{"id":84501,"date":"2025-06-08T09:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T09:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/84501\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T09:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T09:18:14","slug":"la-olympics-may-be-good-launching-pad-for-nba-league-in-europe-basketball-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/84501\/","title":{"rendered":"LA Olympics may be \u2018good launching pad\u2019 for NBA league in Europe | Basketball News"},"content":{"rendered":"

New NBA league in Europe moves a step closer as talks with International Basketball Federation continue.<\/p>\n

The NBA\u2019s talks with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and other entities about the process of adding a new league in Europe are continuing, the game\u2019s commissioner in the United States said.<\/p>\n

Adam Silver noted it may take at least a couple more years to turn the ideas into reality, pinpointing the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 as a potential \u201claunching pad\u201d for another NBA competition.<\/p>\n

He was speaking on Friday \u2013 an off day for the NBA Finals<\/a> \u2013 at a league event to unveil a refurbished Boys & Girls Club in Oklahoma City and said it\u2019s difficult to put a specific timeline on the Europe plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say it\u2019s measured in years, not months,\u201d Silver said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re at least a couple years away from launching.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be an enormous undertaking. And while we want to move forward at a deliberate pace, we also want to make sure that we\u2019re consulting with all the appropriate stakeholders, meaning the existing league, its teams, European players, media companies, marketing partners. There\u2019s a lot of work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NBANBA commissioner Adam Silver was appointed to the role in 2014 [Nate Billings\/AP]<\/p>\n

Silver and FIBA Secretary-General Andreas Zagklis announced in March that the league and the game\u2019s governing body are finally taking long-awaited steps to form a new league, with an initial target of 16 teams.<\/p>\n

The idea had been talked about for years, even decades on some levels. Silver revealed that since the NBA and FIBA went public with their idea to move forward, talks have gotten more constructive.<\/p>\n

Silver said the NBA has been talking directly with the EuroLeague and with some member clubs about a partnership. It\u2019s his preference that the NBA work with the existing league on some level, though it\u2019s still too early to say exactly what that means.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither way, we continue to feel there are an enormous number of underserved basketball fans in Europe and that there\u2019s a strong opportunity to have another league styled after the NBA,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n

About one in every six current NBA players hails from Europe, including Denver\u2019s Nikola Jokic (Serbia) and Milwaukee\u2019s Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) \u2013 who have combined for five of the last seven MVP awards \u2013 along with the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Luka Doncic (Slovenia) and San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama (France).<\/p>\n

The NBA\u2019s board of governors will talk more about next steps with the European plans in July, at their scheduled meeting in Las Vegas, Silver said. It\u2019s possible that the European venture could be unveiled in some way \u2013 or possibly start \u2013 around the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, given how much attention will be on international basketball at that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat might be a good launching pad for an announcement around a new competition,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n

Some of the cities that are expected to have interest in being part of the new venture include London, Manchester, Rome and Munich. There will be others, of course.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t had direct conversations yet,\u201d Silver said. \u201cBut there have been several organisations that have come forward and said they would be interested and potential owners in operating in those major markets in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New NBA league in Europe moves a step closer as talks with International Basketball Federation continue. The NBA\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6,67,275,417,418],"class_list":{"0":"post-84501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-sport","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-us-canada"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114647001008713920","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}