SHANGHAI – You never know who you might see at 4 a.m. on a Wednesday in Anchorage, Alaska.
For dozens of U.S. military personnel – many of whom had dozed off in the wee hours, as they waited to travel to their next assignment – a mundane morning provided a completely unexpected surprise, when two NBA teams strolled into an otherwise quiet Anchorage airport. One member of the Army stood up in a dining area and excitedly told his colleagues, “Hey guys, James Harden and (retired Hall of Fame center) Dikembe Mutombo are right over there!” not realizing that at that exact moment, three-time All-Star and U.S. Olympic gold medalist Anthony Davis was standing 10 feet behind him, just out of the soldier's field of vision.
Roughly halfway through their lengthy trip to China that began Tuesday evening, the New Orleans Pelicans and Houston Rockets made a brief two-hour layover in America's coldest state, as their planes refueled. Another nine-hour leg of the journey to Asia awaited, but as a result of the uncanny timing, players, coaches, employees and guests conversed and caught up in the most unexpected of locations. The Pelicans and Rockets actually have a series of notable connections, including three players who changed addresses this summer. Terrence Jones joined New Orleans after spending his first four NBA seasons with Houston; Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon signed with the Rockets in July after they'd been teammates since 2012 in the Crescent City.
The two Southwest Division clubs completed their excursion to China early Thursday morning, traversing through customs and arriving at the same hotel in downtown Shanghai. The Pelicans will have a team dinner in China on Thursday night (Shanghai is 13 hours ahead of New Orleans), then hold their first practice in the country on Friday morning.
