA right now. Not sure about for next year though.

I got a decent deal last year flying China Air Adelaide-New York (saved $500pp easily) but the downside is it's the long way around with a stopover (possibly overnight, though they paid accomm) in Taipei and then in Anchorage. I'd guess that Anchorage might have cheaper taxes or fees than LAX.

If you have time on your side, then it'd be worth considering. If you'd rather spend more to save time, skip it - it's not exactly a shortcut!

I've flown with probably 6-10 different Chinese airlines and this one was fine (food was great). Chinese flights have come a long way since CAAC in the early 90s (think almond juice and parsley lollies - ugh).

Oh, and if you were purely wanting to see NBA games, LA could work. I think Ben Fitz and I worked out a few weeks back that you could see about 5-6 games (between the Lakers and Clippers) in a week if the schedule was favourable!

Flights will depend on who you decide you are flying with and how many stop-overs at other countries you make.

Qantas do flights direct to LA, New York & San Francisco. LA being the shortest flight time.
But you could fly Japan Airlines from Sydney to Dallas via Tokyo.

When you start looking into the cheap flights that are advertised you often can't get one section of the flight (this has happened a lot for me). At the time I went (July 2008) the cheapest were China Airlines via Beijing but you couldn't get the connecting flight from Beijing to LA. I ended up going Tahiti Air via Tahiti.

Sorry can't give you much info on NBA games as I've only been in USA summer. Though if you want to go to a WNBA game don't bother getting the tickets before you leave. The women's games are never packed out and it's really easy to get tickets on the day (but that's not going to help you)

Meg

It is extremely expensive to go to see a Laker game. I went over the new year in 07/08 to Staples Center and paid about 500 USD for my ticket. Mind you, that was centre court, 2 rows from courtside.

Other tickets were also in the 200-300USD price range for a game at the Staples Center.

A friend of mine recently went to Boston and saw a Celtics game, very pricey. I'd imagine that the Garden would be the same as well.

As for the All Star Weekend, that's extremely difficult to get tickets for. You'll have to pay mega dollars to get tickets for that, as hardly any ever get sold to the general public through Ticketmaster.

As for Dallas, I wouldn't even bother staying in Dallas for a week. I'd fly from Melbourne to Frisco and stay there for a few days, then fly to Dallas a day or so before the All Star weekend.

Getting tickets ain't easy. Your best bet is to get them through a broker. It'll cost a bit more than face value, but you get much better seats.

Cool...

Yeah, being as I'll be having to take annual leave I'll probably only have about 2 weeks all up, so flying to LA will probably be the best bet. I'm not too knowledgeable on US Geography but I was thinking domestic flights to Chicago, Boston, NY and then back to LA for the trip home may be decent...

NY to LA is flying across the whole US... See what the cost of Adelaide-LA / LA-Adelaide is compared to Adelaide-LA / NY-Adelaide.

Also be cheaper to fly out of Sydney or Melbourne. Get a discount flight to one of these sh*tholes (sorry, cities) and see if that is more viable.

Book your tickets across while V Australia are still new. For now at least they are keep the competition honest and you will pick up some really good deals on flights.

AA will fly you to Dallas fairly cheaply as it is there main hub.

I went to the ASG in Vegas. Tickets were unbelievably expensive. $4500 AUD for Rookie Game and ASG.
We got tickets through champion travel in Adelaide (speak to Nick), who organised them through a ticketing agency online. We could have sold them for a lot more over there though i reckon.

Picking up tickets was dodgy, we had to travel to the burbs of Vegas to a small hotel and meet a guy. We were very scared.

I would suggest that as soon as you get tickets, (they'll be available late march) book your flights and accommodation. Our room rates tripled for the AS wknd. Lucky we booked in advance. Mind you it was chinese new year as well.

Champion travel were pretty good to us, organised most of the 2 week trip (LA and LV).

If you want to ask anymore, just let me know...

Hehehe whos recommending travel agents lol. Buy Your flights online, last flight I returned home from the USA cost me $750 from LA/Auckland/Adelaide with Air New Zealand who are possibly the best airline ive flown with...mainly because i could fit in the seats.
I by most of my Flights around the US, and my flights to Aus on Travelocity.com WELL cheaper than a travel agent will ever be able to give you unless you know one that will drop their comission 100%.

Dont goto Dallas, its a shithole in terms of the USA. Honestly if you can goto a smaller team on a game they play one of the top teams, youll be able to snag courtside tickets for around 200-300. Did this several times in Washington, always worth it and i never had to book more than 1 week in advance.
As for Accomodation throughout the US Ive never had to book in advance, although I always hire a car so Im happy to goto cheaper places outside of the city centre.

Either way Goto Vegas Lol! and have fun

He is wantng to go to the all star weekend in Dallas so to by pass Dallas would kind defeat the point of the trip I would think.

" It's possible I may skip the ASG, because really all I want to see is some NBA and logistically it'd probably be harder to wrangle ASG tickets"

Clearly hes not sure yet, I simply gave my opinion that he would get better tickets cheaper elsewhere...and that Dallas is a shithole, which it is.
So next time you "think", perhaps reading all of his responses would be best before commenting on someones advice.

Heh...

Yeah, my interest was to go to the all star game, but based on some people's advice it may not be the best option - and yes, the only reason I would go to Dallas is for the all star game so it's still possible I'd skip it in favour of touring a few cities and catching a few random games.

I just returned from a 1 month trip where we followed the suns on a 6 game roadtrip then spent a week in phoenix also, met heaps of players and management etc and had great seats too

If anyone wants to read or see photos etc, you can check them here
photos http://tinyurl.com/d63bya
blogs http://tinyurl.com/bm6jhy

im more than happy to share advice with anyone wanting to go over

i dont have time to respond now, but i will get back to it on the weekend... if youve got any specifics just post it and ill be back like arnie.... :-)

also to the person saying its hundreds of dollars to get to a lakers game, BS

i went to 2 not this trip, but the trip before and one i paid $35.00 in the nosebleeds and one i paid $150 for in the lower bowl from a re-seller

Hey mate,

Not having read what other ppl have said, my advice if you go to Big D

Good Luck with it all - flights use www.statravel.com.au for the Australia to US leg, then buy your flights from the US direct, much cheaper over there. When I was there used the US Site for STA Travel (www.statravel.com) - ps you don't need to be a student to book, just click adult fare). Dallas is a city in the middle of the friggin Desert! There are some cool bars to visit, me and my mate have dated a few texans (from "BIG D") back in our Uni Days, it's a funny place....LOTS of Money in that city, but it's definitely a place where you need to know people to get the most out of it, I don't know how old you are, but if you're even up to Mid 20's, while there try razz up a few college bars - Southern Methodist University is the biggest in D town is a good place to start, LOTS OF WOMEN THERE lol(www.smu.eu), get to know some locals and they'll want you to come out with them and show u a good time - In General, Americans are really friendly (FAKE, but Friendly)- work the accent haha! Well If you get in with some young locals stick it out there for a bit, cos they'll show u a good time - otherwise, head to LA or Cali or Vegas - no point hangin out in the middle of the desert if u don't know some good crew! Ok kinda getting off track lol, RE TICKETS I have no idea - but if you meet some rich fratty boys or sorority girls I'm sure their folks may have box seats to the game lol, we got free tix to the Mav's games through random people we met.....other than that I have no idea where 2 get them, ALL star game Tix would be hot hot hot property! Also a very valuable side note, try to find an airline that has a stop over in Hawaii on the way / way back......if you get on that flight you can spend like a week in hawaii for the same cost as if you got a flight from LA - Aus Direct, just a pointer as you may enjoy a "free" visit to hawaii.

Anyway Dude, get out there and party like a rockstar - good luck with it all!

Something you might want to think about also is getting around in the states will most of the time require a car. So perhaps get ready to drive on the right side! It's next to impossible getting around other methods as the place is so much bigger with the public transport system relatively dodgy.

Probably start looking at American or Southwest Airline for domestic flights, they're notmally the cheaper ones.

Another thing to note, funny to come out of me but...why see a game in LA? perhaps wait till about August when they release the 09-10 schedule and go to another city (eg. Chicago-which has some great sights, New Orlean-if you like clubbing and perhaps feel the origin of jazz, DC- pure sight seeing IMO) to check the Lakers in action. The tickets normally are alot cheaper, but of course going away from Hollywood probably means you won't see no stars during the game.

Also personally, I've always loved to see games where superstars vs a sub par team because that's really when the stars will make some history! Of course with exceptions of Lakers-Celtics match, which has really came back alive.

Another thing to keep in mind is...since you're only going for a week or 2 it might be better to just tour around 2 cities because remember the time zone will also require 2-3 days of adjustment. And especially there's so much going on in LA you might consider to stay there about 10 days to just have a decent tour around the place (while in LA you might want to tour these places: (i) obviously around hollywood, (ii) Beverly Hills (iii) checkout Chinatown (iv) if possible also visit San Pedro Bay; port of LA (v) Hollywood Bowl (vi) LA Memorial Coliseum where you can also checkout a USC college football game (the atmosphere is great and bigger than AFL here!))

save NY for next time perhaps