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luther · 07-09-2008, 04:41 PM

http://www.eurobasket.com/events/eluleb/08-09/eurol.asp

Quote:

Should Euroleague name be changed to Mediterranean League?
by Eurobasket - Jul 9, 2008
ULEB is responsible for organizing the most important European basketball competition for clubs - Euroleague. We have to congratulate ULEB for their effort of raising basketball level in Europe and top Euroleague teams can easily challenge quite few NBA teams (just figure why there is no more McDonald World Club Championships, which ended as soon as NBA teams started having tough time to win it). But we are far from cheering to anything we were told and see only positives.

ULEB is responsible for organizing the most important European basketball competition for clubs - Euroleague.
We have to congratulate ULEB for their effort of raising basketball level in Europe and top Euroleague teams can easily challenge quite few NBA teams (just figure why there is no more McDonald World Club Championships, which ended as soon as NBA teams started having tough time to win it).
But we are far from cheering to anything we were told and see only positives.
There criteria ULEB uses to qualify teams to Euroleague are questioned a lot.
Who won last year Euroleague - Russian CSKA Moscow, while none of Final Four host Spanish did not qualify to the final.
As result we have this year again single club from Russia, while ...five teams from Spain.
Do not you find it interesting that Euroleague is run by ULEB, which is located ...in Spain?
There is one more interesting aspect of Euroleague 2008-09. Should the name be changed to Mediterranean League.
Common, out of 24 teams, only 4 (CSKA, Zalgiris, Prokom, ALBA) and are outside of Mediterranean Sea region.
Such tendency for choosing location of Euroleague teams is gvery questionable. It practically puts out of the basketball world lots of countries.
It's similar like NBA placing most of teams in California and allowing maybe 4-5 teams to be located outside of the sunny state just for the reason to call the league 'National', instead of 'Californian'.
Well, Americans did it smarter way as they allocated the teams across the country assuring to have equal access to top basketball to almost all of the states. We somehow missed that part in Europe and we gave up on the countries located outside of Mediterranean ring.
What happened to the clubs from Slovakia, United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Belarus, Iceland, etc.?
They are not maybe the reachest clubs in Europe, but have very decent leagues with professional players and should have a chance to participate in one of European cups.
They used to do it in the past and somehow there is no more place for them in European clubs competitions.
Are they still part of European basketball as I know.
Maybe ULEB / FIBA would like them to create their own Euro-Small Countries Cup, so they do not have to worry any more about organizing all-Euro cup and can focus onyl on the countries with the highest budgets invested in basketball.
And it was such naive for me to hope that these intenational institutions are responsible for organizing European club competitions.
Unfortunately it's not the case and if you follow the history of European competitions, you will be surprised to see how it changes it's focus to smaller and smaller number of countries.

I'll be honest, I took a look at this and laughed. The NBA / Americans didn't "allocate the teams across the country assuring [sic] to have equal access to top basketball to almost all of the states." Teams were generally placed in large markets. And while yes, plenty of those are in California--let's not forget, we have four of 30 teams in California, and had one in San Diego as recently as the 80s--it has to do with where there is money and interest. And where is that? Cities. Sure, there are major cities across the country. And that's why the league is spread across the country. It wasn't a benevolent act by the powers that be, any more than I believe it was any sort of ULEB plot to deprive greater Europe of basketball. The nations around the Mediterranean have had the strongest basketball programs / interest / clubs, generally speaking. Russia, Lithuania, yes. But mostly, Spain, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, etc. Thoughts on this?

**Krstic All Star** · 07-09-2008, 05:19 PM

The concept seems distinctly 'Eurocrat-ese'

**Porn_Player** · 07-09-2008, 05:28 PM

Considering that was an official eurobasket bit of reporting, the whole article was terrible and narrow minded.

The whole Mediterranean League dig was really bad aswell, the area those lands cover is ENORMOUS. It is where some of the greatest wealth + good weather conditions are to be found which ofcourse would result in basketball being adopted around those areas. These teams have a head start compared to some Russians or whatever because they can walk out of there house and go to the court everyday!

Quote:

What happened to the clubs from Slovakia, United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Belarus, Iceland, etc.?
They are not maybe the reachest clubs in Europe, but have very decent leagues with professional players and should have a chance to participate in one of European cups.

Woahhhh this dude gets worst! I can only speak about the United Kingdom but we had our shot, everyone will remember the Guildford Heat making the Euroleague and getting dominated in the process. The minnow nations he mentioned have a long way to go in terms of producing homegrown talent/attracting quality foreign players to the league.

How can people be paid to write such drivvle?

luther · 07-09-2008, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Porn_Player

Considering that was an official eurobasket bit of reporting, the whole article was terrible and narrow minded. ...
How can people be paid to write such drivvle?

To be fair, Eurobasket isn't an "official" site. It's just a long-standing (one of the first moderately reliable sources for euro basketball info that I learned of, back in the '96 range!) collection of euro-based writers. I have no idea as to their "professionalism" but it is safe to say it varies... I did get a kick out of it, though.

argusa · 07-10-2008, 07:58 PM

It's all about the money. Where the sport can prosper, there it will be.

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