Hoops

NBL ranked 12th best league by ESPN

The NBL teams would struggle to score against those strict defensive teams in europe. If I were an outsider looking in I would rank the NBL low too because what kind of a national league for a country as big as australia only has 8 teams. It's laughable along with the A league.
Also we have a guy in randle who dominates our league then goes elsewhere, fails comes back wins our MVP then goes elsewhere again and fails then comes back again to sydney and he's the leading scorer again.

No mention of Premier League???

To be honest the rankings are a bit skewed because of the addition of the European-wide and regional leagues. In a pure one-country/one-league sense, he has us ranked 8th, which is probably about right....

1. Spain
2. Turkey
3. Russia
4. Italy
5. France
6. Greece
7. Germany
8. Australia
9. Israel
10. China

Anon #771, by memory Fraschilla's original article didn't include some of the composite European league (Eurocup, maybe Euroleague). It didn't change in terms of being a domestic league.

I also very much doubt that Fraschilla has watched any or most of the leagues in question there, basically it is framed from the point of view of which produces the most NBA prospects, rather than actual quality. With that said, I think he would base his opinion on speaking to Oz NBA players (and of course from other non-US countries), Australian coaches involved in the US college scene who he meets at camps/conventions from time to time (Marty Clarke, David Patrick, John Rillie, Chris Harriman- I've heard him mention the last two)and international player agents.

Interestingly, I remember reading an article on intl basketball in the old Streets and Smith sometime back in the mid 1990s written by a certain Joel Bell. The article basically tried to poo-poo all things European at that time and he stated that Europe (there was no Euroleague at that time) may not even be a better the best basketball on offer after the NBA. Paraphrasing, he stated that Perth and Melbourne would beat 'most, if not all European clubs'. I found out much later that Bell was/is the agent for Lanard Copeland.

6th best imo.

With all due respect to Fran Fraschilla, besides what he’s read online, he clearly knows almost nothing about the NBL. In fact, I would be surprised if he has ever watched an NBL game.

It’s also doubtful he knows much about most of the European leagues. From the numerous holes in his article, it’s obvious he has thrown together a list with very little knowledge of most competitions.

I watch a lot of basketball... NBA, NCAA, European Basketball along with the NBL, and our competition defintely stacks up favourably with any league outside the NBA.
My opinion is that we are now definetely inside the top 8. If you discount champions leagues (Euroleague, EuroCup, FIBA BCL), and the NBA’s G-League (which he failed to mention - another hole) we are inside the top 5.

Ask a guy like David Andersen (who has played in many of the listed leagues) and he would confirm how strong the NBL is.

Bottom line... We are very fortunate to have a national league with such a high standard of competition. Get out and support it!

Hard to take anything seriously when written by a dude named Fran. That's a Nanny's name not a man's name.

I'll have some of what old Francisco has been smoking. He's cooked if he thinks that any team from leagues 5 places above the NBL could manufacture a team that loses to OKC at the buzzer. He's literally looked at our NBA players (namely Ben Simmons) and said we are a league on the rise. How about he gets past the first few articles on google about new ownership of the NBL and actually does a little research.

Firstly it is great that we get a mention. The opinions I would value on this is from players that have competed in the NBL and in leagues rated above us in this list. No1 based on competition standard but also on how you are treated and paid by the club you are playing for.

So you rank the NBL against other leagues by how good Bogut, Motum, Mills, Delavadova, Maker, Baines etc would go against those other countries?

Judging from his comments Fraschilla's ranking appears strongly determined by the extent to which a league contributes to NBA player development. Fraschilla ranks leagues higher if it is a training ground for future NBA talent or as a place to warehouse NBA discards. My reasoning is different - ultimately the strength of a competition reduces to the playing ability of teams in the league. So my test is - would top teams in the NBL beat top teams in the Adriatic League or Russian or Italy or France? Such matches cannot be arranged, so I figure the best indicator we have is the performance of national teams at a world/olympic championship. Australia consistently performs higher than 12th; even when we have fewer representatives in the NBA.

So the Serie A is ranked #6 because half of the league is made up of imports that are rarely paid on time?

Great list.

A lucrative tv contract lol sure Fran

We are above the CBA which is not too bad considering our salary cap and the Chinese ones.

Euroleague, Euro Cup, Spain, VTB in Russia - yes

Greece, FIBA BCL - maybe

Turkey, Italy, France, Germany, Adriatic - no

Fran's only got the NBL two spots above China's CBA, take it with a grain of salt.

Kind of offensive. We should be 8 or 9. Fran could only think of two worse leagues?

For standard of play I would say that's probably about right.

For standard of refereeing it's way overs.

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