How Eurobasket > NBA

One. Game start times are real and mean something. Also, games don’t drag on because there aren’t “official timeouts” for commercials/ad revenue.

Two. The promotion of teams, not individual players. No one player > the team. No one player > the coach. To repeat something that Karl Malone once said, it’s the front of your jersey that matters; not the back.

Three. Games are won through teamwork, structure, and coaches’ systems. Not with one guy with superior athleticism trying to take over by himself while ignoring his teammates. Meanwhile, Eurobasket doesn’t foster an atmosphere of the latter type of basketball by hyping said athletically superior players and protecting them against–gasp!–contact with preferential officiating.

Four. The practice of both teams–win or lose–shaking hands and applauding the fans after the game. Great show of respect for your opponents and appreciation for the fans.

Five. The tournament is serious in nature as teams are playing for pride, but organizers do not take themselves too seriously and try to act all chi chi. In other words, I like how coaches are allowed to keep it casual and wear jeans. Of all the games I saw, I only saw one coach in a coat (no tie).

Six. At least the appearance of impartial officials by sending three-man crews from countries other than the ones playing to officiate games.

Seven. Finally, I like the “fouls drawn” statistic in box scores. I doubt we’ll see this in the NBA because that would make information too readily available for people to point out that Kobe and LeBron’s fouls:fouls drawn ratio is -10:80,000.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand….that’s it for posts on Eurobasket.