A Ergin Ataman His pulse – nor his voice – does not tremble when it comes to saying what he thinks whenever he has the opportunity. A clear example was last summer, in July, when he directly challenged the Boston Celtics, the last NBA champions, to face his Panathinaikos in order to truly proclaim themselves, as they did online, “world champions.” . And now, he has not hesitated praise his team again, even dropping, among jokes, that the Euroleague could lose them… because I wouldn’t rule out an NBA invitation.
“We have the best team in Europe. We are the champions. This season, at the beginning, we had the best pavilion in Europe and one of the best in the world. Now we have one of the best team applications,” the Turkish coach began arguing, in reference to the Club 1908 app that Panathinaikos has launched. But he went further.
“We have perhaps the best followers. Maybe NBA teams will want to come play here in OAKA. Great team, best stadium in the world, best app, best support… Maybe they will invite us to the NBA. So be careful, Euroleague, you might lose Panathinaikos in the future with all this,” Ergin Ataman said with a half smile.
The reality is that this comes just when there has been talk for months about the increasingly possible landing of the NBA in Europeas Relevo already told. And the contacts with FIBA and Euroleague have been carried out for a long time, although the reality is that there has also been talk of its own competition, apart from the current continental competition.
In fact, just a few weeks ago, the NBA’s own vice commissioner, Mark Tatum, assured that the talks had picked up a new pace. “We are working with FIBA (International Basketball Federation) and our partners in Europe to take advantage of this opportunity to grow basketball there. There is no doubt that there is an opportunity for basketball to continue growing in Europe,” he said in a press conference prior to the start of the 2024-2025 NBA season.
Although, at the moment, there is no key date or calendar set for this. “How can we invest in the European basketball ecosystem? What is a possible operating model? What could it be like?… We are still in a preliminary phase of talks with FIBA“said Tatum. Although, everything indicates that this is getting closer… and Panathinaikos, with the help of Ataman, does not lose the option to let itself be loved in the face of it.
