World Basketball Club Championship Officially Starts - NBA Refused To Take Part

[Euroleague]

YEARS ago, FIBA World, all the FIBA regional zones, the NBL league of Oceania, the CBA league of China, the FIBA AfroBasket league, the FIBA Americas league, the FIBA Asia Champions league, and the Euroleague agreed to play a world club championship.

However, the NBA, despite numerous invites and even offers of $10 million to join in, REFUSED to take part in it. Because the NBA refused to play (Miami Heat, or the "North American League Champions" would be the team representing the NBA currently for instance), and instead only offered the NBA D-League champions to play, the Euroleague then refused to play, meaning the champions of Europe's first tier Euroleague and 2nd tier Eurocup (also run by the Euroleague) would not play.

So, FIBA Europe could only offer the champions of the 3rd tier European competition EuroChallenge (league Deron Williams played in), which is something like the 12th-15th best basketball league in Europe.

So....................the tournament was finally cancelled because no one had any interest in it. For YEARS FIBA and Euroleague tried to get it going, asking the NBA EVERY YEAR to participate in it and start it up. But the NBA refused every year.

Finally, FIBA and the Euroleague have said to hell with the NBA, and are going to start it on their own without the NBA. They have decided to reorganize the old William Jones FIBA Intercontinental Cup of Clubs.

The new FIBA World Cup for Clubs has been created and joined in the agreement are FIBA World, FIBA Americas, FIBA Europe, the FIBA Americas League, and the Euroleague.

The new World Clubs Cup will start this October. The champions of Latin America, Pinheiros Sky Sao Paulo, Brazil, will play against the champions of Europe, Olympiacos Piraeus, Greece, in a two-legged series that will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the home of Pinheiros, to make the games more competitive.

The games will take place here:

16,000 capacity:



More teams will be invited in the future, if this is successful, like teams from the NBL ("Oceania League Champions") or the FIBA Asian Champions Cup ("Asian Club Champions") for example. They are starting with the champions of the FIBA Americas League ("Latin American Champions") against the champions of the Euroleague ("European Champions") because they believe those are the two best leagues, along with the NBA (the "North American League") that refused to take part.

FIBA said that they will continue to invite the NBA every year, but from now on the new World Cup for Clubs is going to happen whether the NBA is willing to participate or not.

Since the NBA refuses to play, despite being invited, FIBA World is officially recognizing the winners of this new tournament as World Club Champions, and the title of "world champion" will be official to the winners, and the claim of NBA champions as being "world champions" will officially be considered an illegitimate and invalid claim officially by FIBA World, since the NBA champions were invited, but refused to take part in the tournament.

So.......................the NBA is absolutely OFFICIALLY SCARED to have the NBA champions play against the Euroleague champions in an official World Clubs Cup.


This is the official club world championship trophy:

FIBA Intercontinental Cup Trophy:

[9erempiree]

Great post. I will watch because it's going to be some serious basketball.

I'm glad you posted this, otherwise, I wouldn't have known because I don't frequent the International forum.

Repped.

[bdreason]

Nothing to gain for the NBA.

[Le Shaqtus]

[Rooster]

I think our D League champion has some tough challenge ahead of them.

[9erempiree]

So.......................the NBA is absolutely SCARED to have the NBA champions play against the Euroleague champions in an official World Clubs Cup.

I love the NBA and been watching for 25 years now but I don't really blame the NBA.

Would you honestly want to send a Lebron-led team in international play? I know I sure as hell don't. They will lose with him at the helm.

[Le Shaqtus]

Whoever wins this stupid competition should play against the real world champs. So Miami can clobber the poor souls who thought winning this little pee-wee game would actually make them the best in the World

[KG215]

How long are the seasons (number of games and length of season in months) for the non-NBA leagues? Are they playing 100 games -- give or take -- from October to June like NBA champions?

[BasedTom]

Wouldn't it hurt the team the NBA sends there to compete by giving them a shorter offseason?

I know that association football has things like the Champion's League and all that good stuff. But you know... those competitions actually have a lot of prestige behind them. I doubt any NBA franchise cares about competing in this. I don't even think the Bobcats would accept such an honor.

[Real Men Wear Green]

[9erempiree]

Wouldn't it hurt the team the NBA sends there to compete by giving them a shorter offseason?

I know that association football has things like the Champion's League and all that good stuff. But you know... those competitions actually have a lot of prestige behind them. I doubt any NBA franchise cares about competing in this. I don't even think the Bobcats would accept such an honor.

I don't know about the Bobcats, they will get killed.

[Euroleague]

Whoever wins this stupid competition should play against the real world champs. So Miami can clobber the poor souls who thought winning this little pee-wee game would actually make them the best in the World

It's a 2 game series idiot, and every single point counts towards the title.

[Euroleague]

How long are the seasons (number of games and length of season in months) for the non-NBA leagues? Are they playing 100 games -- give or take -- from October to June like NBA champions?

Well, for Olympiacos, they play about 15 preseason games, then about 70 games during the season, then about half of their team has to play about another 15 to 20 games with their national teams.

So it comes to about 85 games for about half of the team, and about 100-105 games for the other half of the team.

The Greek League also is from October to June.

[Euroleague]

Wouldn't it hurt the team the NBA sends there to compete by giving them a shorter offseason?

I know that association football has things like the Champion's League and all that good stuff. But you know... those competitions actually have a lot of prestige behind them. I doubt any NBA franchise cares about competing in this. I don't even think the Bobcats would accept such an honor.

Well in the case of Olympiacos, a bunch of their players have to play at EuroBasket, so they would have a much shorter off season than the Heat would. MUCH SHORTER.

[BasedTom]

I understand that you're really passionate about international basketball, and we all know that it's a growing sport with many excellent players from around the world. But surely you can at least admit that the NBA is by far the greatest league in the world? You don't have Americans out there parading MLS like the Seattle Sounders could beat Manchester United or Barcelona.