NBA: Why do NBA’s Europe plans divide opinion?

Last month, Tatum told BBC Sport that the NBA wanted to collaborate with EuroLeague over plans and that any NBA Europe plans would be to help the sport’s overall growth.

However, EuroLeague chief executive Paulius Motiejunas said the NBA’s proposals would only “hurt” the sport and that an additional league is “not necessary”.

“I’m here to grow basketball in Europe, to make it better,” Motiejunas told BBC Sport. “From time to time, you have these new projects or new ideas coming. They can either grow the status quo or make it much better or they can hurt.

“I truly believe that this will only hurt the status quo rather than make it better if it continues to be in a way that it has been presented.”

As far as EuroLeague is concerned, the NBA’s early plans are similar to its current structure of a semi-open league of core franchises, as well as associated clubs, with the EuroLeague currently having promoted spots available out of the EuroCup.

Part of the NBA’s remit is to target major cities without permanently licensed franchises in major cities with permanent top-tier EuroLeague teams in the United Kingdom, Berlin and Rome.

This concept is not new for EuroLeague, which has been attempting to target similar markets for a number of years.

“We’ve built the business around basketball. We know the markets, [where] the basketball is really mature,” Motiejunas explained.

“They are coming and they are creating business and using basketball to do it. It is a completely different approach because if you take the cities that they have announced, we’ve been looking at these cities for last 10 years.

“It is not easy to unlock them because of football, because of the different mentality and because of different sports that are there. We know how hard it is.

“That’s why I say we wish they would tap into our know-how and work together.”

EuroLeague remains open to discussions with the NBA over its plans, but it is not hopeful.

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