I hope it crashes and burns.

The Euroleague already exists.

Whoever is pushing this clearly doesn’t know much about basketball in Europe. The only places where people would come and watch in numbers that the NBA wants are the very same as those where people don’t make enough money to pay the ticket prices that the NBA charges.

We gotta start brainstorming names. Roman Legionaries? London Shankers? Manchester… Hooligans?

Seems a bit short-sighted not to have any eastern euro teams. Might not be as much money in eastern europe but big, lively crowds help to make sports feel like they matter.

I’m a bit surprised Manchester is in play over Lisbon, but I guess Manchester’s sport heavy history is pushing them in discussions.

Manchester lol

Not a single English soul cares about basketball, waste of a spot, although it’s obviously a commercial decision, as all recent NBA ones seem to be.

Jaden Ivey gonna hoop on the Barca Bears

It’s be cool if they can fix their “product” here at home

Curious from Londoners where a team would play there. I guess it’s the Olympic Park stadium?

April Fools

This is gonna be primarily sovereign wealth fund oil money huh?

One of the things I wonder is if this will essentially supplant the G- League. We expect this to be a “minor” league relative to the NBA, but it seems likely that they will have large fanbases with teams that can afford much higher salaries than the G-League contracts.

Birmingham is a city nobody in the UK cares about

Euro basketball is popular af right now over there. Unless they are somehow tying those teams to our league (meaning they play actual NBA teams), then i don’t see the point of NBA Euorpe. It would be no different than NFL Europe and we all remember how that turned out.

I wish it well but this is DoA.

There’s no revenue to support a massive European basketball league.

Umm they don’t really play basketball in England lol. When have you ever heard of an English basketball league or an English team tearing it up in the Euroleague lol.

Eastern Europe on the other hand, especially Baltic countries like Lithuania, and the Balkan ones like Serbia, have long basketball histories and have produced many nba players. But i guess the east is not as cool for Mr. Silver.

I’ll be very curious how this works out.

My theory is that there will be a good amount of NBA players that opt to play overseas in this league if the money makes sense.

If you’re a guy that maybe isn’t getting good minutes in the NBA, why wouldn’t you have interest in the NBA league based in Barca/Madrid/Manchester/etc? Even if you’re a good player in the NBA on a bad team or in a city you don’t enjoy, why wouldn’t you consider a move? I think this is going to make it alot different than the idea of playing in the currently Euroleague because it currently feels alot more foreign.

Pretty sure Bayern Munich would nope out. They weren’t interested in the football Super League either.

And I can’t imagine they would allow another rival franchise in the same city.

Should be spending this time and money developing the game of basketball here at home. The NBA could take a page out of the European model and create youth, regional, and minor leagues all over the country to scout American talent and get kids into organized basketball who can’t afford, or whose parents oppose, AAU. 

Instead we’re developing basketball everywhere BUT the US, because those people are adults who already have money, not kids who need to find basketball to improve their lives. 

I just hope this makes the pipeline of European players to the NBA even smoother

I hope a collaboration with Euroleague instead of new league with some teams with zero history and a football history

Can LeBron sign with a team there ?

Wonder how salaries will be paid out. Think that’ll play into how prestigious this could be

For example, if US NBA is the cream of the crop and pays the most (by a large margin), there’s still an expectation that the best of the best come to the US, and then NBA Europe can just become an integrated feeder/development league in Europe (rather than the more detached Euroleague)

But if the expectation is that they’re paid equally and talent is easier to move across US and Europe, then I can see it being more equal competitiveness. 

The top 4 teams from nba Europe go to the nba cup?

They should relegate the bottom 4 NBA teams into euro NBA if they want to avoid tanking.

They should just have a mid season tournament there. Each team could have a “home” city in Europe.

Weird how many of these cities already have multiple successful professional teams.

Like how many fans of Fenerbache or Galatasaray will switch over to be fans of the Istanbul Lightning (or whatever they call it)?

Its all about money .

The problem with this is they are just trying to snag the biggest media markets, but the stadiums will be empty. Giving Manchester, Madrid, Lyon to cities in Eastern Europe most Americans have never heard of would give this league a lot more fans and soul.

I‘m a bit confused about these numbers: In the case of Berlin for example, ALBA Berlin has already stated that they are in advanced talks with the NBA but these circulated sums sounds far above their financial capabilities.

Helsinki not on the list because Jazz would be playing whoever, all of Finland would come out to watch Lauri, and Jazz would sit him for tanking purposes

Chris Paul retiring means teams won’t be able to trade him to Europe

I don’t understand what is the plan with NBA Europe. How many spots are there? How will it work with the NBA?

Vamos Madrid

Curious what the rules will be. FIFA? NBA? A combo? And whether the salaries will be enough for NBA players who can’t make a roster to sign up. Will it be a better showcase than the G-league for players hoping to get back in the main league?

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Thought I read before that Liverpool was part of this too unless I just hallucinated that at some point

Istanbul was Constantinople 

What a terrible list. We all know they want the biggest media markets, but it doesn’t follow the logic of where players come from or who will show up to watch. This thing is going to flop hard.

No Tel Aviv????

The London Knives,

Isn’t Istanbul in the middle east? Or is this a loaded question. Ugly American asking.