A Mexico City Basketball Team with N.B.A. Dreams Makes a Home in Texas

The Mexico City Capitanes, playing away from home because of the pandemic, are the first G League team in Mexico and an important part of the N.B.A.’s international expansion.

LEANDER, Texas — The Mexico City Capitanes were fresh off a three-hour bus ride when they found themselves before a curious audience just outside of Austin, Texas. A cluster of children in karate uniforms craned their necks over a barrier at an athletics facility and wondered aloud whether they were looking at “famous basketball players.”

After traveling a winding path to their first season in the N.B.A.’s developmental G League, the Capitanes were getting ready for an afternoon practice and had no qualms about sharing a gymnasium with a bustling martial arts tournament.

The Capitanes are an important part of the N.B.A.’s push into Mexico, but the double-booking was not a problem for them. Not after losing last season to the coronavirus pandemic. Not to a team of (not particularly famous) strivers who had come from across Latin America and the United States to play basketball. And not while they barnstorm the country through an abridged two-month schedule made up entirely of road games.