By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
New EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas revealed that there is already a discussion regarding the potential addition of a Play-In tournament to the competition’s format.
“There are talks, we will talk with the clubs,” Motiejunas said when asked about the possibility of introducing a Play-In tournament during a press conference held in Kaunas. “The basis of our league is that every team plays every team. This is the essential axis on which we must stay and not return to the fact that there are groups, some come and others don’t. This will definitely not change.”
During the 2022-23 season, Olimpia Milano’s Ettore Messina and Fenerbahce Beko’s Dimitris Itoudis, two of the most prominent EuroLeague head coaches, talked about changing the format to have more teams competing for the playoffs.
“If you see the NBA there are 16 teams who make the playoffs plus there are at least four teams who are involved with the Play-In,” Messina had said, citing the NBA as an example.
“Here we added two teams, and yet only eight teams go further: it’s much less than 50%. Extraordinary,” Itoudis had commented.
Motiejunas was also asked about improving the relationship between EuroLeague and FIBA.
“A very sensitive question,” Motiejunas said. “My position is dialogue. We have to talk, we have to watch and above all, we have to improve basketball. We’ll see if we can find common denominators. Now I can’t answer about the participation of players, there are a lot of things that need to be solved. The most important thing is sports and basketball so that it can be attractive to the fans, so that players don’t get tired as it happens now. There are many denominators to do all this. A lot of work. The challenge is interesting.”