NBA teams have won 86.9% of the time against European teams from a sample size of 107 games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_played_between_NBA_and_international_teams

The world is catching up but the NBA is still on top.

87%............half those teams are not Euroleague teams. Get serious.

Anyway, Real Madrid 100 - Bilbao 61

2 days later. 76ers 106 - Bilbao 104

And Bilbao is a Eurocup team. It's funny how someone could even try to defend this.

Everyone in Europe was laughing like crazy over that. You should have heard how all the coaches and analysts talked after the game.

They all agreed from numerous European countries that the 76ers could not make it out of the first group stage of Euroleague.

NBA teams are playing for the show of it in pre season. all about sorting out roster and getting the young guys in the mix.

Agree with Paul,

I have always thought the NBA had the best superstar players, and those superstars eg LeBron, KD, are the best players in the world.

Then after that, the top Euroleague guys, eg the top say 8 guys from the top Euroleague teams would be just as good as most NBA rotation guys and could easily be say anything from the 3rd or 4th best to 9th best on most NBA teams, as a whole not many of the Euroleague guys would be NBA superstars (eg LeBron/KD level) but over time you would get some who would make all star teams, actually possibly quite a few, and the occasional one would be a super star but in general they would be very good players, just not superstars.

Alot of the Euroleague top players have better skills, eg shooting than alot of the the NBA guys who rely more on athleticism. Some of the Euroleague big guys look better than the NBA guys in terms of skills aswell.

I'd love to see the top 4 Euroleague teams join the NBA for a season, see how they go in propper games, i actually reckon they would do quite well, wouldnt rule out a playoff birth either.

I personally rank the leagues something like this

1. NBA
2. Euroleague
3. Other combined Euro leagues - VTB league
4. Stronger Euro leagues - Spanish ACB/Italian Series A, etc
5. NBL/French Pro A/ D-League, various other Euro leagues.
6. NCAA/NZ NBL/SEABL/CBA/other leagues not quite as strong as above groups eg Sweden, French/Italian div 2, etc

I think the NCAA is actually one of the harder leagues to rank, have some absolute guns, but i still rate it overall below the NBL, possibly somewhere between the NBL and say the NZ NBL.

So yea, i think the best players as a whole are in the NBA, but apart from them there wouldnt be much in it between a NBA player and a player playing Euorleague/various other leagues around the world. Just because a guy has played NBA or is in the NBA doesnt make them better than a good Euroleague player, or a top player from various other leagues. Eg Johnny Flynn/Cedric Jackson wouldnt be any worse than some guys on NBA rosters and are probably better than some, just dont have the special skill, reputation,attitude, game style that the clubs/coaches they have been involved with want to stick in with the NBA, and there is so much competition for spots some clubs would have never looked at them, but they would be on par with heaps of guys as all round players. I think a decent comparison is was Patty Mills a level above Cedric Jackson? For me from what i saw, no, in fact you could argue Cedric is better, but Mills is in the NBA, albeit not huge minutes and Cedric has played NBL and now in the Euroleague. Could also compare Cedric to Flynn, who at one stage started in the NBA, albeit for a weak team.

There are many examples of this around the world, just shows apart from the superstars and depth of talent on the good NBA teams, there isnt much difference between a NBA player and a top player playing around the world.

"A lot of those teams aren't Euroleague teams, etc."

Look at the records of Euroleague teams then. How many have a winning record against NBA teams?

Who cares? It's pre-season for both and it's call an exhibition game for a reason.

Speaking of exhibition games, would it be worth an NBL club going to the US and playing a NBA team?

(assuming this can be organised, and would be easier for the Australian team to do the travel as the NBA teams dont seem all that interested in travelling to Australia)

I think if nothing else it would be a great experience for the team, and a bit more match practice can never hurt, especially if they actually stayed quite competitive or won a game, even against a lesser NBA team.

Agreed

Another interesting happening today, Donta Smith ex NBLer got a tripple double against Detroit, fantastic effort, even if just a pre-season game and not against a NBA power house, there is another example of a guy not playing NBA or Euroleague but is just/better as good as many guys who are.

This is one of the more interesting topics in the basketball world right now. How big is the gap?
First thing is first, it is correct that NBA teams do not exactly take these pre-season games seriously, even games against other NBA teams, in terms of rotations, effort, attitudes. If they did, maybe this discussion is not valid.
However, on topic i think it is more Euro teams and leagues being underrated. Especially how effective their style of play can be! Completely different style to that of the NBA, so when they bring this to an NBA team like the 76ers, its like bringing a gun to a first fight really. The only NBA players with exposure to this style are Team USA members, which are 12 out of the whole NBA?

I watched Bulls v Memphis and Memphis played pretty much no one and at half speed. Its pre-season, the only people that care are rookies or entrenched bench players who want to prove they deserve minutes. The stars dont give a toss..........

Exactly, NBA pre-season games are a complete joke, they run their scrubs stars don't play at all or might play 10 miniutes or so.

In the regular-season the best Euroleague teams would get beaten by 2/3 of NBA teams regularly and the top NBA teams would annihilate them. It's only the shit NBA teams that are tanking from day 1 that the best Euroleague teams could beat.

Better or worse, who cares. Like beauty, quality is in the eye of the beholder. I prefer to watch the NBA than any European leagues and much more than the local Nothing But Layups league.

Now I'll duck for cover as the local fans who cannot handle anybody having different tastes or opinions to their own get all worked up over the sacrilege of somebody not liking the NBL.

I've seen enough Euroleague in my time to know otherwise. NBA teams go at about 30% capacity in preseason games, Euroleague teams take it a lot more seriously than that. They could beat the bottom 1/3 of teams but not the playoff contending teams.

The world is catching up, but the richest European teams have always been great, they didn't have much catching up to do.

Just as Ty Lawson struggled against European talent and then became an NBA star, or how Ricky Rubio was struggling off the bench in the Euroleague but went to the NBA and was runner-up Rookie of the Year.

This argument can't be settled by individual examples.

Every single person that says NBA teams don't take preseason games against Euroleague teams seriously is both a troll and a liar. The NBA teams usually play those games much harder than they do a regular season game - about 5 to 10 times harder than they do a regular season NBA game.

There is some incredible trolling going on in this thread.

Everyone saying NBA teams don't play hard in those games against Euroleague teams is such a liar and a troll they deserve to be banned.

PERIOD

What about once the Euro guys really get going?