European Fans Get Caught Up in Nets

Jan. 15, 2014 8:39 p.m. ET

The Nets’ Jason Terry and Andrei Kirilenko meet Arsenal’s Lukasz Fabianski and Lukas Podolski in London on Wednesday. NBAE/Getty Images

LONDON—Thursday’s game between the Nets and Atlanta Hawks here at London’s O2 Arena will be just the eighth NBA regular-season game played outside the United States and Canada. But the league’s history overseas is far more extensive.
NBA teams have been traveling abroad for more than 35 years, beginning with the Washington Bullets’ loss to Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv in 1978—the first of 11 defeats NBA teams have suffered at the hands of foreign foes. The league has made inroads to the Chinese market in recent years as well.
Commissioner David Stern, who is in the final year of a 30-year reign, has even opined about a permanent European presence. To hear Nets players consider the subject this week, it sounds plausible—with a few notable caveats.
“I think Europe deserves to have an NBA team, but it’s impossible logistics, traveling,” said Nets forward and Russian native Andrei Kirilenko.
“It has to be the whole division here,” he continued, echoing Stern’s vision of a five-team European division. “It has to be a lot of teams here. It’s not going to be possible if it’s only one team playing in Europe and traveling all the way to U.S., playing and coming back.”
But it wouldn’t be so easy for a collection of current Euroleague teams to battle for the right to play an NBA champion. International rules tend to make the game easier for defenses, whereas the NBA’s defensive three-seconds rule is aimed at keeping the lane clear.
As Nets swingman Alan Anderson explained, players in Europe can “just sit in the lane.”
That disparity may sound mundane, but the ability to put a 7-foot center underneath the hoop without asking him to move his feet can prevent any type of penetration. It’s not all that different from Syracuse’s famed 2-3 zone.
If teams can’t penetrate, they’re forced to rely on perimeter shots. “A lot of teams, if you can’t shoot, they’ll exploit that,” said Anderson, who has played for eight teams in 12 different countries. “But in the NBA, it’s so spread out with all the athletes. It’s tough, because there are so many guys that can get into the lane. It’s night and day.”
Even if Europe had actual NBA teams playing under NBA rules, the North American franchises would still have the advantage of familiarity with American free agents. It’s one thing to travel abroad for a few games. It’s another to immerse yourself in a new culture—particularly when it comes to food.
“Israel and Spain were good for me, but when I first went to Italy, China and Russia, those places, it was tough because they didn’t have all the food I was accustomed to eating,” Anderson said.
Likewise, European teams would have an advantage with European free agents. Kirilenko said he would definitely be willing to sign with an NBA team in Russia—not surprising considering he already left NBA once, in 2011, for a second stint with CSKA Moscow.
The varying income-tax rates around Europe would be another consideration for free agents, but in general, the trend toward globalization means more money for more players.
“There’s a dynamic that exists in the NBA,” Nets CEO Brett Yormark said Wednesday at a conference on the globalization of sports in London. “If the NBA—the sport—wins, so do the players. They have a vested interest to go global.”
The Nets are among several franchises that have made a significant effort to be a part of the NBA’s vision. This is the team’s third trip to London (they’ve already traveled to Russia and China in recent years), and all 82 of their games will be broadcast internationally this season.
The Nets don’t need to impress Paris and London to pay their bills, particularly while the team’s Russian owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, remains one of the world’s richest men. The more important factor is significant fan support. Basketball is not an indigenous sport in Europe, and has virtually no presence on university campuses.
It’s difficult to gauge just how interested Londonites are in Thursday’s game, which is sold out. There are those, such as City College student Ale Boudrigua, who bought a Nets hat, but said she has no real interest in the team. “Basketball doesn’t mean anything for me,” she said.
Then there are the city’s many international residents, such as American-born soccer player Oguchi Onyewu, who recently joined Sheffield Wednesday F.C.
Onyewu isn’t a die-hard basketball fan—likely the product of growing up around Washington during a tough era for the Bullets/Wizards franchise—but he did note an increased interest in the NBA from his teammates.
“Sometimes I think they follow it more than I do,” Onyewu said of his fellow footballers. “They’re really interested in it, for the most part, and it’s actually quite shocking that you have such a strong following over here in Europe.”
Onyewu, for one, is predicting big things for the NBA overseas.
“You’ll see it tomorrow, this arena will be sold out and everyone will want to be here. It’s been abuzz for the last week—the NBA’s coming to town.”
And it might actually be staying this time.

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