Is the Euroleague Now the Best Basketball League in the World?
Copyright (c) 2011 Nir Hodara
With recent developments in the world basketball scene and the impressive results of some of the national basketball teams, such as Spain, in recent international tournaments, experts are now reconsidering the question which is the best basketball league in the world.
Traditionally, it was considered a safe bet to consider the NBA to be, not only the best basketball league in the world, but also in a standard of its own.
Most experts now agree that the Euroleague final four tournament, if not the best in the world, can at least be mentioned alongside the NBA.
Some go even further to claim that since the Euroleague Final Four format was introduced, the Euroleague is now the best basketball league in the world.
In order to understand how this came to be and how fans all over the world are now curious to know the identity of the Euroleague 2012 tournament winner at least as much as they are curious to know the identity of the next NBA champion, one needs review the steady change that European basketball has been undergoing.
The change began when American basketball players were brought over to Europe, during the late sixties and the seventies. At first, the players were not major stars but players that could not find their way to the major stage of American professional basketball.
The mixing of the European team style of play with the American individual and athletic style of play brought great results and that led to an overflow of American players trying their luck in Europe. When the Euroleague Final Four format was introduced in the late eighties, Euroleague tickets sales dramatically increases. This brought bigger budgets and bigger sponsors. Euroleague teams were now able to offer American starts of the highest caliber large sums of money to come and play for them. This development saw basketball transformed into an international game, with players from Europe joining American teams and top American players joining European teams.
Some experts claim that what makes the Euroleague now better than the NBA is the fact that it now uses a hybrid of the two styles of play, American and European, somethings that allows teams to adjust their play tactics against any particular adversary.
Recent games between NBA and Euroleague teams have demonstrated the validity of the questions brought forth in this article with Barcelona able to beat the Los Angeles Lakers in a close game in which all the major stars of the American team participated.
About the Author
Ticket2Final enables sports fans to reserve and purchase Sports Tickets, for the most exciting sporting events, such as - Euroleague, Coppa Italia, FA Cup, Rugby etc. http://www.ticket2final.com/Euroleague-Final-Four
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