Real Madrid in NBA!

[Dave Ship]

Just rumors, but...

http://www.knicksonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2764

http://www.realmadrid.com/articulo/rma32190.htm

That's all i can find at the moment.

[CC97]

Now that would be interesting, I hope it happens

[PaperAirplane31]

Oh great, I get to see the Knicks lose to Spaniards now.

[Breakwood]

Does anyone follow European basketball? I always thought that the best teams in Spain were FC Barcalona and Tau Ceramica. And if they were to add a strong european team why not add, Maccabi Tel Aviv or one of the big Italian or Greek clubs.

[mjrbaseball]

Trying to remember if a European team ever played against U.S. teams in games that actually count. Didn't a Czech team play some regular season games in the WHA for a year or two?

[Dave Ship]

I'm Italian and mad for european basketball. I support the Olimpia Milano, the most glorious team of Italy.

Here are all of our jerseys through the history.

[LMU]

Does anyone follow European basketball? I always thought that the best teams in Spain were FC Barcalona and Tau Ceramica. And if they were to add a strong european team why not add, Maccabi Tel Aviv or one of the big Italian or Greek clubs.

I don't think that the present team success will have much to do with this move. Once the NBA affiliation is announced, the selected teams would essentially start from scratch, getting new rosters, uniforms, arenas, etc.

[gosioux76]

It seems more realistic to envision an NBA Europe, like Calderon mentions in the interview, with 12 to 14 clubs from various countries.

It makes no sense to consider having a Spain-based team play the American NBA schedule. As nice as Madrid can be, no club is going to want to travel that distance with any regularity. You can't ignore the travel cost and time required to send the Lakers to Madrid.

[Eye]

It seems more realistic to envision an NBA Europe, like Calderon mentions in the interview, with 12 to 14 clubs from various countries.

It makes no sense to consider having a Spain-based team play the American NBA schedule. As nice as Madrid can be, no club is going to want to travel that distance with any regularity. You can't ignore the travel cost and time required to send the Lakers to Madrid.

That's why you should have a weighted schedule if this were to happen. Instead of having Real Madrid play 41 home games, have them play 61 or somewhere in that general area. I don't think this will happen, but if it were to, this is what should be done.

[DG_YouKnowWhatThatMeans]

Would an NBA Europe just be a development league? I can't see it working any other way. Otherwise, you're put in a positiong where you have a champion of NBA-A and NBA-E competing for a world title -- which would be cool, but I don't think a lot of people would understand that. Nor do I think it would be fair to the NBA players, who, in the short term, would presumably have the more competitive league.

I'm mostly opposed because I have a tough enough time understand the WWE Championship/World Champion thing. Same with boxing. Who, exactly, is the heavyweight champion? I hope the same thing doesn't happen to the NBA.

[Mac the Knife]

I can see the NBA adding (someday) 6 european teams as their own division and bringing the total number of teams to 36.

No NBA Europe. It might work, it might not, but the NBA's ambitions aren't to organize a sub-level league, but to have the NBA in Europe.

[yh]

I can see the NBA adding (someday) 6 european teams as their own division and bringing the total number of teams to 36.

The NBA has been talking about this for a long, long time. Back in 1987 after the NBA announced the expansion to Charlotte, Miami, Minneapolis and Orlando there was an interview in SI with David Stern where he stated that it was his goal to bring the NBA to Europe within 20 years, establishing somewhere between 4 and 6 permanent franchises in traditionally strong European basketball markets. At that time the thinking was that these teams would be based in Italy and Spain, but of course that was before the breakup of the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc, so now there are even more options for European based NBA squads. I think they'd still probably stick with western European nations to start just because their economies are stronger and have better abilities to construct NBA caliber facilities.

This is certainly an interesting development if the rumors pan out. It's certainly not a snap decision or a new development, however.

[The_Admiral]

It seems more realistic to envision an NBA Europe, like Calderon mentions in the interview, with 12 to 14 clubs from various countries.

It makes no sense to consider having a Spain-based team play the American NBA schedule. As nice as Madrid can be, no club is going to want to travel that distance with any regularity. You can't ignore the travel cost and time required to send the Lakers to Madrid.

That's why you should have a weighted schedule if this were to happen. Instead of having Real Madrid play 41 home games, have them play 61 or somewhere in that general area. I don't think this will happen, but if it were to, this is what should be done.

Yeah, the 30 US team owners would LOVE to not only add road games in SPAIN, but take away home dates. Does anybody here ever think?

[Eye]

Well, that's exactly why I don't think this would happen, TCR. You can't have a team from Spain, constantly flying across the Atlantic Ocean for a one or two game road trip. The cost would be huge and the time it would take to go back and forth would be too long which is why you would have to have a weighted schedule for a team in Spain. Either that or have the road games played for Spain played in maybe 15-25 game intervals or something like that. That would mean only traveling from Spain to the US twice, cutting down time and travel cost. And of course you'd have Spain's home games in 15-25 game intervals too but the road trips would be killer for a team. Look at teams that go on 5 or 6 game road trips from the east to the west or vice versa. Usually on those trips you hope to go .500. Anything more than that is just gravy and if you don't do well on the trip it's like, well it was a long road trip, it happens.

[The_Admiral]

Ah, okay. Sorry, I get kind of hair-trigger when I read things here.

[harperdc]

there may be other European basketball teams more deserving, but Real Madrid are an 800-pound gorilla, and they certainly have the money. That's the key: money. Barcelona are the reigning European and Spanish league soccer champs, btw, and the second-biggest team in Spain behind Madrid, their eternal enemies...but they may not want to spend the cash right now on getting into the NBA.

if Madrid are anything, they're business-savvy - some say that's why they signed David Beckham over Ronaldinho back in 2003, because Becks would sell more shirts at the time. I can see Calderon and the Madrid board being savvy enough to realise that if they're the first to try this they may get special treatment down the line, especially if Stern is in love with the idea of trying to add trans-Atlantic teams and games.

Madrid may not be the best fit, but they're the name brand known in the US already, and are smart enough to be receptive to Stern.

[Roger Clemente]

Would it be the actual Real Madrid roster as of expansion time that will be playing, or would they be an official expansion team?

--Roger "Time?" Clemente.

[Alphabet Man]

I don't mind the idea, if the game can afford it, and the travel time isn't going to be a major problem...and then we could have teams from Australia and Asia in the league (no, i am not serious)

if the game can afford it, YES, it could work