Comments on: London: a future NBA city?

By: zlatan milutinovic-petrucelli

zlatan milutinovic-petrucelli — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:05:40 +0000

england will never ever be a basket ball country like european greats: italia, serbia, slovenia, lithuania, greece, spain, croatia, russia..and also france, turkey and even germany…never ever…the one reason they will not be so badly thrashed is that they naturalized some nba players who will only play till olympiad of 2012,,,apart from them british basketball is at an awful level and always will be..there is just no tradition of the sport here and never will be. I lived there for some time i know!! so while people are saying they may surprise people in eurobasket, trust me, in a group of death they will finish 0-3 and that will be the first and last time uk is in eurobasket…let the nba take over england…england is not part of european basketball..

By: B-BALL Guy

B-BALL Guy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:49:20 +0000

I think London has very strong economical situation , but they are not interested in Basketball at all. Chordi Bertomeu wishes to have London Towers in euroleague in nearly future. I think it would be a big step to wake up british basketball. Offcourse there have to be commercials and else stuff to make a interest to the people. British people likes good stuff , so i think they would love basketball definitely . Talking about team. Offcourse it is not going to be a strong team , but Towers has young players who wants to improve they’re self in higher level . Offcourse the only way to create real team is to buy ~3 very good players which can play with young players which are in the team now …

By: Davy

Davy — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:25:14 +0000

First of all, i am offended by your “I don’t care about the french” comments, lol, well i am Afro-French, and I stand for my country. But to comment what you wrote, you absolutely riht, the Nba in london will be the most horrible investment, England isn’t ready for Basketball, matter of fact, before luol, they didn’t have a national team, I mean, if they were thinking of Lithuania, where basketball is BIG, HUGE, it would be different, even in france,Italy, Spain, maybe Germany, cuz dirk is pretty big there it won’t work. I’ve been living in England since 2005, and I only get 1 game a week on TV, and a couple of euroleague games, but you got to have a cable. David Stern must have done a terrible job gathering informations, because, he should have started by getting people used to watch a basketball game, I mean i have friends who have never seen 1 min of a game, not a minute.
NBA in Europe anyway is a bad idea, unless they are thinking about sponsoring, but still the FIBA will not probably allow it , I mean they don’t need the NBA.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:19:57 +0000

Alright, just a couple of things Christophe. Firstly, you need to drink less before you start writing! 50£ is actually £50! I’m just playing…

Ok, so yes, Euroleague ball is really not shown or loved over here (here i mean London – from NW London). When i played at school i was one of a handful of guys who wanted to play and only when our coach from Boston came along did we actually create a team!

The point is, is that basketball has always been supersceded by bigger sports here, football (soccer), cricket and rugby. I love basketball and for me, it’s always been about the NBA and NCAA (more so after attending UCLA for a year – winners of NCAA Tourny 2008? YES PLEASE!).

Anyway, the NBA is trying to find a central location for investors to build up the image and propel the love for the game by using an extremely well-known city. I don’t think there is anything wrong with choosing a city that speaks the same language and is one of the world’s major capitals. There is DEFINITELY love for ball around the UK and, i believe, some very adequate players who, as Michael said, do go on to play for NCAA Division III, II and I teams. Money is obviously involved, but how can it not be, revenue HAS to be created somehow and i am all for an annual (possibly moving on to bi-annual?) NBA game at the O2 arena.

Keep your hands under your asses for a while though, things like this take time: money, promotion and a willingness to accept something new, which as we can all appreciate here, is sometimes a tough task in a country that bases its pride on traditionalism (is that a word?).

Personally, i think it’s about improving business relations between Euroleague members, the NBA and BBL – creating big events, getting the buzz going…..i think the NBA is taking a step in the right direction……….at long last.

ps. if anyone knows of some teams, i’ve just got back and am desperate to play at a local level (nothing major) but really want to be part of a team again – prefferably near NW london. Holla! MD33

swish6@hotmail.com

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By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:57:47 +0000

I am London born and bred and a hoops addict as well. I’ve been playing pickup games for the past 10 years and this is what I can tell you…
*Some guys in this thread have made very valid points about the coverage of Euroleague, NBA, and NCAA on TV. It is EXTREMELY poor. Euroleague is not shown on mainstream TV, but is available on some obscure cable channel. NCAA is not shown on mainstream TV, but is shown on NASN, another channel most people have not heard of. NBA is shown on Channel 5 and the 2008 Allstar game was on, but weekly coverage is once a week.
*I was at the O2 for the Celtics-Timberwolves game and most people I spoke to were there for the curiosity. Aside from the big name NBA players, no one really knows who’s who and I like to follow all the news from the NBA.
*If you want a decent pickup game, check out these places. Hendon park (NW London), Harlesden (NW London), Ravencourt Park, Hammersmith (West London), Brixton Recreation Centre (South London), Turpike Lane Park (North London) Westway Centre (Latimer Road, West London)
*A lot of guys (16-27) play pickup games and it can be very competitive, but a lot of players try to be flashy.
*I grew up in West London and I know of quite a few guys who went to the NCAA to play, so grassroots basketball is active, just the professional league is not really happening.
*Checkout this site for more info. http://www.streetball.co.uk. There are summer competitions at Brighton Beach. (the UK’s equivalent of Venice Beach). As I said earlier, these players are quite flashy. Play Ball!

By: JayOne

JayOne — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 02:47:00 +0000

Got to agree with the views already stated – I’m back in London after going to college in the States and am surprised at the lack of NBA coverage back here. There’s so much coverage of the NFL now, but for some reason the NBA is lagging far behind still; we didn’t even get to see the All Star game!! :^o
I’m even more shocked that we get to see coverage of the NCAA and FIBA tournaqments (on Setanta) but the coverage of NBA is still limited to headline scores on Sky Sports News.

Thank God for the internet!!

By: Slobodan Chutzpah

Slobodan Chutzpah — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:55:32 +0000

I’m Finnish and used to live in London. Now, Finland is probably one of the poorest markets for basketball in Europe, with ice hockey, football, Formula One, and winter sports reigning supreme as far as sports coverage goes.

Still, I’d say the situation in London is probably even worse. There is absolutely no fanbase for basketball at all. Even the black urban kids mostly gravitate towards football.

Therefore, it would be madness to base a Euro NBA team in London: unlike many European countries with great basketball traditions, there is no culture of basketball on the Isles. It would be far more savvy to base the teams in cities with a built-in audience — which all the other proposed cities do have.

By: Hirona Okura

Hirona Okura — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:15:42 +0000

You are absolutely right. London ( or England as a country) is not ready for the game of basketball. The biggest cable tv provider is actually showing less nba coverage than it used to a couple years ago. There is only ONE live game a week as far as i am concern.

I was there in the O2 Arena to see my man KG. I bet I was the only passionate fan out there. All other spectators seemed to be more amazed by the half time dunking show than the actual game. MAN! They only care about football (soccer if you americans wanna cal it) rugby and cricket… thats about it…

By: Srivaths

Srivaths — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:01:18 +0000

I’ve been in London only for a short while and my opinions have to be taken with big pinch of salt. In a bid to see some games locally, I took to watching some premier division games from the London Metropolitan Basketball League (lmbl.net). I’ve seen only a handful and the quality is very patchy. Few teams possess players with athleticism and the rare team that does usually wins sorely on the basis of being faster and stronger. They don’t seem to run too many set plays or screens to create spacing. They usually dump the ball to the player who seems like scoring and hope for the best. I have watched only one Euroleague game (Fener-Barca) live and I have not seen anyone here who would belong at that level of competition. Again I must stress that I don’t know enough about the finer aspects of the game but it just seems like an NBA city ought to have better local talent.