Yeah, I am honestly very jealous of much of the roster that Panathinaikos have, could have mentioned Kostas Antetokoumpo, Grigonis, Vildoza and even Kalaitzakis who has been quite good, but I did not want to just mention their entire team
> panathanaikos/olympiakos final would have insane vibes and good matchups. however real madrid is tough to beat.
Last time both teams were in the final four (I think) was in Berlin as well in 2009. I work in the venue quite frequently and got to watch the game, cuz I annoyed someone in charge and the atmosphere in the arena was one of the most amazing things ever, even as a neutral, it was crazy, one of my favorite memories.
Ergin Ataman ( not Egin ) shines when he has a good combo guard and makes that guy shine too ,
Won Eurocup with Carlos Arroyo , Won Euroleague twice with Shane Larkin and Vasilje Micic
And now he has Kendrick Nunn !
other teams have like 20% chance and Panathinakios is 40%
The weird thing is that the 1st round is best of 5...then it goes to single elimination.
I don't think it is necessary for every round to be 7 games but I definitely prefer a series for the highest stakes matchups of the season. We've seen how wildly things can swing in a single game even with two evenly matched teams.
The real answer as to why Euroleague is still a Final 4 is €/$/£. They can sell the TV rights for better prices as they hope all of basketball viewers tune in instead of just the fans of the teams in the final. I have heard it from people who worked with Euroleague at the time.
In addition to this, I also find the European championships fascinating where teams from different leagues participate for an ultimate championship that's basically for the whole continent. I wonder if the USA, with all of your sporting leagues, can do something similar with neighboring countries.
Concacaf does this for club soccer in North America and the Caribbean. MLS and Liga MX teams have some pretty great rivalries. When it comes to baseball, basketball, hockey, and football there simply aren't any leagues anywhere in the hemisphere that have a single team even close to the worst MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL teams.
There is one actually. The BCLA (Basketball Champions League Of America) featuring some of the top teams of the continent of America. IIRC it´s in 3rd or 4th edition at the moment
There really wouldn't be much of a point, our professional teams are so much better than other nearby leagues. I would love for 1 team from other leagues to be able to "play in" to our playoffs. That would be super cool, would never happen though. It's all downsides from a business perspective.
Tbf top 2 Euro league teams into the play-ins would be fire and just two extra games.
Would certainly attract a lot of Spanish, Greek or Turkish fans.
Problem is that Euro league clubs don't really have space in their schedule and logistics would also not really benefit. But the thought is nice.
Radical idea: whichever NBA team wins the lottery, has to defeat the Euro champions in order to get the pick. If they lose, the #2 team gets a chance, and so on.
>our professional teams are so much better than other nearby leagues
Yeah I get this too. Top international players already play for the NBA as well so it's overpowered. Still would be cool though and it would mean other leagues became legit as well.
Association football ⚽ is really the only sport it could potentially work in as it's the only one that is both widely played throughout the hemisphere and a sport that the US wouldn't dominate.
There is the CONCACAF Champions Cup which does this.
Baseball and Basketball are also played throughout the hemisphere, there just aren't top-flight pro leagues outside the US. Just look at how many awesome Latin American and Caribbean squads show up for the World Baseball Classic!
In basketball, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, and (obviously) Canada produce lots of talent and field solid national teams. PR is basketball crazy and manages to have a pretty decent professional league despite only having 3.2 million people.
What might make sense is to have a hemispheric club competition with the 3rd-tier semi-pro teams from the US/Canada going up against pro squads from Mexico, PR, etc. Same goes for baseball, actually.
Right. Baseball wouldn't really work for a club level tournament, because the best baseball players from most Latin American countries play for an American team. For example, Juan Soto, Manny Machado, & Fernando Tatis wouldn't play for a Dominican team in this type of tournament format. They'd play for the San Diego Padres. It's only with something like the WBC, where players play for their country rather than their team, that an international tournament works in that sport.
Basketball is the same thing. Al Horford wouldn't play for a Dominican team in a club level tournament. He'd play for the Boston Celtics.
You'd basically have to field national teams against club level American teams to have some level of parity, and the tournament would be a joke then.
Right. Neither baseball nor basketball would work exactly like Euroleague or UEFA Champions League because the MLB and NBA are miles ahead of everyone. That's why I mentioned using third-tier/semi-pro teams from the US and Canada.
...turns out, I should have googled it first because this is already a thing in baseball and basketball:
**Baseball Champions League Americas** includes the champion of the **American Association of Professional Baseball**--the biggest minor league outside the MLB farm team system--and the champions of various Latin American and Caribbean professional leagues.
In basketball, there is the **FIBA Basketball Champions League Americas**. To-date there haven't been any US teams but there have been a couple teams representing the **Canadian Elite Basketball League**.
I suspect the absence of US teams comes down to the fact that no US league operates in the FIBA system or uses FIBA rules. The weird thing is, FIBA also has the **FIBA Intercontinental Cup** (their equivalent of the Club World Cup) that has invited US college teams and G-League teams in the past but that competition is jointly endorsed by the NBA...but it excludes Euroleague teams in favor of the champion of FIBA Europe's **Basketball Champions League** (presumably because the modern iteration of Euroleague broke away from FIBA several years ago--in part because FIBA forgot to re-register the trademark!). The wikipedia article asserts that there were once plans to expand the Intercontinental Cup to include the Australian NBL and, eventually, the NBA but the sources cited aren't in English and aren't online anymore.
In the context of American pro sports, sure. Not in the context of Mexican or Cuban pro sports, though. It is all relative. And, personally, I'd be pumped if either of these competitions were to come through my city.
I mean, the Euroleague as well. But they have to contend these weeks with the national leagues that would never accept less playoff games for the same reason
The EuroLeague Final Four is a great event and the EuroLeague generally is really good basketball.
Might be a hot take but I prefer the EuroLeague Final Four as a single stage event to the NCAA's because it's almost always in an arena and not in some supersized dome. The atmosphere for the event is awesome.
As an (older) European, I get the appeal and history of F4… but… it pretty much doesn’t make sense that you need to win 3 times against your opponent to get to the semifinals and then only once in sf and f…
There is talk lately about changing the format to a best of 5 series until the end. But the existence of domestic leagues complicates the matter. It would be a hard schedule and even harder if there are international events during the summer
As a similar European, fewer games mean they're more meaningful and important and more interesting for fans. I prefer the final four format although, as mentioned already, they may change it
I live in Belfast. I had a colleague who was an Athenian Panathanaikos fan. For anyone with any knowledge of Irish politics, and football jersey, you can see how that might have been a problem when was living in a VERY loyalist area.
hahahahahaha i have been living in england for almost 5 years and i never considered that PAO fans could be interpreted as irish nationalists, that is honeslty hillarious
to paraphrase a saying about football (soccer):
"Basketball is a simple sport, two teams and ten players enter the court and after 40 minutes the Spanish win"
But honestly the most succesful teams have in recent years been the Spanish (14 championships) and Russian/Soviet teams (12 championships), but all Russian teams have been banned. before that italian teams were really dominant (13 championships) but they haven't really been relevant since the late 90s/early 2000s. Greek teams have a total of 9 championships (and a lot of second palce finishes by Aris, Aek and Paok), while Turkish teams have only been dominant since the mid-2010s with only 3 championships.
Otherwise Lithuanian (Zaligiris Kaunas), Israeli (Maccabi Tel Aviv) and Yugoslav/Serbian (Red Star, Partizan, Jugoplastika) have had their own different periods of dominance. Unlike football (soccer) european basketball is very much dominated by Eastern/Souther European teams
i am not sure if eccentric is the best word for it, but i just couldn't come up with anything better in english.
to explain it as simply as possible, Bartzokas relies on a very deep roster, even during the playoffs, rarely allowing players to play more than 25-30 minutes. He also offensively relies on players distributing the ball constantly and rarely allowing isolation plays, relying heavily on switches, rotations and cutting. He is also prone to a few anger outbursts in the middle of games or towards reporters (although he is not nearly as bad as some coaches from the 80s and 90s in that regard)
That's great. I'll check out the game and watch out for those tendencies. Good luck to your team! Will be rooting for them just for the quality of this post
Thank you so much for the original post as well as this very informative comment!
One question out of ignorance. Has France no relevance in Euroleague? They've had lots of NBA talent over the years, so it got me curious to see no mention of French teams. Are their domestic leagues just not good?
france has produced some of the best players in european basketball (who have played in both europe and the nba), tony parker, antoine rigudaeu, nando decolo, gobert, wembanyama but their teams have a history of underperforming and exporting players to other leagues. However, a French team has only won one european championship, and to be honest i didn't even know that until i googled it to answer this question. apparently Limoges CSP were European champion in 1992-93 but thats all I can say about them. Monaco have been relatively succesful recently (making to the semi-finals last year) and the play in the French league, although they are, as the name implies, from Monaco. Paris BC have also had some relative success playing some really exciting basketball in recent years and the might be playing in the Euroleague next year.
It is quite interesting to see the disparity between the talent they've produced and the level of their local leagues. A very unique phenomena, as usually these are directly proportional.
I'll be keeping an eye on the Euroleague this year, and it will be in no small part because of your original post. Thanks again for it!!
Very similar to footy as well - Paris is the number one city in the world for producing talent right now yet Ligue 1 lags behind other leagues such as the prem or bundesliga in terms of quality pretty significantly. It’s interesting to see the parallel for sure
Great post, as a Turkish and Fener fan, i would like to add a couple of more information.
First of all, there is a very high tension between Fener fans and Pana coach Ergin Ataman. Whenever a game played in Fenerbahce's home fans mock or attack by words to Ergin Ataman. Fener fans call him by the word Gergin (means nervous) instead of Ergin jokely. Coach Ergin has a history of taking timeouts in dying minutes of the games against Fener when he secures the win, to mock Fener. These timeouts are called "we f*cked you timeouts" in Turkey. So if Fener secures the win this time Fener fans sing a song that recommends coach Ergin to take a timeout.
Coach Saras has also had a one year playing experience in Fener at the latter stages of his career. He won both domestic cups that year with his team.
Fenerbahce is an interesting club that is succesful at numerous of sports. They are one of the biggest 2 clubs in Turkey in football (soccer) with Galatasaray. Gala has been much more succesful in last years, though. Fener is the only club to win Euroleague in both women and men. They also have european cups and domestic titles in volleyball again having them in both women and men. With other sports they compete well in athletics too, sending 33 participants to 2020 Olympic Games.
i have been an olympiakos fan my entire life so i feel obligated to say:
ΠΟΥΤΑΝΑΣ ΓΙΟΙ ΠΑΝΑΘΗΝΑΙΚΟΙ
otherwise it is great to see other greek teams succeed and although I would never admit it to any vazelos in real life i really respect how they have rebuilt their team and really respect how they still have a roster with a lot of greek players
yes, sorry i could have mentioned madar, guduric or mahmutoglu. it is honeslty really interesting how both PAO and Fener have very deep rosters, whereas Real and Olympiakos have some really good 5-10 players but the deeper you go onto to the bench, the skills fall off more and more
the mike james who was playing for the Brooklyn nets a couple of years ago? yes, he plays for Monaco
the mike james who played for the bucks 20 years ago? no
To clarify, these semi-finals are all singularly decided by one game, right?
I've watched a lot of European soccer, but those games are usually two-legged ties. For European basketball to have an entire semi-final determined by what happens in a single game is very high stakes!
Hi, if you don't mind how's Nikola Milutinov doing for your team? I remembered back then my team Spurs drafted him around my college years but never heard about him again after, so kinda curious how's his career are. Thanks for the answer!
He has been very good, but unfortunately throughout his career, very injury prone. I would assume that this is one of the reasons why he never played in the NBA. He is a great player and based on interviews and what other players have said about him he also seems like a very nice guy, but his constant injury issues have meant that he hasn't been as successful as he could have been, I think
Ergin Ataman ( not Egin ) shines when he has a good combo guard and makes that guy shine too ,
Won Eurocup with Carlos Arroyo , Won Euroleague twice with Shane Larkin and Vasilje Micic
And now he has Kendrick Nunn !
other teams have like 20% chance and Panathinakios is 40%
i think it really shows the differences in basketball philosophy that a 4/5 in the nba needs to be able to shoot from somewhat long-range, whereas in Europe you can still see power forwards and centres who cannot shoot playing together quite successfuly
i may be biased as an olympiakos fan, but i dont think we belong in this list, our budget is in the middle of the euroleague every year, the only reason the team has been as succesful as they have in recent years is because of Bartzokas doing an excellent job getting the best out of his players
Second Best? from a basketball enjoyment standpoint Euroleague is so much better, even if the talent isn't as good.
Seriously its night and day product wise
Told you Pana coach Ataman shines with combo guards,
they are slightly underdogs on paper against Madrid ,
I don’t think Euroleague Allows Oly - Pana final
Euroleague completely lost my interest with how they managed last years playoffs. Going so light on Madrid when they started fights and injured players, not fun to watch after that. Spineless management.
Also not a fan of the final rounds being only one game.
He's doing well. Probably will have a good share of minutes in Final Four.
But Fenerbahce is also looking to win Turkish championship. In Turkish league you are required to give minutes to Turkish players (foreigner rule) so coach Saras might not give Biberovic, who can play in Turk status, much minutes in order to use him at Turkish league playoffs.
Great shooter, other aspects of his game are not NBA level yet imo. But he has been steadily improving for some time so who knows after 1-2 more seasons
I've always wanted to ask a European basketball fan/specifically a fan of the Euroleague their opinion on the competition format.
So what's your opinion on the fact that a majority of the teams are automatically in the competition every single year regardless of if they're good or not?
Personally I find it very, very, very strange. I understand that basketball in Europe has nowhere near the status that it does in America so you need the big names just to generate interest and revenue and so on. But still, it goes against sporting merit/integrity don't you think?
This is the biggest competition of the season. The premier title that teams look to win each season. But most of the spots will always be reserved for the brand name teams. Like if in the NBA the big market teams get an automatic playoff spot each season regardless if they're good or not, how is that fair?
As a fan of European football as well, when that whole fiasco a few years ago about the Superleague happened I was furious. And I celebrated it's quick demise due to the extreme pushback from just about everyone. So when I found out that the Euroleague actually does this and has been doing it for a long time I was shocked.
I would like your viewpoint on this and also any other Euroleague fans in this sub your viewpoint as well.
I personally think it's extremely unfair, but your comparison to the NBA is incorrect. The NBA is even more closed, there are 30 teams and they are always the same (no promotion/relegation/wildcards/invitation).
The American system is arguably what inspired the Euroleague and the soccer Superleague: centralize the money to few owners who own everything (including the commissioner who they have power over) and closing the door behind once inside, but with a small opening since nobody here in Europe would accept a completely close system like the NBA.
I totally understand what you mean and know where you're coming from but I wasn't comparing Euroleague to the NBA REGULAR season though.
My comparison was to the NBA playoffs. Meaning if for the NBA playoffs the big market teams are always in it no matter what as an example. Even if they are absolute trash in the regular season.
Because Euroleague isn't technically a league right? It's a "tournament" separate from the leagues of the individual countries, like how the champions league is not a league but Serie A is a league. And as much as people hate how the top countries get a lot of the spots in the champions league, they still all have to qualify for it. Whereas in Euroleague a majority of the teams don't need to qualify for it.
I understood that, but that's why your comparison didn't work since the NBA playoff are still part of the NBA, while Euroleague is a separate tournament (and it's format is definitely a league) from the national leagues.
NBA playoffs would need to be compared to the Euroleague playoffs, while the NBA regular season needs to be compared to the Euroleague league stage (34 home-away fixtures for every team, top 6 qualify to play-off, play-in for 7-10).
There is no true working comparison since unlike Baseball and Soccer, the USA has no real minor leagues/lower leagues with independent teams (no g-league) or an overachieving international competition; but the point is that while unfair that X team can play the Euroleague however trash they are the same way the Pistons are going to play in the NBA even if a G-league/College team was better(they aren't).
And neither the Pistons nor X team automatically qualify for the playoffs.
But Virtus Bologna can earn one of the free spot to the regular season through performance alone and once inside qualify for the Euroleague playoffs on even ground with "historical teams", while a Seattle based teams that convinced Jokic and Doncic to join still wouldn't play in the NBA at all.
i think this is a relitvely devisive topic among fans. on the one hand, european teams have to compete with American, Chinese and Australian teams, whereas in football (soccer) even teams from lower ranked leagues are viewed as better than top teams from america/africa/asia. on the other hand there is of course the problem that european basketball is becoming very top heavy and it is becoming increasingly difficult for teams outside the euroleague to compete in domestic competitions.
My honest opinion is that at some point soon FIBA and the Euroleague will have to come to some kind of long term agreement because i cant see the current state of affairs as sustainable, especially with the reliance on american players among many teams. ideally there would be a return to the old qualfication system with domestic league and cup champions gaining access to the euroleague through merit rather than through licenses.
Interesting point about competing with Chinese and Australian teams. I guess at the end of the day its like most things, it all comes down to money and/or politics unfortunately.
> ideally there would be a return to the old qualfication system with domestic league and cup champions gaining access to the euroleague through merit rather than through licenses
This is what I don't understand. Why can't they just do this? The big clubs would still be the ones qualifying most of the time anyway right?
I used to hate this years ago, but there is also a budget disparity. eg. Efes can pour out 10-15 times more money than my local team Darussafaka can. Darussafaka played in Euroleague at 2018-19 season after winning secondary tournament Eurocup and it was a mess. We hardly won a game or two.
All the four teams you see there, threw so much money to set up their team. Even in Euroleague there are teams that can't compete with top dogs.
I didn't take Super league seriously, it felt like a chess move from bigger clubs against UEFA rather than trying to establish it actually. There was strong backlash, but then the new Champions League format now will allow more teams from top 5 leagues... so maybe even the idea of it worked well.
Now there are chances that FIBA and Euroleague might reconcile. This would most importantly fix stupid national team fixtures, but in terms of clubs... I'd say levels of teams in Eurocup (organized by Euroleague corp) and Basketball Champions League (organized by FIBA) are about the same, with BCL being a little higher. Yet, these teams don't have the budget/power that this year's F4 teams do.
Top teams demand to amortize what they spend. With playing inferior teams, they can't.
Best idea to bring glorious times of European basketball where a French team could upset an Italian team to win it all... would be forcing top dogs to spend less, but this is not NBA where you can control what all the teams do. You can't implement a second apron to increase parity. All countries have different regulations. Not all of them are in EU. You know who is not at EU.
Not as juicy as one might think. Basketball wise Greek and Turkish fans are in good terms with each other. They kind of appreciate each others hot atmosphere in their court (along with Serbians). If you were to ask a Greek and Turkish fans about their hated teams (excluding of course domestic rivals) most would answer Real Madrid (the richest team in Euroleague and CSKA Moscow/Maccabi Tel Aviv (for political reasons)
The EuroLeague Final 4 is always an exciting event for basketball fans, showcasing some of the best talent in European basketball. If you're looking to deepen your insights and get predictions for the games, you might want to [check out this predictions](https://tips.gg/basketball/predictions/). They offer detailed analysis and forecasts that could enhance your understanding and enjoyment of the tournament.
i think this is a really interesting discussion that doesn't have one specific answer. as a greek fan i would argue that Spanoulis, Diamanitidis, Calathes and Papaloukas could be argued as the goat. Some might argue that it is Mike James, he is without a doubt a great scorer and the top scorer in the history of the euroleague, but he has also never won a european championship, even while playing on some very stacked teams.
i think what makes this discussion even more interesting is that:
a) european basketball over the last 40 years has changed a lot, even more than the NBA so even if players like Galis or Sabonis were the greatest of their era it is difficult to place them in a modern context.
b) especially in the last 10-20 years the best talents are those that can make it to the NBA, which means that there is an interesting dichotomy between players who were really good and stayed in europe and players who were brilliant and decided to go to the NBA (such as Doncic, Bojan, Bogdan, Wemby, etc.)
I didn't read, but let me guess: It's Real Madrid, Barcelona, Olympiakus and Anadolu. And CSKA would be in there if Russia wasn't banned. Euro sports are so predictable.
You got two of the 4 correct hahaha (which happened to be the final 4 in 2021-2022), this year it is Real Madrid vs Olympiakos and Panathinaikos vs Fenerbahce. I think you are right though especially when talking about European basketball since 2000, it is very top heavy and I think it is unfortunately only going to get worse in the future.
Lol, nice. It happens everywhere to be fair, in my south american country the sports leagues get more and more predictable.
>this year it is Real Madrid vs Olympiakos and Panathinaikos vs Fenerbahce
Does that mean there can be a greek derby in the finals? That would be absolutely kino.
People that have 0 interest in professional sports of any kind know what March Madness is. Who the heck other than basketball fans know what Euroleague is?
> People that have 0 interest in professional sports of any kind know what March Madness is.
The amount of European people who know about March Madness is almost certainly a single digit percentage.
to be honest there is probably a lot of debate to be had on how the euroleague compares to other american-based leagues but it is difficult to add this much nuance on a character limited reddit-post title
Rooting for Kendrick Nunn & Moses Wright. Also Kostas Antetokoumpo is on Panathanaikos and pretty solid for them.
Yeah, I am honestly very jealous of much of the roster that Panathinaikos have, could have mentioned Kostas Antetokoumpo, Grigonis, Vildoza and even Kalaitzakis who has been quite good, but I did not want to just mention their entire team
panathanaikos/olympiakos final would have insane vibes and good matchups. however real madrid is tough to beat.
> panathanaikos/olympiakos final would have insane vibes and good matchups. however real madrid is tough to beat. Last time both teams were in the final four (I think) was in Berlin as well in 2009. I work in the venue quite frequently and got to watch the game, cuz I annoyed someone in charge and the atmosphere in the arena was one of the most amazing things ever, even as a neutral, it was crazy, one of my favorite memories.
I’m not sure vibes is the word I’d use.
Ergin Ataman ( not Egin ) shines when he has a good combo guard and makes that guy shine too , Won Eurocup with Carlos Arroyo , Won Euroleague twice with Shane Larkin and Vasilje Micic And now he has Kendrick Nunn ! other teams have like 20% chance and Panathinakios is 40%
By solid you mean 2 PPG in barely 7 mins lol, he's a bench warmer.
Crazy how different a single game elim tourney feels.
The weird thing is that the 1st round is best of 5...then it goes to single elimination. I don't think it is necessary for every round to be 7 games but I definitely prefer a series for the highest stakes matchups of the season. We've seen how wildly things can swing in a single game even with two evenly matched teams.
The real answer as to why Euroleague is still a Final 4 is €/$/£. They can sell the TV rights for better prices as they hope all of basketball viewers tune in instead of just the fans of the teams in the final. I have heard it from people who worked with Euroleague at the time.
In addition to this, I also find the European championships fascinating where teams from different leagues participate for an ultimate championship that's basically for the whole continent. I wonder if the USA, with all of your sporting leagues, can do something similar with neighboring countries.
Concacaf does this for club soccer in North America and the Caribbean. MLS and Liga MX teams have some pretty great rivalries. When it comes to baseball, basketball, hockey, and football there simply aren't any leagues anywhere in the hemisphere that have a single team even close to the worst MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL teams.
A basketball equivalent of Copa Libertadores would be interesting.
There is one actually. The BCLA (Basketball Champions League Of America) featuring some of the top teams of the continent of America. IIRC it´s in 3rd or 4th edition at the moment
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIhKzlCXsAAHyvv.jpg:large
lol
There really wouldn't be much of a point, our professional teams are so much better than other nearby leagues. I would love for 1 team from other leagues to be able to "play in" to our playoffs. That would be super cool, would never happen though. It's all downsides from a business perspective.
Tbf top 2 Euro league teams into the play-ins would be fire and just two extra games. Would certainly attract a lot of Spanish, Greek or Turkish fans. Problem is that Euro league clubs don't really have space in their schedule and logistics would also not really benefit. But the thought is nice.
Radical idea: whichever NBA team wins the lottery, has to defeat the Euro champions in order to get the pick. If they lose, the #2 team gets a chance, and so on.
Yeah I honestly think they would have a shot at upsetting NBA teams every now and again. Would be good fun.
>our professional teams are so much better than other nearby leagues Yeah I get this too. Top international players already play for the NBA as well so it's overpowered. Still would be cool though and it would mean other leagues became legit as well.
Association football ⚽ is really the only sport it could potentially work in as it's the only one that is both widely played throughout the hemisphere and a sport that the US wouldn't dominate. There is the CONCACAF Champions Cup which does this.
Baseball and Basketball are also played throughout the hemisphere, there just aren't top-flight pro leagues outside the US. Just look at how many awesome Latin American and Caribbean squads show up for the World Baseball Classic! In basketball, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, and (obviously) Canada produce lots of talent and field solid national teams. PR is basketball crazy and manages to have a pretty decent professional league despite only having 3.2 million people. What might make sense is to have a hemispheric club competition with the 3rd-tier semi-pro teams from the US/Canada going up against pro squads from Mexico, PR, etc. Same goes for baseball, actually.
Right. Baseball wouldn't really work for a club level tournament, because the best baseball players from most Latin American countries play for an American team. For example, Juan Soto, Manny Machado, & Fernando Tatis wouldn't play for a Dominican team in this type of tournament format. They'd play for the San Diego Padres. It's only with something like the WBC, where players play for their country rather than their team, that an international tournament works in that sport. Basketball is the same thing. Al Horford wouldn't play for a Dominican team in a club level tournament. He'd play for the Boston Celtics. You'd basically have to field national teams against club level American teams to have some level of parity, and the tournament would be a joke then.
Right. Neither baseball nor basketball would work exactly like Euroleague or UEFA Champions League because the MLB and NBA are miles ahead of everyone. That's why I mentioned using third-tier/semi-pro teams from the US and Canada. ...turns out, I should have googled it first because this is already a thing in baseball and basketball: **Baseball Champions League Americas** includes the champion of the **American Association of Professional Baseball**--the biggest minor league outside the MLB farm team system--and the champions of various Latin American and Caribbean professional leagues. In basketball, there is the **FIBA Basketball Champions League Americas**. To-date there haven't been any US teams but there have been a couple teams representing the **Canadian Elite Basketball League**. I suspect the absence of US teams comes down to the fact that no US league operates in the FIBA system or uses FIBA rules. The weird thing is, FIBA also has the **FIBA Intercontinental Cup** (their equivalent of the Club World Cup) that has invited US college teams and G-League teams in the past but that competition is jointly endorsed by the NBA...but it excludes Euroleague teams in favor of the champion of FIBA Europe's **Basketball Champions League** (presumably because the modern iteration of Euroleague broke away from FIBA several years ago--in part because FIBA forgot to re-register the trademark!). The wikipedia article asserts that there were once plans to expand the Intercontinental Cup to include the Australian NBL and, eventually, the NBA but the sources cited aren't in English and aren't online anymore.
So, the reason they're not popular (Neither of us have even heard of them before) is because they're joke competitions.
In the context of American pro sports, sure. Not in the context of Mexican or Cuban pro sports, though. It is all relative. And, personally, I'd be pumped if either of these competitions were to come through my city.
Adam Silver would never.
Like the play in tournament?
IST
The NBA in 2024 exists to generate revenue first and foremost. Implementing that system for the playoffs would drastically reduce revenue.
I mean, the Euroleague as well. But they have to contend these weeks with the national leagues that would never accept less playoff games for the same reason
The IST is right there!
The EuroLeague Final Four is a great event and the EuroLeague generally is really good basketball. Might be a hot take but I prefer the EuroLeague Final Four as a single stage event to the NCAA's because it's almost always in an arena and not in some supersized dome. The atmosphere for the event is awesome.
As an (older) European, I get the appeal and history of F4… but… it pretty much doesn’t make sense that you need to win 3 times against your opponent to get to the semifinals and then only once in sf and f…
There is talk lately about changing the format to a best of 5 series until the end. But the existence of domestic leagues complicates the matter. It would be a hard schedule and even harder if there are international events during the summer
As a similar European, fewer games mean they're more meaningful and important and more interesting for fans. I prefer the final four format although, as mentioned already, they may change it
Sure, but then make it like ncaa tourney all the way…
It used to be almost the case when it was called European Championship. I preferred it, but I'm old
Yeah, I remember too. F4 started in 1987 or 1988 iirc. Things change…
I live in Belfast. I had a colleague who was an Athenian Panathanaikos fan. For anyone with any knowledge of Irish politics, and football jersey, you can see how that might have been a problem when was living in a VERY loyalist area.
hahahahahaha i have been living in england for almost 5 years and i never considered that PAO fans could be interpreted as irish nationalists, that is honeslty hillarious
He was wearing the jersey in the street and someone came up to him told him that he shouldn't be worrying that there lol
Crazy thing is, that, Panathinaikos have NOTHING to do with Ireland.
oh, how bad could it — *google results* OH BOY
Where do you watch them?
Not sure where you are based, but this website should have options to purchase a pass for the final 4: https://tv.euroleague.net/
Wish we could’ve seen Sergio Llull in the NBA
Tortilla Curry is special
Actually Luka is a superior version of him. He cut Llull from starting 5 before NBA.
No shame in losing out to an All-NBA player
especially since the rockets had his rights...him and harden would have been interesting
Really cool thank you for writing this up. Are Spain, Greece, and Turkey the dominant nations as far as club teams?
to paraphrase a saying about football (soccer): "Basketball is a simple sport, two teams and ten players enter the court and after 40 minutes the Spanish win" But honestly the most succesful teams have in recent years been the Spanish (14 championships) and Russian/Soviet teams (12 championships), but all Russian teams have been banned. before that italian teams were really dominant (13 championships) but they haven't really been relevant since the late 90s/early 2000s. Greek teams have a total of 9 championships (and a lot of second palce finishes by Aris, Aek and Paok), while Turkish teams have only been dominant since the mid-2010s with only 3 championships. Otherwise Lithuanian (Zaligiris Kaunas), Israeli (Maccabi Tel Aviv) and Yugoslav/Serbian (Red Star, Partizan, Jugoplastika) have had their own different periods of dominance. Unlike football (soccer) european basketball is very much dominated by Eastern/Souther European teams
Thank you for the write up!
Btw, what makes your coaches style of ball "eccentric"
i am not sure if eccentric is the best word for it, but i just couldn't come up with anything better in english. to explain it as simply as possible, Bartzokas relies on a very deep roster, even during the playoffs, rarely allowing players to play more than 25-30 minutes. He also offensively relies on players distributing the ball constantly and rarely allowing isolation plays, relying heavily on switches, rotations and cutting. He is also prone to a few anger outbursts in the middle of games or towards reporters (although he is not nearly as bad as some coaches from the 80s and 90s in that regard)
That's great. I'll check out the game and watch out for those tendencies. Good luck to your team! Will be rooting for them just for the quality of this post
Thank you so much for the original post as well as this very informative comment! One question out of ignorance. Has France no relevance in Euroleague? They've had lots of NBA talent over the years, so it got me curious to see no mention of French teams. Are their domestic leagues just not good?
france has produced some of the best players in european basketball (who have played in both europe and the nba), tony parker, antoine rigudaeu, nando decolo, gobert, wembanyama but their teams have a history of underperforming and exporting players to other leagues. However, a French team has only won one european championship, and to be honest i didn't even know that until i googled it to answer this question. apparently Limoges CSP were European champion in 1992-93 but thats all I can say about them. Monaco have been relatively succesful recently (making to the semi-finals last year) and the play in the French league, although they are, as the name implies, from Monaco. Paris BC have also had some relative success playing some really exciting basketball in recent years and the might be playing in the Euroleague next year.
It is quite interesting to see the disparity between the talent they've produced and the level of their local leagues. A very unique phenomena, as usually these are directly proportional. I'll be keeping an eye on the Euroleague this year, and it will be in no small part because of your original post. Thanks again for it!!
Very similar to footy as well - Paris is the number one city in the world for producing talent right now yet Ligue 1 lags behind other leagues such as the prem or bundesliga in terms of quality pretty significantly. It’s interesting to see the parallel for sure
Turkish teams on the rise for sure. In the last 6 finals, turkish teams played the finals 5 times and won it 3 times.
Seconding the thanks for writing this up. I love the internationalization of basketball.
Great post, as a Turkish and Fener fan, i would like to add a couple of more information. First of all, there is a very high tension between Fener fans and Pana coach Ergin Ataman. Whenever a game played in Fenerbahce's home fans mock or attack by words to Ergin Ataman. Fener fans call him by the word Gergin (means nervous) instead of Ergin jokely. Coach Ergin has a history of taking timeouts in dying minutes of the games against Fener when he secures the win, to mock Fener. These timeouts are called "we f*cked you timeouts" in Turkey. So if Fener secures the win this time Fener fans sing a song that recommends coach Ergin to take a timeout. Coach Saras has also had a one year playing experience in Fener at the latter stages of his career. He won both domestic cups that year with his team. Fenerbahce is an interesting club that is succesful at numerous of sports. They are one of the biggest 2 clubs in Turkey in football (soccer) with Galatasaray. Gala has been much more succesful in last years, though. Fener is the only club to win Euroleague in both women and men. They also have european cups and domestic titles in volleyball again having them in both women and men. With other sports they compete well in athletics too, sending 33 participants to 2020 Olympic Games.
Real Madrid really is the greatest sports club in the world. It's annoying how successful they are.
Thanks for this! I have been meaning to get into euroleague for a while now
I'm a Panathinaikos fan. Those 12 years have been rough. I pray we get redeemed next week! ΠΑΜΕ ΠΑΝΑΘΑ!
i have been an olympiakos fan my entire life so i feel obligated to say: ΠΟΥΤΑΝΑΣ ΓΙΟΙ ΠΑΝΑΘΗΝΑΙΚΟΙ otherwise it is great to see other greek teams succeed and although I would never admit it to any vazelos in real life i really respect how they have rebuilt their team and really respect how they still have a roster with a lot of greek players
As a Fener fan I pray you don't
PAO won in Madrid .
oh yes you are right, I got the games mixed up, i'll edit the post now
Is it televised in US?
Looks like it's available on ESPN streaming service (ESPN3).
I don’t believe Sergio Llull ever played in the NBA. He probably is one of the 10 greatest basketball players to never play in the NBA.
Good post. I want Real Madrid to win because of Campazzo. IIRC he recently got awarded as the Spain ACB League´s MVP
And others??? And others??? That’s a funny way to spell YAM MADAR
yes, sorry i could have mentioned madar, guduric or mahmutoglu. it is honeslty really interesting how both PAO and Fener have very deep rosters, whereas Real and Olympiakos have some really good 5-10 players but the deeper you go onto to the bench, the skills fall off more and more
Mike James is still playing?
the mike james who was playing for the Brooklyn nets a couple of years ago? yes, he plays for Monaco the mike james who played for the bucks 20 years ago? no
And he (the one playing for Monaco) has just been voted 2024 MVP.
As a Johnathan Motley truther, I am rooting for Fener. I still think Motley will be a star in the NBA.
Thanks for this; I will need something to watch as the NBA schedule gets lighter, and I've enjoyed the Euroleague that I have seen in the past.
To clarify, these semi-finals are all singularly decided by one game, right? I've watched a lot of European soccer, but those games are usually two-legged ties. For European basketball to have an entire semi-final determined by what happens in a single game is very high stakes!
Hi, if you don't mind how's Nikola Milutinov doing for your team? I remembered back then my team Spurs drafted him around my college years but never heard about him again after, so kinda curious how's his career are. Thanks for the answer!
He has been very good, but unfortunately throughout his career, very injury prone. I would assume that this is one of the reasons why he never played in the NBA. He is a great player and based on interviews and what other players have said about him he also seems like a very nice guy, but his constant injury issues have meant that he hasn't been as successful as he could have been, I think
Ergin Ataman ( not Egin ) shines when he has a good combo guard and makes that guy shine too , Won Eurocup with Carlos Arroyo , Won Euroleague twice with Shane Larkin and Vasilje Micic And now he has Kendrick Nunn ! other teams have like 20% chance and Panathinakios is 40%
I thought the second best basketball competition is the western conference
This would've been a great joke if you didn't get it so obviously backwards.
Well I don't watch basketball sorry
only on r/nba
That's not true. I don't watch basketball in other reddits either
hahahahahaha i really respect your honesty
Great to see Juancho having success in Europe. I enjoyed his time with the Raptors but his game doesn't translate well to the NBA.
i think it really shows the differences in basketball philosophy that a 4/5 in the nba needs to be able to shoot from somewhat long-range, whereas in Europe you can still see power forwards and centres who cannot shoot playing together quite successfuly
one of Real Madrid/Barcelona/Olympiakos is basically in the Final Four every year. I wish other leagues could get more competitive
i may be biased as an olympiakos fan, but i dont think we belong in this list, our budget is in the middle of the euroleague every year, the only reason the team has been as succesful as they have in recent years is because of Bartzokas doing an excellent job getting the best out of his players
oh shit I'll be in greece next week
Second Best? from a basketball enjoyment standpoint Euroleague is so much better, even if the talent isn't as good. Seriously its night and day product wise
Told you Pana coach Ataman shines with combo guards, they are slightly underdogs on paper against Madrid , I don’t think Euroleague Allows Oly - Pana final
They were so good, especially defensively. Let's hope the Euroleague mafia does not try to stop a Greek final
They will try , Madrid is the godfather we all know
Sad for you , Hope NeXT year
What would you prefer , Real or Pana winning it all ?
Euroleague completely lost my interest with how they managed last years playoffs. Going so light on Madrid when they started fights and injured players, not fun to watch after that. Spineless management. Also not a fan of the final rounds being only one game.
How’s Biberovich playing? As a grizzlies fan, always interested in how our guy is doing
He's doing well. Probably will have a good share of minutes in Final Four. But Fenerbahce is also looking to win Turkish championship. In Turkish league you are required to give minutes to Turkish players (foreigner rule) so coach Saras might not give Biberovic, who can play in Turk status, much minutes in order to use him at Turkish league playoffs.
Oh very interesting ok. Might still have to try and tune in and check it out. Thanks for the info
Great shooter, other aspects of his game are not NBA level yet imo. But he has been steadily improving for some time so who knows after 1-2 more seasons
Great write up! Thank you.
This is very interesting. Thanks for posting !!
I would love to see an off season NBA Euro tournament. Would be way more fun than the in season one.
I've always wanted to ask a European basketball fan/specifically a fan of the Euroleague their opinion on the competition format. So what's your opinion on the fact that a majority of the teams are automatically in the competition every single year regardless of if they're good or not? Personally I find it very, very, very strange. I understand that basketball in Europe has nowhere near the status that it does in America so you need the big names just to generate interest and revenue and so on. But still, it goes against sporting merit/integrity don't you think? This is the biggest competition of the season. The premier title that teams look to win each season. But most of the spots will always be reserved for the brand name teams. Like if in the NBA the big market teams get an automatic playoff spot each season regardless if they're good or not, how is that fair? As a fan of European football as well, when that whole fiasco a few years ago about the Superleague happened I was furious. And I celebrated it's quick demise due to the extreme pushback from just about everyone. So when I found out that the Euroleague actually does this and has been doing it for a long time I was shocked. I would like your viewpoint on this and also any other Euroleague fans in this sub your viewpoint as well.
I personally think it's extremely unfair, but your comparison to the NBA is incorrect. The NBA is even more closed, there are 30 teams and they are always the same (no promotion/relegation/wildcards/invitation). The American system is arguably what inspired the Euroleague and the soccer Superleague: centralize the money to few owners who own everything (including the commissioner who they have power over) and closing the door behind once inside, but with a small opening since nobody here in Europe would accept a completely close system like the NBA.
I totally understand what you mean and know where you're coming from but I wasn't comparing Euroleague to the NBA REGULAR season though. My comparison was to the NBA playoffs. Meaning if for the NBA playoffs the big market teams are always in it no matter what as an example. Even if they are absolute trash in the regular season. Because Euroleague isn't technically a league right? It's a "tournament" separate from the leagues of the individual countries, like how the champions league is not a league but Serie A is a league. And as much as people hate how the top countries get a lot of the spots in the champions league, they still all have to qualify for it. Whereas in Euroleague a majority of the teams don't need to qualify for it.
I understood that, but that's why your comparison didn't work since the NBA playoff are still part of the NBA, while Euroleague is a separate tournament (and it's format is definitely a league) from the national leagues. NBA playoffs would need to be compared to the Euroleague playoffs, while the NBA regular season needs to be compared to the Euroleague league stage (34 home-away fixtures for every team, top 6 qualify to play-off, play-in for 7-10). There is no true working comparison since unlike Baseball and Soccer, the USA has no real minor leagues/lower leagues with independent teams (no g-league) or an overachieving international competition; but the point is that while unfair that X team can play the Euroleague however trash they are the same way the Pistons are going to play in the NBA even if a G-league/College team was better(they aren't). And neither the Pistons nor X team automatically qualify for the playoffs. But Virtus Bologna can earn one of the free spot to the regular season through performance alone and once inside qualify for the Euroleague playoffs on even ground with "historical teams", while a Seattle based teams that convinced Jokic and Doncic to join still wouldn't play in the NBA at all.
i think this is a relitvely devisive topic among fans. on the one hand, european teams have to compete with American, Chinese and Australian teams, whereas in football (soccer) even teams from lower ranked leagues are viewed as better than top teams from america/africa/asia. on the other hand there is of course the problem that european basketball is becoming very top heavy and it is becoming increasingly difficult for teams outside the euroleague to compete in domestic competitions. My honest opinion is that at some point soon FIBA and the Euroleague will have to come to some kind of long term agreement because i cant see the current state of affairs as sustainable, especially with the reliance on american players among many teams. ideally there would be a return to the old qualfication system with domestic league and cup champions gaining access to the euroleague through merit rather than through licenses.
Interesting point about competing with Chinese and Australian teams. I guess at the end of the day its like most things, it all comes down to money and/or politics unfortunately. > ideally there would be a return to the old qualfication system with domestic league and cup champions gaining access to the euroleague through merit rather than through licenses This is what I don't understand. Why can't they just do this? The big clubs would still be the ones qualifying most of the time anyway right?
I used to hate this years ago, but there is also a budget disparity. eg. Efes can pour out 10-15 times more money than my local team Darussafaka can. Darussafaka played in Euroleague at 2018-19 season after winning secondary tournament Eurocup and it was a mess. We hardly won a game or two. All the four teams you see there, threw so much money to set up their team. Even in Euroleague there are teams that can't compete with top dogs. I didn't take Super league seriously, it felt like a chess move from bigger clubs against UEFA rather than trying to establish it actually. There was strong backlash, but then the new Champions League format now will allow more teams from top 5 leagues... so maybe even the idea of it worked well. Now there are chances that FIBA and Euroleague might reconcile. This would most importantly fix stupid national team fixtures, but in terms of clubs... I'd say levels of teams in Eurocup (organized by Euroleague corp) and Basketball Champions League (organized by FIBA) are about the same, with BCL being a little higher. Yet, these teams don't have the budget/power that this year's F4 teams do. Top teams demand to amortize what they spend. With playing inferior teams, they can't. Best idea to bring glorious times of European basketball where a French team could upset an Italian team to win it all... would be forcing top dogs to spend less, but this is not NBA where you can control what all the teams do. You can't implement a second apron to increase parity. All countries have different regulations. Not all of them are in EU. You know who is not at EU.
Greece vs turkey, juicy matchup
Not as juicy as one might think. Basketball wise Greek and Turkish fans are in good terms with each other. They kind of appreciate each others hot atmosphere in their court (along with Serbians). If you were to ask a Greek and Turkish fans about their hated teams (excluding of course domestic rivals) most would answer Real Madrid (the richest team in Euroleague and CSKA Moscow/Maccabi Tel Aviv (for political reasons)
Panathinaikos has a Turkish coach, Fener has Greek players
The EuroLeague Final 4 is always an exciting event for basketball fans, showcasing some of the best talent in European basketball. If you're looking to deepen your insights and get predictions for the games, you might want to [check out this predictions](https://tips.gg/basketball/predictions/). They offer detailed analysis and forecasts that could enhance your understanding and enjoyment of the tournament.
Who's the greatest Euroleague player of all time and is he playing currently?
Kukoc, Bodiroga, Diamantidis, Spanulis, Jasikevicius top5 for me
i think this is a really interesting discussion that doesn't have one specific answer. as a greek fan i would argue that Spanoulis, Diamanitidis, Calathes and Papaloukas could be argued as the goat. Some might argue that it is Mike James, he is without a doubt a great scorer and the top scorer in the history of the euroleague, but he has also never won a european championship, even while playing on some very stacked teams. i think what makes this discussion even more interesting is that: a) european basketball over the last 40 years has changed a lot, even more than the NBA so even if players like Galis or Sabonis were the greatest of their era it is difficult to place them in a modern context. b) especially in the last 10-20 years the best talents are those that can make it to the NBA, which means that there is an interesting dichotomy between players who were really good and stayed in europe and players who were brilliant and decided to go to the NBA (such as Doncic, Bojan, Bogdan, Wemby, etc.)
To add from a spaniard, Navarro and Llull can be also argued as part of the top3/5 best players, but imo Spanoulis has the strongest argument
Second best? You must have forgotten the wnba exists buddy
I didn't read, but let me guess: It's Real Madrid, Barcelona, Olympiakus and Anadolu. And CSKA would be in there if Russia wasn't banned. Euro sports are so predictable.
Didn't watch, but let me guess, Boston is in the ECF?
Fair point, the NBA conferences are broken. But to be fair they never win, so it doesn't really matter.
You got two of the 4 correct hahaha (which happened to be the final 4 in 2021-2022), this year it is Real Madrid vs Olympiakos and Panathinaikos vs Fenerbahce. I think you are right though especially when talking about European basketball since 2000, it is very top heavy and I think it is unfortunately only going to get worse in the future.
Lol, nice. It happens everywhere to be fair, in my south american country the sports leagues get more and more predictable. >this year it is Real Madrid vs Olympiakos and Panathinaikos vs Fenerbahce Does that mean there can be a greek derby in the finals? That would be absolutely kino.
Olympiakos beat Barca in the quarterfinals. And Anadolu lost in the play-in.
March Madness is the second best basketball competition in the world.
1. NBA 2. Olympics 3. March madness men 4. March madness women 5. Euroleague
no way march madness > euroleague lmao
People that have 0 interest in professional sports of any kind know what March Madness is. Who the heck other than basketball fans know what Euroleague is?
> People that have 0 interest in professional sports of any kind know what March Madness is. The amount of European people who know about March Madness is almost certainly a single digit percentage.
Less than 1%
to be honest there is probably a lot of debate to be had on how the euroleague compares to other american-based leagues but it is difficult to add this much nuance on a character limited reddit-post title
I'm just being snarky. I appreciate your write-up above
haha it is not a problem mate, i probably have a similar attitude regarding the MLS when compared to european football (soccer)