The rules were clear since the summer, the teams competing in the Endesa League They knew that they would lose their players if they were called up by their national teams in international commitments in qualifying matches for EuroBasket 2025, the so-called “FIBA windows”.
The first of these obligatory stops, of the November 18 to 26let Jaume Ponsarnau without 10 players who will not return until Thursday the 28th, just 48 hours after playing on the court of the Casademont Zaragoza. And then another window will arrive, February 17 to 25, 2025, right after the Cup dispute. Bilbao Basket, like most ACB teams, will be in fallow of the February 8 to March 2.
However, those who dispute the Euroleague They will not stop competing and they manage not to give up players, they will continue competing while the rest of the teams are forced to reinvent themselves or stop their activity.
Just because you know the roadmap should not be accepted without crying out loud, nothing will change since FIBA’s “windows” offer good money, even if the best do not compete in the national teams. No sign of the NBA and, of course, the Euroleague. There are those who defy logic like the madridista Hezonja qwho has obtained permission from Real Madrid not to play their Euroleague match and as an extreme case Shengelia Store Last season with Virtus Bologna they faced Baskonia in the Euroleague and played two qualifying games for the 2023 World Cup with Georgia in four days.
Different rules
The war FIBA-Euroleague It remains alien to logic for several reasons and not just to break up the elite of European basketball. Not having the best players is in itself absurd, but in addition every window we find nationalizations that border on the absurd. Lorenzo Brown with Spain, Kamar Baldwin with Georgia, Dylan Osetkowski with Germany and a long trail of nationalized people of an absurd norm. The man in black Abdur-Rahkman could play the Asia Cup 2025 with Saudi Arabia and the Navarrese Great Osobor, NCAA star, I would play like non-EU citizen in FIBA competitions by studying in the United States since he was 14 years old.
The solution does not seem close, every summer it seems that an agreement between FIBA and the Euroleague approaches that they share a cake that does not cover everything. The structure of four club competitions and placing the classifications for events by national teams inserted without thinking about the athletes and, above all, the fans, is incomprehensible. While that moment arrives, the struggle to understand the calendar, quotas, competitions and other various issues will close the way for the general public so that the “very fans” continue taking refuge in a wonderful sport. absurdly managed.
