12/03/24
October 30, 2010
Stern Wants 5 Teams in Europe by 2020: NBA Commissioner David Stern said Friday that he hopes there will be a five-team European division within the league in the next 10 years. "[T]he Heat will play in Boston one night and then they'll go to Paris and spend a couple days on the Champs-Elysses shopping and relaxing. And then they'll go and play five teams. And when they finish that, they'll play them again. Then they'll come home, having had a nice trip to Europe and they'll be finished with their European obligations."
posted by rcade to basketball at 12:25 PM - 5 comments
Presumably the 5 will need to make more than one trip over the Atlantic a season to get enough games. Wonder how this fits with the contraction Stern wants in the new players contract though.
posted by billsaysthis at 04:30 PM on October 30, 2010
What I'd like to see (in any sports really) is an entire conference (or two) outside of North America. It might take a while for all of the conferences to be competitive with each other but it would be cool for the league finals to be something like the Lakers vs. Rome's Gladiators.
posted by drezdn at 04:51 PM on October 30, 2010
My $ is on the gladiators
posted by brainofdtrain at 11:46 PM on October 30, 2010
The Wizards could probably handle the Gladiators, at least if they were packing.
Wouldn't it be cheaper/more manageable to just merge/form an association with one of the existing European leagues to play regular season games against each other, and for champion/runner up of the other league to enter into the NBA championship brackets, similar to what the AFL/NFL did?
Oh yeah, that's right, Stern couldn't control the profits. I forgot. Silly me.
posted by Bonkers at 06:14 AM on October 31, 2010
And the European teams will come here too, right?