In terms of competitors, it's fair to expect more from people playing in Europe than in college.
With all due respect, I simply do not believe this to be a fact. A lot more NBA greats have come from US colleges.
Um ... a lot more total NBA players have come from US colleges. Your statement is meaningless unless it addresses the ratio.
Also, the amateur record of USA college kids against the pros of Europe in the Olympics speaks otherwise. Now I do not have the statistics for the just the amatuer team so this has the NBA pros but that is a 20 year old development.
That is pretty much a useless analysis since it is basically a combination of apples vs bananas comparison or out-dated, obsolete information.
(... much more obsolete analysis (pre-2011?) deleted ...)
So I for one do not believe that Europe is a better place to get stars than USA colleges. Roleplayers perhaps and an occasional really good player and all star.
Believe what you want. But the international game has changed dramatically over the last 15 years and especially the last decade. Heck, things have really exploded in just the last half-dozen years. Most of what you based your 'analysis' on is obsolete.
There are certain fundamentals that shape the game that you can't get around. The age of players in the NCAA is automatically constrained to be between ~17-23 years old, with most of the best players leaving before they reach 21. LONG before reaching physical maturity. These are schoolboys who not only are young and undeveloped, but technically are supposed to be balancing their devotion to basketball with their academics. Yes, we all know that for the few who actually have the potential to go pro for a living, the latter can take a dip in priority. But the majority of players in the NCAAs have zero chance at an NBA career and have to actually try somewhat to make progress in their studies.
Meanwhile, EuroLeague players are typically in their mid-20s, at physical maturity and more often near the peak of their abilities. These guys are all paid to play basketball, not to go to class. And the better teams have veterans who have sometimes played together for years.
You mentioned that a lot of former NCAA american players end up in the international leagues. This is true. Those players are then older and more physically mature than when they were playing in the NCAA. Thus, that whole segment of players is almost certainly at a higher level of competition when they are in the international game than when they were schoolboys. Yes, most of them are not good enough to play in the NBA. They were even less good enough for the NBA while they were still in school.
Another flaw in the analysis is the sweeping together of all 'international' players into one comparative pool. Grouping the Spanish ACB together with the Brazilian NBB is just fundamentally wrong. It is like comparing the North Carolina Tar Heels to a High School J.V. team.
Historically, the numbers are still small. But we are just on the front edge of a wave of more and more top quality players that will start to come out of international basketball.