[Haaretz] Basketball / Euroleague and NBA planning joint tournament

That's awesome! I'm not of the belief that the NBA is vastly superior to the Euro leagues so I guess the winner would depend on the rules used.

Fegwu,

Do you watch the Euro League games on NBATV? You do keep up with the overseas articles more than everyone else here, at least when it concerns the two young guys the Rockets have over there.

 

So is this an idea to revisit the McDonald's Games of the past or is it more likely just preseason games abroad? Sounds more like the latter.

Evan

 

The problem is that Great foreign players will have no reason to join nba. If the leagues are combined, then what is the point. If you had one world nba that is really no different than the olympics. So I don't really see the point.

 

I think players like Shaq, T-Mac, KG and even Lebron would get just as much or even more interest than the ones mentioned above.

 

So will there be an NBA Asia, Africa, S. America one day? This is a bad idea that has everything to do with money and not the quality-or-best interest of OUR sport. Getting a farm system in place for NBA America is a way higher priority.

 

It's going to be very interesting, and very competitive IMO. The NBA's teams cannot go over there thinking it's going to be a walk in the park, those dudes know how to play, and they will be psyched to play against a NBA team.

I've thought about this some and I think the only team that can easily beat a great European League team is Phoenix. The old Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks could have as well. The Spurs would too more so because of Parker and Ginobili, not Tim Duncan. The Sonics basically play a European style, but they would need to keep their bruisers off the court to stand a chance. The Heat could win too because of Shaq, but that won't be a sure thing even with him. The Pistons would probably win, but it would be in a different way, without Ben Wallace because he would almost be ineffictive in that style. The Rockets... they would probably be better served playing Vassilis over any PG currently on the roster if they really want to win. Two bad teams that would do good against those teams are the Jazz and Warriors.

Needless to say I am impressed with the Euro's, call me crazy if you want. Basically I just think that the only teams that will succeed against them will be teams that play or can potentially play like them. Most teams in the NBA today (even plenty of the good ones) rely too much on talent, individual play, and athleticism to win, instead of good, smart, team basketball like all those European teams rely on.

 

The Olympics is country based. Players play for their national teams. Combined League is team based. Any player from any country can play for any team.

It would be interesting if basketball develop something like the European Cup Football (soccer). NBA teams will dominate in the first decade or so. But Euro teams will eventually catch up. We will see Euro teams luring NBA free agent stars with big money.

 

Wow! That kind of mentality led to an embarrassing Olympics.

As a Rocket fan I still wouldn't be too confident that we would beat those team as easily as you think... Unless... The Rockets changed their linefup.

PG-Vassilis
SG-Wesley
SF-T-Mac
PF-Padgett
C-Yao

James, Barry, and Sura on his focused days are the only players that would be productive against European teams off the bench.