By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Today starts the 5th double-action EuroLeague week of the season.
Adding the odd Supercup or Cup game here and there, most Euroleague teams would already have almost 30 games under their belts before Christmas, moving at a pace similar to the NBA.
Because of its number of games, the NBA is often accused of losing the fans’ interest during the regular season. However, we are entering an era in which this problem might be also a reality in Europe.
The EuroLeague motto is “every game matters” and to a great extent, it’s true. To be exact, every regular season EuroLeague game matters more than an NBA regular season game, simply because it’s a numbers game.
There are 34 regular season games in the EuroLeague and 82 regular season games in the NBA, where a good run late in the season may turn things around in the 11th hour.
However, as in the NBA, there’s a growing sense that teams want to be at their peak in the spring, specifically after February. Until then, they simply need to stay in touch with their targets, and dropping a game here and there is not the end of the world.
Yes, fans still overreact, but a cynical approach to this situation is more than obvious in many cases, especially when there are injury woes with teams preferring to focus on games “here in the EuroLeague” and not “there in the domestic leagues”.
Until a few years ago, a EuroLeague team losing a domestic league game provided headlines. Right now, it’s almost normal with non-EuroLeague teams leading the standings or being tied in the top with EuroLeague teams in Spain, Germany, Israel, Turkey, and France.
The only unbeaten EuroLeague team in its domestic league is Panathinaikos, ironically the team that last season provided a blueprint for playing really well when really mattered. To be exact, Panathinaikos is currently 10th in the EuroLeague standings, but that doesn’t stop coach Ergin Ataman from telling the Green fans to book tickets for the Final Four.
It might be just a usual Ataman trademarked mind game, but Panathinaikos had pretty much the same EuroLeague record last season and ended up winning everything, so you get the point.
And since only one team will win the EuroLeague, the domestic league title in most cases is turning into a first-class substitute when you need to end the season on a high note.
EuroLeague teams usually really focus on their domestic league after their EuroLeague season ends and with few exceptions, they have the time to turn things around before it’s too late.
For the moment, domestic league games are usually a headache between the contents of the top-level competition.
Non-EuroLeague teams have more time to prepare and a bigger motivation, while EuroLeague clubs are expected to win and get scrutinized for defeats.
Slowly, this scrutiny is also fading, because a couple of November defeats – especially in a domestic league – end up being less than a footnote when the season is completed.
And that’s a reality that first and foremost must concern the domestic leagues themselves. With a EuroLeague expansion, or with the NBA somehow entering the European pyramid of competitions, the domestic leagues will face even bigger challenges and this is not something new.
To be exact back in 2019 – yes, pre-COVID – FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis had stated the following: “What is most important here is that this is a moment of truth for national leagues in Europe. Either they will become stronger and maintain and even grow their position as we believe they should as they represent the vast majority of clubs, or they will become what the ECA wants them to be, which is the third division of Europe”.
Since then things have been getting worse and worse with more and more games that ultimately make it difficult for the average fan to care about them since, at least some of them, don’t really matter…