101 Greats of European Basketball

subsequent developments until today, is fundamental
to realise how sport and therefore basketball in its turn
lived according to the social and geopolitical guidelines
of each moment. These circumstances have not been
irrelevant at all to understand in which context some
of the greatest stars of European basketball were born
and raised and why, in some cases, they did not have
the crowds’ recognition that athletes enjoy at present,
not always with more merits or talent.
For historical or cultural reasons, or accidentally in
some cases, the European map of basketball has traditionally
limited itself to the south, in the Mediterranean
basin, and to the north, in the former USSR and in the
new states that appeared later in the 90s. Throughout
these years, the hegemonies have been passing
from the hands of one country to another, from the
mentioned USSR, the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece,
Spain and Lithuania to the most recent countries of
France and Turkey.
This explains that our protagonists are from these
countries in their great majority. Following my above
reference to the enormous capacity for creating talent,
I must specify something else. It is in the mentioned
countries where different methods of knowledge
transmission and sports training have been devised
that have provided us with the names appearing in this
book.
In Europe, basketball is developed around the club.
It is the basic and more important unit of our sport.
Basketball schools from the Balkan countries or Lithuania
have produced and continue to constantly generate
top players, coaches and referees of great quality at
world-class level. This has happened even under difficult
political and economic circumstances, which I have
mentioned previously, and which give a perspective of
the greatness of these schools. It is true that until the
80s, it was very hard to enjoy this talent out of their
respective borders beyond international competitions.
It was the time of the old rules that limited international
transfers and even the freedom of movement of players
within countries, also in the so-called Western Europe.
After the opening of borders, the effects of the Bosman
judgment, and lately the evolution of the NBA towards
the concept of a global worldwide league, have entailed
a radical change in the structure of the labour market of
our players and coaches.
At present we have European talent distributed on
the court and on the team benches across all the continents,
and this has also made us a world power.
The history of European basketball also gives us an
idea of the ability of its competitions to evolve, driven
by the determination and vision of their clubs and executives.
The creation of the European competitions
in 1958 meant a turning point in the development of
our sport, only matched by the incorporation of the
North American professional basketball into the global
competitions, such as the World Championships or the
Olympic Games.
At the same time, the domestic leagues have been
evolving, increasing their „standards”, generating
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