By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
On the heels of the European Parliament resolution about foreign investment in European sports, the president of the Lithuanian Republic, Gitanas Nauseda, stated on his social media that the NBA should collaborate with the EuroLeague on the NBA Europe project.
With Lithuania not being mentioned among the core markets of the project, Nauseda explains his concerns, especially about the possibility of a divided basketball ecosystem in Europe, with the NBA Europe competing against the EuroLeague.
This is the first reaction in the project by a head of state who is a European Union Member, and more may follow. On the other hand, the NBA has already opened official talks with the British and the French governments about the general growth of sports in those countries.
The full message of the Lithuanian president is the following: The times when one could sleep peacefully and confidently are long gone. Today, geopolitical challenges bring new risks every day, and state institutions are working intensely to address them. Let us not miss the bursts of positive emotion that each of us draws from different sources.
This year, I’ve been increasingly emotionally charged by the Kaunas Zalgiris players’ desire to win. There are highs and lows – yet one déjà vu feeling keeps returning. Where have I seen those burning eyes of the Zalgiris players before? Perhaps in 1999? I wish the Zalgiris team another evening of emotion and pride in their fight tonight!
I would like the Kaunas Zalgiris basketball players to go into their games thinking only about basketball and yearning for victory. Unfortunately, I am hearing more and more about a possible emerging division among Europe’s basketball clubs, as the NBA organization steps into Europe.
Lithuania supports the idea that the two transatlantic basketball communities should cooperate for the common good. The worst thing that could happen to European and Lithuanian basketball would be the fragmentation of the European basketball market, when commercial interests outweigh values-based interests. Basketball, after all, is part of Lithuania’s identity, a tradition passed from generation to generation, a pillar of our sports diplomacy. The EuroLeague embodies a social dimension—it unites clubs from large countries and from small ones in territory but enormous in basketball identity, like Lithuania.
We cannot allow basketball in Europe to become a source of division. I urge all basketball organizations on both sides of the Atlantic to cooperate rather than compete, to recognize and appreciate the deep traditions of European basketball, and to remember—values must come before commercial interests.
Division means regression. And there is already enough division in Europe—let us not infect basketball with this virus as well. The EuroLeague and FIBA have already resolved their painful disputes of the past, and instead of reopening old wounds, I call on the NBA to invest in the EuroLeague. Productive cooperation—not competition—between the EuroLeague, FIBA, and the NBA would lead to progress and unity in European basketball.
Photo credit: Gitanas Nauseda Facebook page