Author Topic: where to get an education on the euro leagues?  (Read 918 times)

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where to get an education on the euro leagues?
« on: October 28, 2016, 12:24:42 PM »

Offline otherdave

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I know next to nothing on how basketball works in Europe, and would like to get smarter.  Anybody know where there is a good general overall explanation/primer?

Which leagues are the A leagues?   B Leagues? C?

Short seasons, but then (if you are good enough) do you play for your national team in a big Euro tourney every year? or your club team enters tourneys after your league ends?

What is the more prestigious championship/events to win?

There seems to be some much going on, it all gets very confusing quickly!


Thanks in advance for any help.

Re: where to get an education on the euro leagues?
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2016, 04:41:52 PM »

Offline vgulab

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Highest level is the EuroLeague.  There you actually have very quality teams. Real Madrid owner already talked with Silver about nba team expansion. There are 5-6 or six great teams in the EuroLeague which i can see them giving hard time on some nba teams. Real Madrid, CSKA Moscow, Barcelona, Fenerbahce, Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Laboral, Lokomotiv... These teams are full of former nba players of future nba players and have the financial power to pay those player. There is no real salary limit in europe so financial power is very important and no other teams are powerfull financially than these.

Second level od europe basketball isthe EuroCup and third level is the EuroChallenge but those are for good teams but with no financial power and mostly from domestic players. There is also the ABA or Adriatic league which is more like a regional league. Members are teams from the former Yugoslavia ( Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro,Serbia, Slovenia)
It is interesting competition and there are 2 teams from my country Macedonia. Also ABA league is where you can watch Zizic play for Cibona which is one of the better teams in the ABA league

Re: where to get an education on the euro leagues?
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2016, 07:02:54 PM »

Offline greece66

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@otherdave

First you have national leagues like the Russian, Greek and Spanish ones. Each country has its own system, but really it is only the first division that counts (having said this, both Nowitzki and Giannis were drafted when playing for the second division in their countries).

The Euroleague brings together the 16 best teams of 18 European countries. It rly is a competition not a championship or league (in this sense its very name is misleading).

The teams first play in groups and then they have elimination rounds. Finally, the four teams that qualify play in the Final Four. Having said this, they change the format of the competition pretty often and it is not easy to keep track: the only that has been in place since when I remember the league is the Final Four.

For more info, you can take a look at wikipedia, their article is not perfect, but it's a start

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroLeague

If you have any more questions, shoot.

Re: where to get an education on the euro leagues?
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2016, 07:04:51 PM »

Offline otherdave

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TP - thanks for the great info.  By the way, my wife's grandmother was born in Macedonia!

Re: where to get an education on the euro leagues?
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2016, 11:37:45 AM »

Offline detour

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As it has been said, the top competition is Euroleague. This year it is converted to a 16 team league format. After 30 matchdays (teams play with each other in home and away), around April, best 8 teams enter the playoffs phase. Playoff winners attend the NCAA style Final Four, win or go home semifinals and final. Last year CSKA Moscow won, Fenerbahçe İstanbul (which I support) was the runner up, Baskonia and Lokomotiv Kuban were the other two. 4 teams eliminated in playoffs were Real Madrid, Panathinaikos Athens, Barcelona, and Red Star Belgrade. This year 4th matchday has been played with 16 teams. For more info: http://www.euroleague.net/

There are also more pan European leagues like Eurocup, Eurochallenge, FIBA Europe Cup but the level of play drops drastically as best teams in the continent play in Euroleague.

So which teams attend above pan European leagues? Teams from different countries, thus the national leagues. All teams in above competitions play at the same time, all season long, in their national leagues. It can be said Spanish and Turkish leagues are the best in terms of overall quality. Greek, Italian, Russian, German teams follow them in no particular order.

There are also Regional Leagues. The most prominent one is Adriatic/ABA league, where Zizic also plays some games. This league features good teams from all around Balkan region. Why teams attend this regional league? Let me illustrate.

For example, Red Star Belgrade plays in Euroleague albeit with a small budget and homegrown talents. But the quality of Serbian league is really low. So they attend the ABA league to play games not in level of Euroleague, but better than Serbian league. They play in 3 leagues: Euroleague, ABA league, Serbian league at the same time. Of course there is also traditional rivalry between some Balkan/ex-Yugoslavian teams and that is another incentive to play there.

All in all, Euroleague is a good starting point to get a taste of European basketball with its best players, prospects, coachs and fans. I say fans because even though I am used to it US fans are shocked (mostly positively, and sometimes rightfully negatively) when they see European fans.