These days, with regular NBA players emerging to super stars we have to ask ourselves – what is really the difference between Europe and the NBA? Now I don’t want to start the whole thing again with “a different style of play”. Lets hear what a guy who grew up with European basketball and is a good NBA player right now: Andrea Bargnani.
I just read an interview with Andrea on fiba.com where he is talking about the difference between Europe and the United States.
“All the people that work around the league (NBA), the organisation is perfect,” he said. “It would be some thing amazing if we could have that organisation in Europe. Basketball is a little bit bigger but in Italy, compared to soccer, everything is very small so it is very difficult for basketball to be like soccer. Basketball is still very, very small in Italy.”
Well I will find out if this is true since I will live in Italy for the next 8 months. I will start off next week and see how much the Italians like the NBA and if the NBA EUROPE LIVE event will be a big event of Italians.
I am sure Andrea is right in some way with the organisation in the NBA is perfect, but it looks like at least all Euroleague teams are getting there. Of course it is not easy to organize all the national leagues with their different levels but the very top level is comparable to the NBA. We will see.
I thought there could be more evaluation on that. “Perfect organization”. Good thought. Now expand why.
Could you keep an eye out for James Singleton while you’re in Italy? We Racer fans miss him greatly, and detailed info is often hard to find.
Andrea is right, it couldn’t be any different. Just think of Juventus, Milan, Inter, Roma, Lazio, Napoli football clubs, there is just not enough room for basketball there.
The cities that host and support the big italian basketball clubs simply do so because they don’t have a football team in the top division. Bologna, Treviso, Siena…
@Murray State Fan
James is playing with TAU Ceramica in Spain, a Euroleague team. so at least you should find some info on the official Euroleague site http://www.euroleague.net
He had an awful knee injury last saturday. He will miss the next 6-7 months.
@ Arkadios: it’s not fully true what you say, just see Milan, Rome or Bologna (that had alway a good soccer team).
Ok, soccer is the “king” in Italy … but basketball is not so “depressed” … we have between 8 and 9 milions of basketball followers, and lately many “vips” have show thei love for basketball (i.e. Giorgio Armani, Rome’s major Veltroni etc).
Regarding the comment: “Andrea is right, it couldn’t be any different. Just think of Juventus, Milan, Inter, Roma, Lazio, Napoli football clubs, there is just not enough room for basketball there. ”
Remember in almost all the NBA cities, basketball usually plays second to American football, baseball and in some cases hockey. There are 4 professional/major league sports in almost every city that the NBA plays in, and that is what the NBA competes against, yet the support and top level facilities are still available. I do not understand the excuse that because soccer is biggest in Europe they should not have better orginazation in the basketball league?
Marco sport in Europe is not a franchise of very few teams as in the NBA. Imagine the whole of Europe with only 30-50 clubs playing Basketball at the top level with no domestic leagues. Seems difficult to me even to imagine.
Also all clubs in most sports are more or less based on tradition, fans, economic stability and different style of competion values. Winning is more important when it brings enthousiasm to the followers. A crude example would be the reaction of the people in Italy when winning a World Cup in Football and in Basketball….in the first case the party would go on for days, in the second i am not sure if there would be a lot of massive reactions.
Also football in terms of fans numbers is not comparable to any other sport…especially outside the US.
For me yes the NBA is very organised league with top organised teams. The have been pro for very long and have a much better understanding and development of pro sports. BUT in the end the game for me at least has become a circus parade of gifted athletes that most of them do not know the basics. Good for highlights but not a team sport. It used to be much much better.