With the FIBA World Cup recently happening, there has been a lot of talk about if the rest of the world has caught up American basketball players.
For the second straight World Cup, the US didn’t medal and that has made the American players take it a little more serious with guys like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and more interested in playing in the Olympics next summer.
That isn’t going to stop the talk though.
There are lots of fans that believe international basketball is better than American basketball. Especially considering you could make a strong case that the top 3 players in the NBA are international guys. What a lot of people don’t realize though, international basketball is just different than the NBA.
With Luka Doncic and the Mavs playing a preseason game in Spain where he spent his time before he was drafted, he was asked about the biggest differences and he had a very interesting take saying it’s that in Europe they actually run plays and play as a team more than in the NBA.
Luka Doncic weighed in on the differences between the NBA and European basketball 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/LaZjbtKQ22
— BasketNews (@BasketNews_com) October 10, 2023
That’s a very interesting take and would make sense. In Europe, you might be more prone to see more skilled players while the NBA you’d see more pure talent which can lead to more one on one play. I do think there is a decent amount of plays ran though.
