Im well behind the live action, but nice first basket from Exum

Barcelona and Real Madrid are two of the best teams outside of the NBA and would probably beat lower NBA teams. the biggest difference between them and the NBL that jumps out of the screen at me are things like pace, aggression, size and mobility. You've got 6'9-6'10 post guys who are coming out to defend the three and smothering guards with their foot speed. You don't see that in the NBL. I feel like NBL starting 5s would make a good fist of it against these teams but once you start looking to the bench there would be a problem.

Euroleague to me looks deeper than the NBA in the sense that the skillsets are more complete, while the NBA packs their bench with specialists. There are definitely a lot of guys on NBL benches who could contribute against Euroleague teams but there are even more who would be quite embarrassing if brought up to that level. But fact of the matter is these are the best teams and players across the entire continent of Europe and they're stacked with players from basically everywhere. The NBL has import quotas and limits on Asian players and the league is still majority Australian so it stands to reason that we wouldn't be nearly as good. If you picked just one country of Europe and made 60-70 percent of the league from there - let's say Spain for fair comparison - you'd have a league that looks much like the NBL.

The NBL can talk til it's blue in the face about "second best league in the world". It's not. But I think it could be on track to third. And if it got there it would be because it eased import restrictions and the league got financially viable enough to double or triple (at least) current salary caps.

I watched today's game. Dante had 12+ mins, all in 3 to 5 mins spots, couple of assists, 2 points. 1st game at Barca, no plays run for him, just seeing where he fits in, I guess, which is fair enough.

Can't help thinking that the NBL would have served him better in his quest for a re-call to the NBA.

At Barca, he has 3 months to make his point and get a call back. Should be enough, but what if ... anything! And if not, another short term contract, and another? On the up-side, Barca will pay him a year's NBL salary for the 3 months gig.

OR ...

SEM sign him to a multi-year contract (maybe even offer him a bigger slice of his team?), with out-clauses for NBA. He leads SEM to the c'hip and his stocks soar. He gets the call and off he goes. He doesn't (get the call), he still has meaningful employment that gives him on-going chances for a call-up.

Perhaps that will be explored after his Barca gig (Feb?) if no NBA success. Might just sneak in to make the NBL finals.

It's too early to say what his Barca gig will do for his NBA stock. First game in. It's not unheard of for players to go from Euroleague bench to the NBA. But I do think an opportunity to show out in the NBL is more condusive to an NBA shot than being slowly incorporated into a Euroleague system

I think by the fact of Exum's acceptance of this gig in Spain it's an admittance that his NBA career is likely over and he's now trying to make as much money as he can before retirement. He was never going to put up the number in Europe or the NBL required to get back in the NBA the potential tag is now gone.

What I thought he was going to do was like Thon and sit around the US for this season crossing his fingers he got an NBA offer and then if not like Thon go and play somewhere else the following season.

That's not in dispute. It's meant as the better path for him to achieve his goal + plan B is covered, too ("Hope for the best, plan for the worst").

Dante needs to play. To get back into NBA he has to put a sustained period of games together. Everyone knows he can play, but it is his constant injuries that stop clubs from chasing him. Three months of high level injury free games are what he needs.