What on earth is happening?
A new member body for non licensed Euroleague clubs is forming, Trapani Sharks played with two guys, and the NBA Europe project seems to be obsessed with minimising detail. It’s all quite a lot, especially for Emmet Ryan, whose own body has been fighting him in recent months.
Right, let’s get the scary bit at the end of the intro out of the way first. Don’t be alarmed but feel welcome to be vicariously irked. For quite a few years now, I’ve had major issues getting out of bed in the morning. We’re talking about it being physically impossible to get up for hours after initially waking.
This is not ideal for anyone. First off, the assumption was mental. I’ve had plenty of struggles there but, nope, definitely not that. Then it was a vitamin D deficiency. Makes sense, I’m Irish and we’re almost genetically coded to have that. I did but the regular tablets had no impact. Finally, it’s been worked out that it’s a B12 deficiency.
Anyone who knows how much steak I eat, heck I have made steak and Euroleague Friday a tradition, will laugh at that. You should. Then you might feel bad that you laughed. You shouldn’t, it’s objectively hilarious. It turns out the combination of steak and regular B12 pills is as useful as using a dessert spoon to clear a driveway of snow. In short, it’s not serious or life threatening but it is incredibly annoying.
Anyway, I start getting injections next week so I should be as ludicrous in the mornings as I am the rest of the time in short order. Speaking of ludicrous, a great deal happened while I reduced what I was doing on this site and its related channels. Let’s take a look at that.
Misreading the room
Euroleague’s two tier status for its clubs was always going to hit it eventually. The question was when and how. For those unaware, there are essentially two tiers of teams in Euroleague. The A licence holders and everyone else make up those two groups. There are a few sub-categories within everyone else but they basically had none of the power and little of the direct revenue streams from Euroleague itself that the A licence clubs have.
The moral and meritocratic rights and wrongs of this two tier set-up is largely beside the point. When a group of clubs have a collective reason for being unhappy, they’re going to find a way to do something about it. Donatas Urbonas of Basket News reported that just such a move is happening.
What’s most interesting here is that the group, which doesn’t have a name yet, seems to already be targeting clubs outside of Euroleague. Hapoel Jerusalem are amongst the first teams named while Besiktas and PAOK, both of which appear ready to spend, are reported as targets. It’s rather intriguing and one that will run for a while to come.
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Right so, Trapani
Full disclosure, I’m a commentator on the Basketball Champions League (BCL) but was not on the game that got everyone talking this week. For those that have been out of the loop, Trapani Sharks ended up forfeiting a BCL play-in game, and indeed series, with Hapoel Holon on Tuesday.
Reduced to two players, having only arrived with five for the game in Bulgaria, when one of those fouled out the game was called with less than 7 minutes of the first quarter having elapsed. This is a drawn out collapse of a club, having already lost their coach a month ago and having cancelled a Serie A game days before the issues in the BCL.
Having been a dream story over the past two seasons, rising to Serie A and finishing second in the regular season, the financial reality hit hard. That we still see such scenarios in Europe is awful but, unfortunately, far from surprising. Still, it’s not a good look when the NBA is planning its moves to the continent.
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The NBA says a lot while saying far too little
The NBA Europe project continues to operate on a drip feed approach when it comes to details. There will be a full video once I get my health sorted but the basics are still awfully lacking in core details.
Andreas Zagklis, the FIBA Secretary General, has said he expects a start date of October 2027. That’s 21 months away, not exactly an ocean of time. That’s particularly true as several of the target cities, like London and Rome, don’t have established teams with the kind of drawing power desired. My friend and, frankly, one of the finest minds in basketball journalism Aris Barkas has written substantially about the potential schism on the horizon.
The starting point will involve 16 teams, of which 12 seem likely to be permanent members. Meanwhile there are concerns from politicians about the format as NBA Europe starts to reach out to potential members. It’s all quite a mess and one where I’ll need a touch more energy to dive in wholly. Just as well that should change next week.
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