In an era when international expansion appears to be professional sport’s raison d’être, the NBA All-Star Game takes place tomorrow in New Orleans, a setting that offers a poignant reminder of the need to take care of those closer to home.

A city still suffering from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina nearly 2½ years ago, New Orleans is home to one of the best teams this season, the Hornets. Unfortunately, a population that, at slightly more than 300,000 is only just over half its pre-Katrina level, is struggling to support the Hornets, a team who relocated from Charlotte in 2002 and who entered the All-Star break with a 36-15 win-loss record, the best in the extremely strong Western Conference.

Inspired by the outstanding play of Chris Paul, the point guard, the Hornets have been the feelgood story of American sport over recent months, attracting admirers all over the basketball world but filling their 17,961-capacity New Orleans Arena only twice and averaging crowds of 12,645, the seventh lowest average attendance in the league.

After spending the past two seasons in Oklahoma City, while their home arena underwent extensive repair, there are fears that New Orleans, which fervently backs the Saints, its NFL team, for their eight home games of the American Football season, will prove unwilling, or unable, to support a second professional sports franchise.

To that end, the team returned to New Orleans under a complicated two-year lease that gives them an option to leave after the 2008-09 season if the Hornets fail to draw an average attendance of 14,735 (their preKatrina mark) over the final five months of this season and first five of next.

Already lagging behind that mark and with Oklahoma City keen to take the team back permanently, the NBA has placed the ball firmly in New Orleans’ court. “I think it’s fair enough,” David Stern, the NBA commissioner, said in the city this week. “I mean, they moved here, they left because they had to, they’re back. Let’s make it work. It’s easy. We’re not here with a two-by-four to influence people.

“I have hopes and aspirations but the reality is, to me, the team is less important than the city. I hope the businesses pitch in but honestly, I’m more delighted to see the state of New Orleans in its recovery.”

The recovery is still a work in progress. The breaching of over 50 badly-designed levees in and around the city in August 2005 led to 80 per cent of it being flooded, the deaths of at least 1,836 people around the region and $81.2 billion (about £40.6 billion) of damage. In total, more than 90,000 square miles – roughly the size of the UK – were declared federal disaster areas by a Government widely criticised for its handling of Katrina.

To the NBA’s credit, in 2006 it became the first organisation to announce an event in the city when it decided to stage the showpiece All-Star Game at New Orleans Arena.

Further – and the rapacious Premier League would do well to take a leaf from this book as it tries to launch itself globally – every team visiting New Orleans this season has been obliged to make a contribution to the three areas the NBA and local bodies decreed were most in need of support: education, recreation and housing.

“Every team that has come through here has done some sort of event,” Chris Wallace, an NBA spokesman, said. “Whether it’s bringing kids to the game from devastated school districts, going out to help build a playground or assisting with habitat builds. The feedback we are getting is that the city still needs a great deal of help.”

Yesterday, 2,500 volunteers, including every participating All Star, took part in the NBA’s “Day of Service” at a variety of schools, playgrounds and home refurbishments.

In the worst-hit areas – such as the notorious Ninth Ward – the scene that greeted the millionaire basketball players was one of near postapocalyptic devastation; staircases stand twisted in isolation, the only reminder that they were once connected to dwellings.

Against such a backdrop, professional sports and a team’s difficulties in filling a stadium are put into sharp relief. “There are still things that a sports team can bring to a city that you cannot measure in price,” Harold Kaufman, a Hornets’ spokesman, said. “Whether it is awareness, recognition, the willingness of the athletes and front office staff to get out in the community and provide hands-on help.

“Of course, it helps when you have a product out on the court. Fans connect with you and we have noticed a spike in our attendance. The interesting thing is that the people living here choose to be here. They choose to fight the fight, to rebuild and reconnect the community. We’re with them. We didn’t come back here to fail, we intend being here for a long time.”

Britain cast optimistic eye on European test

After winning promotion from Europe’s B division last summer, Great Britain are among the bottom seeds for the European Championship qualifying draw staged in Venice today. Britain have never qualified for the finals, but with Luol Deng, the Chicago Bulls player, on board there is cause for optimism. “There are a whole host of teams who are beatable,” Chris Finch, the Britain coach said. “If we can keep our talent level where it was last summer and then add some to it, we have every chance of winning a qualifying spot.”

The four group winners and three best runners-up will qualify automatically for the finals in Poland next year, with the ten remaining nations playing off early next summer for the sixteenth and final place in Eurobasket 2009.