The Cleveland Cavaliers power forward is a keen football fan and visited the UK during the NBA close-season to take in some Premier League action.

In between Arsenal's meeting with West Ham and Manchester United's match against Tottenham, the 6ft 9ins star came to Tyneside to experience the Magpies' game against the Blues.

"As a whole, the mastery and the skill of this game, I love it," he told NUFC TV. "I was over here last year, watching a couple of games and I wanted to come back and do it again. Hopefully this'll be a yearly thing for me, because this game is outstanding."

Before the match, Nance Jr. met up with Newcastle's USA international defender DeAndre Yedlin, who explained: "I'm a huge fan of the NBA and obviously I knew who he was, and he knew who I was. It's great to see that the game is really gaining respect in the States.

"It was awesome to meet him; we're both number 22s, so that's another cool thing, and it was great to meet him."

Nance Jr. was traded to Cleveland Cavaliers from Los Angeles Lakers earlier this year and helped them to reach the 2018 NBA Finals.

He added: "We came in and got to see the ground before the buzz starts and before the fans get in. It's a beautiful arena and getting to meet DeAndre was awesome.

"He's a hero of ours from the States, and where he played college soccer, at Akron, I was born and raised there so I got to watch him for the year he was there. He's somebody I've cheered for from afar and it was great getting to meet him.

"The mutual admiration was absolutely there and getting to see him excel at his sport, and me doing the same at mine, was really cool. It's really cool to see some cross-sport admiration like that."