The NBA may soon have European Teams

The Real Madrid Basketball team

Even though the NBA is already a worldwide phenomenon, having players from every continent and with its matches airing across the globe, it’s still mainly situated in the United States of America. Ex-NBA commissioner, David Stern always saw the NBA going worldwide in the future becoming truly global. In fact he predicted two years ago that there would be European NBA teams in 20 years time.

“I think so. I think multiple NBA international teams. Twenty years from now? For sure in Europe, no place else. In other places I think you’ll see the NBA name on leagues and other places with marketing and basketball support, but not part of the NBA as we now know it.”

David Stern, Ex-Commissioner of the NBA

In terms of talent and coaching ability, only Euroleague can compare to the NBA. Real Madrid, this past season’s Euroleague champion, would be a worthy addition to the NBA if they were to ever be brought into the fold. Countries like China and India do have serious potential, but they’re too far-fetched for now. Let’s face it, currently the Euroleague is way ahead of us and deserves a better shot at playing with the best. Most of Europe’s countries are already basketball fanatics and the addition of an official NBA European team could take the sport to new heights.

The ACB (Asociación de Clubs de Baloncesto) along with the Euroleague may not be enthusiastic with the prospect of their best teams leaving to become a mediocre team (at least for now) in the NBA. It could cause havoc in their talent pool and fanbase. Not to forget that the Euroleague as a whole may lose out on a lot of money whereas the NBA will exponentially increase their profits.

According to a report from The Guardian, Real Madrid soccer and basketball team president Florentino Perez will meet with NBA commissioner Adam Silver and make an offer to have his team join the NBA. Real Madrid has an exhibition game with the Boston Celtics on 8th October in Madrid, Spain as part of the NBA’s Global Games initiative.

In the event that NBA does expand to Europe, it will most likely form new teams created by major European cities eg: the Madrid Lions or the London Rebels or something of the sort; You get the idea. It would also probably happen all at once since it doesn’t seem logical to have just one European franchise playing with 30 American ones. So it is speculated that we could have a European division which will have teams from major cities like Paris, London, Berlin and Madrid.

Of course, flight times will be a major obstacle to overcome but they wouldn’t necessarily be a deal breaker. A flight from Los Angeles to Madrid is around 11 hours, but this could work. American teams could go to Europe once a year and play all the European teams over ten to twelve day stretch.

While the prospect is enticing, the drawbacks are plentiful. The Toronto Raptors have often found it difficult to lure any major free agents, especially Americans, to their team. Now take the unfamiliarity with a place like Toronto, add in a different language, cultural barriers and place it thousands of miles away. A minor annoyance now becomes a massive issue.

Madrid may certainly seem like a more intriguing place to live than Milwaukee, but how many 19-year-old kids really want to uproot everything and jet off to Spain; far away from their family, friends and everything they know? The culture shock could be a massive deterrent. Perhaps in this scenario the Gasol brothers may jump at the chance to move back to Spain, Tony Parker may move back to France; and thus the league could run the risk of segregation between European and Non-European Players.

In the interim what we’ll be most likely to see in the near future is some sort of Champions League for basketball. It’s not hard to foresee a basketball equivalent, where some of the best NBA teams face off against their European counterparts in some sort of single-elimination matchup.

I’m sure we’re all looking forward to it.