The basketball Paris will not be in the Final Four of the Euroleague. In fact, he could not scratch Not a victory to Fenerbahçe, one of the heavyweights of the competition, although he was close in the first game and the third, delivered on his track after extension. A bitter closure, it always is when the road ends no matter how beautiful it has been, that Do not tarnish the spectacular entry into the nobility of the old continent From a team that won the Eurocup 2024 with a spectacular style that has been able, now, to move to its first participation in the Euroleague. With obvious hook: more than 7,000 people per night in its pavilion, an Adidas Arena with an average occupation of 85%. And with results: 19-15 in a season in which he linked ten victories in a row, became a leader and slipped like eighth in a play in in which he won Real Madrid himself at the Movistar Arena. Little joke.
No one HIFI (15.1 average points) has been chosen Rising Star (22 years). TJ Shorts has been a permanente candidate for MVP (he won him from play in) which has entered the best quintet (19 points, 7.3 assists and 22.8 average valuation) After being, in the last two seasons, champion and MVP of both the regular and the end of the Eurocup 2024 and champion and MVP of both the regular and Four Four of the FIBA Champions League 2023 (with the Bonn). The main findings, and backcourt Electric, of those that put the games upside down in any inspiration spark. But there has been more: Tyson Ward, Mikael Jantunen, Kevarrius Hayes … and Tiago Splitter, who came from the NBA (was an assistant in the Rockets) to keep alive the style he was kicking, by Bonn to Paris and the Champions League to the Euroleague passing through the Eurocup, a tuomas iisal Grizzlies, where the course began as an assistant and ended up as the main coach. With only 42 years.
Paris Basketball is the king of disorder, A team that has what it is for others is a barefoot. A colorful basketball, points, talent and positions liquid that tangles the rivals. And that, of course, he has earned the right to continue in the Euroleague. Everything indicates that it will be. It is the will of the team and is a strategically obvious movement for the competition, which has found A sports milestone in a gigantic market that until now had vetoed: Paris. The correlation is not, however, direct. Obviously, it is not one of the thirteen own clubs, those of fixed licenses. This season he played with the Eurocup champion, which in theory should keep for having gotten into the playoffs. But it is not so easy because the Monaco has ended in front of the regular phase and at the same level, at least, in the qualifiers and maintains one of the places that Eurocup gives. It is so since, a permanent sports success in The rock2021. The other will be for the 2025 champion, the Hapoel Tel Aviv. So the road is wildcard. The club has been negotiating for some time (like others without a fixed license: Virtus, Valencia Basket …) To have a place for several seasons and thus be able to stabilize your project both sports and economic. But in one way or another it will continue, with greater or shorter duration of its wildcardin a competition that aims to go from 18 to 20 teams and next season. Dubai BC’s landing begins to be another very bad secret.
The fight for a crucial market
Because, in addition, Paris has put itself in the center of the great collision that has European basketball in suspense for months: the shadow of the new competition that the NBA, with the FIBA by the hand, wants to create in Europe. For now, it seems that without much capacity to steal Euroleague teams beyond the doubts of Real Madrid with Barcelona on its side (whatever one will do, the other will do). The NBA wants large markets of, mainly Western Europe. Paris, obviously, has to be one of the crown jewels. But instead of launching its tentacles towards the rise of Paris Basketball, the US competition called at the gates of Paris Saint Germain. That is, the money of the State Investment Fund Qater Sports Investments.
It is another good jaleo, of course: The PSG listened, but did not see the plan clear because the NBA has not yet developed too many things of a project that already sells to hype and saucer. So he asked FIBA, who didn’t enter many details either. The shadow of Real Madrid does not help because both institutions have Postures totally confronted in the great football war, the subject of the Super League. Finally, the Paris Basketball has exclusivity for basketball of the two pavilions of the city, the Adidas Arena and the Arena Accor. And his will is to be in the Euroleague … but with stability.
Because that is another crucial issue in which Paris appears in full focus: For a semicerrada competition, with fixed licenses, salary equity is instrumental. It allows the teams to stabilize their economic projects, to loyalty with hobbies that, as in this case, are breaking the shell and that can, by extension, continue to grow and compete. For that, the Euroleague has reached a revolutionary economic plan, among the Financial Fair Play To the European and the salary stops made in USA (You can read all the details in this link). The next two seasons will progressively introduce and It will be in full force as of 2027-28.
The intention is good, but it remains to be seen if the intended objectives are achieved because there are enough asterisks and exceptions so that, finally, a the status quo what Aúpa to teams to an almost permanent elite and allows emerging projects to be unscathed. We will seebecause it would be a problem that comes from afar and that It seems that it is not going to solve with this Paris: It seems that Jantunen has already signed with the Fenerbahçe, the Monaco is behind Hifi and, obviously, TJ Shorts has all the greats in Europe behind I Differential talent. It is a pernicious loop: if the teams lose their new stars, their progression is cut and will continue without having the economic means to retain those figures … Paris Basketball had for this season a budget of 18.9 million euros, about 6 destined for the template and the coaching staff. 104% that a year earlier, in Eurocup, but insufficient to compete with the offers of the powerful: Short has charged 450,000 euros, Hifi 250,000 and the coach, Splitter, 350,000.
A disinherited from the NBA in Paris
Those almost 19 million suppose A giant jump compared to the 2.5 million that were handled in the 2018-19 seasonwhen the team debuted in the second French, the Pro Bwithout more objective than saving the category after taking the place of an eviction Hyeres-Toulon. The operation was closed with $ 50,000 placed by buyers who also took care of a debt that exceeded one million euros.
At the head, with a risky but firm vision, it was (and still being) David Kahn (63 years), the journalist who turned to the NBA executive And that he turned his name into a cursed after a lousy four-year stretch in Minnesota Timberwolves: Balance of 89-223 and the 2009 draft as an eternal cross in his curriculum. The Wolves needed bases and chose two with the picks 5 and 6: Ricky Rubio, who signed a remarkable race but did not break into a founding star, and a Jonny Flynn who never gave level of good NBA player. The 7, just after them, was another base that fell into the lap of Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry. The rest, I imagine, is history known to all.
Kahn, burned by the circumstances of his stage in Mineapolis, then turned to his next step: he taught in business schools, he wrote again (Bloomberg, Sports Illustrated…) And it was thought to buy a franchise of G League. But, and because he was already in love with Europe, he decided to try in France. I did not understand that a city like Paris did not have a great basketball teamand from his American mentality he smelled an opportunity: on the other side of the Atlantic it is usually usual for several professional leagues to compete for the attention of a city (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL …), but in Paris I just had to let the untouchable football fly and establish its new team as a solid second option in a market that opens to a metropolitan area of twelve million people.
It was the time: The Games appeared, the endless silhouette of Wembanyama and the approval of the French Federation waswhich also wanted a team in the capital (the affirmative vote came in 2018). Paris Basketball was born in the Modesto Halle Georges Carpentier, waiting for the transfer to Adidas Arena almost without facilities to train and losing money without stopping in his early years, in which he fought for not descending until it was seen, suddenly (2021) in the Pro A. The plan was almost consummated, but we still had to suffer and tighten the teeth in a first season in the French elite in which salvation did not arrive, Carambola included, until the last day. Then, yes, the project settled and shot with the invitation to play Eurocup.
Kahn moved the American style to his new project: Nights USA They encouraged fans to wear NBA franchise t -shirts, matches in Africa, Chinese New Year celebrations … And lucky if he brought 3,000 fans. His decision -making, not shared by all in the European ideologyincluded calls to NBA profile trainers: he tried with Quin Snyder (today at the head of the Hawks) and had a year on payroll (2022-23) to Will Weaver, now assistant in Jordi Fernández’s Nets. When he refused to continue in the summer of 2023, Kahn took a step that ended up being definitive: he signed the young Finnian Tuomas Iisalo, who had just won the Champions League with the Bonn. And he signed, incidentally, six players from the German team. The transfer worked: what the BCL won in 2023 served to win the Eurocup in 2024. And to ascend to the Euroleague.
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