Shaq and Sabonis the elder having fun attending the Euroleague in Lithuania.
I wanna see an NBA game with this atmosphere once
2024-2025 pre-season friendly Partizan Belgrade VS PAOK Greece
Youtube link
Played in Open court. Switch to 04:00 for the 2nd half when it’s basically Night time outside, and the court is lit by fan flares
Temu David Beckham 14 seconds in.
Never gonna happen
God knows i love NBA… But europeans crowds are so great in comparison of “defense defense” and people seated and watching a game like a Netflix stream.
Every basketball fan should experience one time a live game in Europe. Especially, Greece, turkey, in the Balkans countries or Lithuania.
I wish we could have the NBA + europeans fans culture, would be so awesome.
In Poland the football ultras have a saying “Tu się nie siedzi, tu się stoi i się kibicuje”
Which roughly translates to “You don’t sit here, you stand and you cheer”
There was even a situation where a Crystal Palace fan came to a match against Wisła Kraków and bought a ticket to be of the “ultras” sections and was rather shocked to not find his seat, because it didn’t exist. He even asked about it online and the team themselves answered that you don’t sit in that section, but cheer
My favorite polish raper Hubert. even made a whole book to one if his songs using that saying
It’s rapper. I’m assuming you’re talking about a hip-hop artist and English is not your first language but without context what you said could read very differently
He didn’t just spell the word rapper and leave out a P? Diddy?
Literate women love Eminem “Look at him, ‘Chicka chicka chicka Slim Shady’ I’m sick of him”
England doesn’t allow standing sections in the EPL after all their hooligan issues in the pre-2000s, that they have now taken care of. Most other leagues in Europe, bar European cups like the Europa League and Champions League, have standing only sections for the ultras, where there are no seats. This allows a lot more people to be packed in to a smaller area.
When those leagues that have standing sections qualify for European cups, they have to re-arrange their stadiums a bit and implement seats for everyone due to UCL/EL rules, which always makes those standing sections look half-empty, since people aren’t sitting, but crowding together and standing anyway.
not a big fan of the “eVeRy BoDy ClAp YoUr HaNdS” chant I take it?
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It seems like across most sports overseas the fans there are actually fans and attend games to watch their team play. In America it’s just for social status and to post on Instagram.
Watch a college football game. It’s not that there aren’t real fans. It’s that the real fans are priced out of a lot of American stadiums/arenas.
Get in price for Texas/Florida October 17 is $300
USC/Penn St in a stadium with 106k capacity, get in price is $215
College football is priced higher than the NFL and fans are 100% priced out. TV broadcasts showing the few thousand students in bleachers every commercial break doesn’t change that
Warriors at Suns 4/8/25 - $170
(Eventual champion) Thunder at Suns 4/9/25 - $17
not sure what your point is here. people want to see the greatest shooter of all time?
Not for the students who could get tickets in the student section. Which is my point.
5%-15% of the fans in a college football stadium aren’t subject to being priced out as long as they’re paying \(7000-\)50000 per year in tuition.
That’s always been the case with American sports tho
College is where it’s at
No, that hasn’t always been the case. And if your team is really shitty you can still find good deals for pro sports. How much do you think Clippers tickets are going to go for next year? And that’s in LA.
Even when they aren’t shitty, the Grizzlies have affordable tickets….and get clowned for it every year.
I lived in LA in the 90s. Clippers tickets were do cheap my brother was able to go watch the Spurs against them. Turned out to be the game Robinson scored like 70 points.
We also went to a bunch of Angles games for like 12 dollars.
i agree 100%, it’s happening in Europe as well
College football and basketball games for any of the major conferences expect to pay like \(300 minimum if you want to be in the lower bowl. \)300 per person would actually be a steal.
Not true. Upper level is full of real fans.
More like the real fans get priced out, and things like this require cooperation whereas the US is a hyper-competitive hyper-individualistic society
The economy in America has been catering to the rich for a long time now and it just keeps sliding higher.
Just couldn’t be further from the truth. You think those day game mlb tickets are sold for instagram users?
This site always has a bit of anti American bent (obvious reasons, not saying undeserved) but it’s getting worse with stupid takes now too. The signing and dancing in the stands just isn’t that big a thing here. Never has
AMERIKA BAD, UPDOOTS TO DA LEFT!
You can barely see anyone recording on their phone. Except for the one taking the video ofc LOL
Before social media it was still like that in the US. I remember going to Detroit pistons games as a kid. US sports has never been like this, but I wish it would be!
Social media also exists in Europe, not like we are communicating with smoke signals.
If that was the sole reason, it would be the same here, it obviously isn’t.
ticket and concession prices here make it much more accessible to the average person, the difference is absurd. Ticket prices are already bad, but the concessions in the Us compared to here are insane.
That’s because other countries don’t have that many popular sports in one spot so if you like sports you really only have one local option
By comparison take Dallas: Stars, Rangers, Mavs, Cowboys. Houston has their own teams and San Antonio has teams. Texas has more major sports teams in its state than multiple countries combined have major sports in theirs and this is just pro league, not including college sports
There are just too many sports in the United states. Its much easier for smaller countries with fewer sports to come together like this because it’s a real night out for them. But in the US, a sport is being played damn near every day so it’s easy to become numb to them
That’s why it’s devolved into clout status. It’s too accessible
It is called having a, ‘life’. People in the States have lives. Which is why they’re not so hardcore about sports like Europeans.
What an ignorant thing to say
Lmao
That was the most shortsighted, thoughtless response I’ve heard in awhile. That’s a good one.
eu fans got way more passion doesn’t matter which sport.
Perhaps too much passion if you look at domestic abuse cases after wins, draws, or losses(specifically England).
No, these people have lives too, the culture just runs a bit deeper in EU (historical reasons, US is a new country, relatively).
US invented basketball so your comment is irrelevant
Wasnt the inventor of bball… Canadian?
Read around sports following in EU, especially in terms of ‘soccer’. Social and historical aspects are really important.
Yes, we know, we know, there are many European pubs that are older than the States
Quite a bit harder to follow the NBA than European teams, with the 82 game season. It’s 1 game per week generally, on the weekend.
Not much because, I work.
On weekends?
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So is this the start of Shaq’s image polishing?
Shaq is an absolute asshole but he’s a softy deep down you can tell.
Yeah. When you really get to know him and become friends, he’ll open up and shit in your shoes to show his love.
No, it’s just a video showing Latvians having fun. Shaq just happened to be there.
Latvians??? Get out of here lmao
Lol, sorry my bad. I got it right in the title though. Slip of the tongue.
Perhaps autocorrect changed Lithuanians to Latvians in your comment?
Nah, I just fucked up.
What they say on lithuanian?
Not sure, but we have this exact rhyme all across Europe. In my country it goes:
“JUMP if you love XYZ-team, HEY, HEY”
“JUMP if you love XYZ-team, HEY, HEY”.
Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something similar.
Its not xd, they are saying zalia balta which is green, white. As in the colours of zalgiris logo
just as generic tbh
“Žalia balta žalia balta hey hey” means green white, the colours of the team, it’s one of the chants.
*Žalia kurva is the more popular one
Ok but is that what they’re chanting in the clip?
Sabonis The Elder, is it a character from Lord of the Rings?
Dark souls boss name type beat
I was thinking Ghostbusters villain
first, kaunas rocks. zalgiris rocks.
second. HOW FUCKING BIG IS ARVYDAS?
He’s 7’3
Or 2.21 in the rest of the world
2.21 cm is not very big.
Luckily for you, you’re in an NBA subreddit, so that’s irrelevant
what happened with “NBA iS aN iNteRnaTiOnal leAgUe”?
And one of the few guys that could contain Shaq
Fuckin huge that’s how big
Sabonis hitting his late prime as Shaq entered the league would have been a rivalry that fed families.
If I recall correctly, a lot of his peers stated that Sabonis was basically the broken man when he joined the nba. And they all share in the idea that if he had played his prime in the nba and had better medical care, he could’ve gone down as one of the all-time centers.
Peak Sabonks joining in the battles of the giants in the early to mid 90s would’ve been incredible.
He was 31 and way past his prime in the NBA. Not broken, but way past his prime.
There’s a fun quote on wikipedia:
Whitsitt recalled in a 2011 interview, that when the doctor reported the results, “He said that Arvydas could qualify for a handicapped parking spot, based on the X-ray alone.”
That’s the result of exams he did before signing with Portland
He’s a fucking unit. Could have been one of the NBA GOATs imo if he was allowed to come over early and didn’t have his legs explode
Yeaaaa, we all love Kaunas mayor who has several business in russia
Zalgiris is known for having serious fans. I watched them play a friendly tournament a few weeks back in London, with London Lions, Paris Basketball, Śląsk Wrocław, and there was more Zalgiris fans in the building than anyone else!
One of the rare countries where basketball is actually solidified as no. 1 sport!
Basketball in Lithuania isn’t just a no. 1 sport, it’s a second religion.
In europe probably the only one togheter with Serbia id say
Unfortunately its not. We suck ass at soccer but it is more popular.
Organized travel to away games, even friendlies is a staple of sports in Europe, ppl just turn it into a weekend trip and it’s more often then not rather nice.
There are obviously exceptions…
Yeah atmosphere was great but just makes me sad because I’m a Lions season ticket holder and we don’t sell out our regular season games in our own arena! It just puzzles me because there are certainly at least 15,000 basketball fans in London a city of 8⁄9 million people and tickets are cheap.
How is basketball doing in the UK?
Went to a Lions game in 2017 or 18 when I lived in London for some time and attendence was dire, 3⁄4 empty seats.
Pretty sure everyone I talked ball was either an immigrant or had immigrant parents who brought them to basketball.
I’m entirely clueless about the sport in the UK, so genuinely curious.
It’s got better I mean say like 50% full for an SLB game and 75-100 for a Eurocup. It doesn’t reflect the amount of people playing grassroots though so there’s a big disconnect. There’s been quite a lot of investment specifically with the Lions since the Tesonet purchase, you’ve got Sabonis as coach so it feels like there’s growth. Still not what it should be but hopefully one day it will get to where it deserves to be. And you’re correct about the immigrant thing, my mother was a national team player back in Sri Lanka so that’s why I’m into ball!
Zalgiris owns the team now so now it’s growing.
bro is everyone else there like 6’6
average height is like 6’ here
But have they seen a DE-FENCE chant in an NBA game??
Atmosphere is so good there
Poor sabonis having to do this cheer with his knees :(
Didn’t recognize Shaq without the red hat
Ah man I miss being there
There are a lot of tall people there
Sabonis the Elder sounds like an Elden Ring character
Neither of them are actually jumping
Shaq kissed Trump with tongue
And he loved every second of it.
Shaq is a fed and a loser calling out fans for being broke.
they each appear to have 2 little guys in their employ. What for, I wonder.
Love the vibes !!!
Note to self: never buy seats behind the front row of any basketball game anywhere.
EDIT: Note to self: be able to afford seats behind the front row of any basketball game anywhere.
Did they go back to their apartments afterwards…
They aint jumping fam
Žalia balta, žalia balta, hey hey!
He’s with his people
Yeah the nba euro league is really necessary.
why is shaq rocking that jersey though
ambasador for nordvpn, thats why hes there in the first place
A shared national identity is a major component to this type of atmosphere.
I wouldn’t say so at all. It exists all over Europe, but not everywhere in Europe has a shared national identity. These identities are extremely localised.
Watch some football games over here😉
Where are the females? In the USA they would say this is sexist and toxic masculinity /s
Clearly you’ve never spoken to a woman before
Duh that’s why I used they pronouns 🤡
Žalia kurva