Monday,
May 05,
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
Euro Basketball League will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary about 11 years
after its American cousin, the NBA in 1997.
They
will be honoring the Euro League's Top 50 Players and Coaches.
Among
them will be a number of Italians and Americans that played for Italian Teams.
Ettore Messina, the legendary
Italian coach, will be near the top of the list. Phoenix Suns coach Mike D'Antoni,
former NBA MVP Bob McAdoo,
became a legend with the Italian team Milano in the
late 1980s,
Whereas
at one time US Teams were reluctant to sign European Players, the Quality of
the League has improved so much, particularly from the signing of US Stars who
while past their prime here, are celebrated in Europe. Also College Stars
who don't get signed by US teams used
Ettore
Messina, the legendary Italian coach currently in charge of CSKA Moscow, sat in
the stands and watched as the NBA paid tribute to its 50 greatest players of
all time at the 1997 All-Star Game in
This weekend, in
"I was in
"
European club
competition turns 50 this year and boasts a history every bit as colorful,
exciting and controversial as the NBA's.
And that history
will be celebrated in full at the Palacio de Deportes
de la Comunidad de Madrid ("The Palace" for
short) where Euroleague recognizes its "50
Greatest Contributors List," a list that naturally includes Euro greats
such as Messina, but also many names familiar to American fans of the game.
Current NBA stars
Anthony Parker and Manu Ginobili will be
acknowledged for their Euroleague efforts before they
became established players in the
From the dominant
and talent-packed Yugoslav national program of the late 1980s and early 1990s,
names such as Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc and Dino Radja are as well known in L.A., Chicago and Boston,
respectively, as they are in the Balkans.
And, from an
earlier vintage, Phoenix Suns coach Mike D'Antoni,
former NBA MVP Bob McAdoo and Walter Szczerbiak --
father of Cleveland Cavaliers forward Wally -- are still
stopped on the streets in Italy and Spain by basketball fans who want an
autograph and a chat about the old days.
In short, the
1992 Dream Team at the Barcelona Olympics may have brought the Old World and
the
But North
American ball and European ball -- the NBA and the Euroleague
-- have a long and productive common history. The only surprise is that it took
so long for the Euro invasion of the NBA to get underway.
"When I was
playing in
"I saw very
athletic guys, guys who could shoot the ball, but they never got the
opportunity to play in the NBA because the league just was not comfortable with
getting over European players at that time.
"I look now
at guys who have come over from Europe in recent years -- I like Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic, Pau Gasol who is
fitting in perfectly with the Lakers -- but then take, for instance, a guy like
[Brazilian legend] Oscar Schmidt.
"He played
on a couple of teams I played against in the Italian league and I thought he
could have played in the NBA easily. Dino Meneghin
was the center on my
It has taken 50
years and thousands of games for the European game to advance to the point
where Euros can move easily and often to NBA teams (a little too easily,
say some high-ranking Euroleague folks who are
worried about talented young Euros being drafted then left to rot at the end of
the bench or in the NBA Development League).
And what a
journey it has been -- a journey in which Americans have naturally played key
roles in the development of the game in
"Americans
have been a very positive influence on our game," says
"Overall,
most of the teams are pleased with their Americans. It is very rare a team is
unsatisfied with their American players."
European
basketball competition began in 1958 when governing body FIBA saw the success
being enjoyed by soccer's new European Champions' Cup and stole the idea.
As with the
soccer equivalent, the concept was for every national federation to send its
champion club from the previous year to complete in the single-elimination
tournament. The first game took place that February in
Hometown Royal IV
SC Anderlechtois beat
Teams from the
former Soviet Union dominated the early years of the European Cup --
But by the 1960s,
while postwar politicians on both sides of the
Milano and Real Madrid were
beginning to invest in Americans like Wayne Brabender,
Szczerbiak and future
The 1970s would
belong to Meneghin's Varese, a team which featured
Bob Morse, a free-scoring forward from the
By 1992,
revolution was in full swing. The Olympics welcomed NBA players and, in return,
so did Euroleague teams.
Greek clubs
emerged in that decade with Panathinaikos signing
former Atlanta Hawk Dominique Wilkins, who helped them to the 1996 title, a
first for
By 2000, the
European Cup had become Euroleague, with more teams
beyond just national champions admitted, and its ownership had controversially
passed from FIBA to the newly-formed Union of European Basketball Leagues
(ULEB), a federation run by
"Euroleague's organization is getting better and
better," said
Not that the
journey has been completely smooth. The history of Euroleague
has had as many bumps in the road as the history of
"My feeling
is that in the early days, the games were more about countries than
teams," says Euroleague CEO Jordi
Bertomeu, who has presided over the league's recent
expansion and success.
"When Real
Madrid played CSKA, it was
"Nowadays I
think it is more about the teams, their tradition, their
colors. But still, when you get a game between Zalgiris
[
Emotion and
feeling will be running high in
"One of the
frustrations of having gone over to play in Europe so early in my career is
that I'm not eligible for any post-retirement honors," says Szczerbiak, who is deservedly acknowledged as one of the
American pioneers in Europe and still works for the Spanish ACB League as a
liaison with the
"A lot of
times, as a player, you take everything in your stride, everything for granted.
When you get older, and things like your knees and your back don't work as
well, you look back and wonder whether it was a reality. It's pleasant to have
something like this come out of the clear blue sky to make you feel good when
you need to feel good."
Ian Whittell covers basketball for The
Times of
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