NBA in Europe?

[Warhawk]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/ian_thomsen/02/15/weekly.countdown/index.html

and

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/ian_thomsen/02/13/international.expansion/index.html

The NBA's on-and-off approach to expansion into Europe is back on again. Commissioner David Stern is considering new plans to create five full-fledged NBA franchises in Europe over the next decade, a league source told SI.com.

The initiative promises to be the big news of All-Star weekend in New Orleans, where international basketball officials are arriving this week for their annual meetings with the NBA. Stern is expected to reveal the league's new stance at a news conference Saturday, according to a league source.

The current idea would be to create five new teams in major markets to form a "European'' division within the NBA. The teams would play the full 82-game schedule and compete for the NBA championship. But the proposal is new and many factors will influence the eventual outcome, the league source said.

more....

 

[GregR31]

That would be retarted!

 

[Warhawk]

I think the travel/time difference is the main problem. You think the Texas Triangle is bad, try the European Pentagram! Not only do you have maybe 12-14 hour flight from the west coast (or whatever it is), then you are what, 9 hours off your normal sleep schedule????

It isn't going to work....

Now, I could see a league in Europe/N. Africa/W. Russia, with their own schedule and PO structure, maybe then playing a championship series against the NBA or something. Maybe another league in China/Japan/Austrailia as well? But playing a global game for the regular season wouldn't work.

I could also see adding teams in Mexico, etc, to the NBA.

Again, not looking at $$$ or politics, just geography here....

 

[GregR31]

Plus, I doubt many Free Agents will want to sing with a European team.

 

[Superman]

The NBA needs to be contracting, not expanding. This is not a good idea.

 

[PurpleHaze]

The NBA needs to be contracting, not expanding. This is not a good idea.

The initial plan is to re-locate existing stateside NBA franchises to Europe, at least a couple floundering ones on this side of the pond. Probably two teams get transfered initially and later more or new franchises awarded if it makes sense. Thus, the New Orleans Hornets might become the London Hornets or the Memphis Grizzlies the Munich Grizzlies.

 

[hoopsfan]

This idea is beyond moronic!

It's called the National Basketball Association...not the Global or European league. If they want one, they can have one, just not affiliated with the NBA.

You think ticket prices are high now...wait til they want you to pay for numerous trips overseas for each team, numerous times a season.!

 

[PurpleHaze]

This idea is beyond moronic!

It's called the National Basketball Association...not the Global or European league. If they want one, they can have one, just not affiliated with the NBA.

You think ticket prices are high now...wait til they want you to pay for numerous trips overseas for each team, numerous times a season.!

You might have a point, but a flight from Miami to Seattle for a Heat-Sonics game is about the same distance as a flight from NYC to London.

Miami - Seattle: 3,300 miles
London - NYC: 3,460 miles

 

[chrisnu]

You might have a point, but a flight from Miami to Seattle for a Heat-Sonics game is about the same distance as a flight from NYC to London.

Miami - Seattle: 3,300 miles
London - NYC: 3,460 miles

That's true, but even with a flight from Seattle to Miami, there'd be a chance to have other stops in the vicinity: Orlando, Atlanta, and Charlotte are all fairly close. I'm not sure there would be that opportunity flying from country to country in Europe.

I agree that the NBA should be contracting instead of expanding. There's too many teams as it is. The franchises which are failing should not relocate, but fold and allow their players to go to other teams.

 

[PurpleHaze]

That's true, but even with a flight from Seattle to Miami, there'd be a chance to have other stops in the vicinity: Orlando, Atlanta, and Charlotte are all fairly close. I'm not sure there would be that opportunity flying from country to country in Europe.

I agree that the NBA should be contracting instead of expanding. There's too many teams as it is. The franchises which are failing should not relocate, but fold and allow their players to go to other teams.

It would be a similar "fairly close" for a European tour for stateside NBA team. For example, a west coast US team would already be into one of their east coast swings and then head off to the European continent for at least a couple more games to finish up a road trip.

I suppose the NBA would love a franchise in London or about one hour from there Munich or Paris. But once you get deep into central, southern or eastern Europe (Madrid, Athens, Rome, etc.) it becomes more logistically stretched. Of course, in the not too distant future supersonic sub-orbital flights will cut times by half or more on transatlantic/transpacific routes. Then a franchise in Tokyo or Shanghai would not be out of the question!

 

[uolj]

Miami - Seattle: 3,300 miles
London - NYC: 3,460 miles

Yeah, but that's only really relevant if only the east coast teams ever have to play in Europe. The problem is the Seattle - London trip (or worse).

The expansion thing is my biggest issue with the idea, and the travel and time zone stuff is a close second.

 

[PurpleHaze]

Yeah, but that's only really relevant if only the east coast teams ever have to play in Europe. The problem is the Seattle - London trip (or worse).

The expansion thing is my biggest issue with the idea, and the travel and time zone stuff is a close second.

Seattle won't be a problem once they're in OKCity I understand many of the concerns, but NBA int'l expansion is going to happen one day - 5 years, 10 years from now. Even the NFL is toying with locating a franchise in the beautiful city of Toronto, Canada (Buffalo Bills) and eying possible expansion to London or Mexico City. Yes, they need a franchise in LA first it would seem.

The entire NBA travel issue I thought I explained from the standpoint of west coast teams only embarking on a Euro swing while already into an east coast road trip. Thus, the idea of flying direct from "a Seattle" to London is supposed to never happen - unless they meet for NBA championship

 

[uolj]

The entire NBA travel issue I thought I explained from the standpoint of west coast teams only embarking on a Euro swing while already into an east coast road trip. Thus, the idea of flying direct from "a Seattle" to London is supposed to never happen - unless they meet for NBA championship

But it's not just the flight that's the problem (and they'd still have to fly back). Either it's a really long road trip, or it's a long flight, then a game or two, then a long flight and a game or two, and a long flight and a game or two and then home. Teams complain about 5 and 6 game road trips now, but you'd really have to do more than that to make it work.

 

[bozzwell]

Two things:

1. It's very interesting to me that Stern/NBA floats this info on the same day that FIBA announces that they are working on World Cup for basketball (teams, as in NBA and Euroleague teams, not national teams). Just few months ago Stern rebuffed Vlade's overtures to work on expanding NBA to 5 Europe based teams. FIBA proposal would work, something like 16 teams in 4 groups and 2 top teams from each group go to quarterfinals/knock-out stage. 5 teams from NBA, 5 from Eurleague, 6 from the rest of the World. Scheduling would not be a problem as NBA and EL largely overlap. If it works out, it'd be like NFL-AFL pre-merger and NBA could expand/merge with EL in the future.

Few problems for Stern/NBA though:
- NBA would not be "World" championship anymore. This "World" thing never bothered me until recently.
- If EL teams play for WC under their current league(s) system, teams like Real Madrid would have unfair advantage, namely virtually unlimited resources and no salary cap.

2. Obviously, if NBA were to add European division, the whole system/schedule would have to be reworked. It's not just Seattle and Portland that would have to go long-haul, so would European teams. In fact, 5 Euro teams would have to travel to dozens of US destinations, where US teams could finish their European tour in 10 days (once you get there, everything is much closer then in USA). I mean it's a well known and understood problem (scheduling and schedule optimization) and other businesses/industries have been doing it for years. If scheduling was the only problem standing between NBA and European expansion, Euro division would be reality - yesterday.

 

[piksi]

On thing tha Stern is not thinking about are European fans or better say fans in southern part of europe. It adds another dimension to it - trust me

 

[venom_7]

You might have a point, but a flight from Miami to Seattle for a Heat-Sonics game is about the same distance as a flight from NYC to London.

Miami - Seattle: 3,300 miles
London - NYC: 3,460 miles

That's wonderful for the Knicks, but what about Sac-London? Pheonix-Naples? Oakland-Berlin?

 

[PurpleHaze]

That's wonderful for the Knicks, but what about Sac-London? Pheonix-Naples? Oakland-Berlin?

Did you read the entire thread? Your points were raised and addressed.
You might not like the answers, but it was covered.

 

[Warhawk]

Did you read the entire thread? Your points were raised and addressed.
You might not like the answers, but it was covered.

No, all that was speculated was that maybe the Kings (for example) would play in NY first then go. Like that really makes a big difference. And what if they DIDN'T schedule them that way?

We're talking about a 9-hour time differential (±1 hour, I think) for these road trips for west coast teams. Does anyone really believe that is feasible? Name one other sport that has several games a week that plays a schedule like that.

Again, I could see a separate division that plays their own schedule then plays against the NBA as we know it for a "world" champion, but I don't see any way that this is really do-able.

 

[PurpleHaze]

The schedule is speculation every year, but it was reported that any new NBA teams on the European continent would require some big adjustments such as only launching on such a tour when west coast teams were already on one of their eastern swings. Taking the existing 82 game schedule and extending it in duration - meaning more and longer breaks. The players association would probably have no problem with that! The season would perhaps begin a week or two earlier and end likewise last longer at the end. Playing so-called double headers or back-to-backs against the same team on the same court. Taking advantage of upcoming sub-orbital super sonic jet travel cutting air travel by half or more.

 

[uolj]

I like the idea of a separate European or international league that plays amongst themselves and has their own champion, and then the NBA champion plays them. It will take time, but ideally players will eventually take such an extra championship game/series seriously.

The key to the separate league approach is that the top players have to start choosing that league, otherwise there will never be any hope or need for merging.

 

[VF21]

On thing tha Stern is not thinking about are European fans or better say fans in southern part of europe. It adds another dimension to it - trust me

I think this really needs to be discussed. There are soccer fans in various parts of Europe that scare the **** out of me. If the basketball fans are anything like them, and I have every reason to believe they are, this could be a major point of consideration. As bad as "the brawl" was, it's nothing like what could happen in a European venue...

 

[piksi]

I think this really needs to be discussed. There are soccer fans in various parts of Europe that scare the **** out of me. If the basketball fans are anything like them, and I have every reason to believe they are, this could be a major point of consideration. As bad as "the brawl" was, it's nothing like what could happen in a European venue...

well in Europe - for the road team there is a simple choice. You either play to win or play to live because both don't go together. I hope that US players are used to coins, bottles, firelighters, cell phones and other things that will be thrown at them.

soccer fans are the basketball fans. they watch soccer in the afternoon and then go watch BB in the evening which means that they are already way drunk

almost forgot - there are still places in Europe that "don't mind" racism too much so that black soccer player have to deal with fans making monkey sounds and all the retarded stuff that goes with it.

And no I am not kidding or making it up. European fans need education

 

[VF21]

...I hope that US players are used to coins, bottles, firelighters, cell phones and other things that will be thrown at them...

Memo to self: Send note to Stern, advising him NOT to let Ron Artest sign with a European team.

 

[piksi]

Memo to self: Send note to Stern, advising him NOT to let Ron Artest sign with a European team.

Well in Europe - Ron would go in the stand but would not come out alive especially on the road

 

[Glenn]

When Peja was here I had the web site translated into Serbian and in the process got to know three very helpful Serbian guys who helped me including the man who designed the web site,

In the process I learned of the atmosphere at some Euro basketball games. This goes far beyond something that would simply anger a guy like Artest. Flying missles (batteries, fire crackers, and the like) can hit anyone and it gets very dangerous no matter what your color or emotional state. I suspect being ridiculed for being black would anger a large proportion of the NBA and as some of the venues seem somethat like a war zone, it could get very ugly.

I wish I had some of the pictures because a picture, as they say, is worth a 1000 words and might surprise the casual fan. Perhaps piksi could post a few pictures of some of some of the uglier European venues.

 

[piksi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M6oi4cann0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mXS25xDG6I

this is Serbia. Greeks, Turks are equal or worse. Italian and Spanish are little better

My dad used to work at such a venue and even at women's game things were getting bad. He used to help the girls go of the court while being spit on and shelled with all kinds of stuff and then special police had to escort the bus out of city limits. I was close by watching all this being scared for my dad. That was some 20 years ago.

One thing You never want to make is being seated in the middle of the opponent's fans. You can get Yourself killed. Usually the 2 fan groups are on the separate sides of the arena with plent of police as a buffer

 

[Glenn]

Thanks. That's exactly what I had seen. I don't know if that is the type of venue Stern is thinking of but that's what I have seen. I think I saw a game in Greece as that's where Peja was playing before he came here.

Perhaps there are arenas with more discipline. No doubt there are. In general the impression I get is that the European fans get too involved with their teams. It's kind of like what I would expect if the Crips had a team that was playing a team sponsored by the Bloods.