The 2007 NBA All-Star game is headed to Las Vegas, the first time a city without a franchise has been chosen to host the event.

The festivities will take place just off the Strip, at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus (Ellerbe Becket renovated Thomas & Mack and designed and built the Cox Pavilion next door that will host a number of All-Star weekend activities).

Commissioner David Stern called it “a merger between the basketball capital of the world and the entertainment capital of the world’ during a news conference Aug. 5 while downplaying any concern about linking the image-conscious NBA with Sin City and gambling.

“If I were concerned, I wouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

Casinos will not take bets on any All-Star events under a ban proposed by the NBA and approved in June by state gambling regulators.

Such bans are not unprecedented in Las Vegas. The Palms hotel-casino does not accept bets on professional basketball games because it is owned by the Maloof family, which also owns the Sacramento Kings.

Memphis and New Orleans (two other cities with Ellerbe Becket–designed NBA facilities) also submitted bids to host the 2007 game, but Stern said the league wanted to expand its reach.

“The step here,” Stern said, “is to open this up to non-NBA cities.”

An innovator since its founding in 1909, Ellerbe Becket is a leader in architecture, engineering and the construction industry with office locations worldwide.

Contact: news@ellerbebecket.com