Real Madrid and NBA: a good two-way business

The Paris Games confirmed the new reality in basketball that had its starting point in Barcelona 92. The Spanish event was the great founding milestone in the globalization of baseball stars. Jordan, Bird, Magic, Malone and company did not take a single step through Barcelona without being harassed by hordes of fans who have never been so close to greatness. To the kingdom of sports that opened its doors wide to children from all over the world, who felt that they were no longer unreachable creatures of light. They were flesh and blood. They could be like them.

In the last 32 years, the North American League has not stopped its expansion movement. It has settled everything with an aggressive communication policy that the digital and technological transformation has made possible. From photos and magazines to how plays, dunks and triples, from Twitter and YouTube. Dominating the minds and spirits of the younger people who wear the shirts of the stars, many of them already European because this process of discipline has brought benefits to both parties.

Players from the Old Continent (mostly) have been seduced by the NBA, with a competition that is no longer the Dorado of yesteryear. Simply put, it’s a competition to test yourself. See if there is any luck. Believe that quality, time and space will be at the same time, so squeeze every last drop from the cow. And if not, turn around.

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The numbers support these practices on the other side of the Atlantic. Last season 125 non-American players started. The barrier of 100 is now more than a thing of the past. The final two in the draft have the French flag: Zaccharie Risacher (2024) and Victor Wembanyama (2023) a call to change and control the game, to take the baton from Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid, the three MVPs of the last five seasons in the NBA. An award that was not discussed this year but between strangers: winner Jokic, Slovenian Doncic and Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

The rate of trips to New York, California, Miami, Georgia … is so high that it has a rebound effect: many Europeans take their suitcases to go the other way. Even after just one year. Something that is already affecting the natives as wellwith many NBA, who try to regain energy (or close their careers) in the Old World overwhelmed by the new era, with the young migrants who don’t stop putting pressure,

Hello, hello and welcome back to you inside Vezenkov a good comment on these last two summers. The MVP of the Euroleague 2023 Athens, Olympiacos, changed for the Kings, Sacramento last summer …

Madrid, harm and benefit

The Bulgarian is one of 15 players who have packed their bags to leave the NBA and play in the Euroleague this season. On the other hand, three will cross the Atlantic to the west: Dozier, Subject… and Yabusele. The French power forward will leave Real Madrid after three seasons to seek a second adventure in the world’s best league. Decision, the change of the club for the NBA, that the white people have suffered six more times since then In the summer of 2014 Nikola Mirotic of charge He ended up at the Chicago Bulls. After the Spanish-Montenegrin would come a revolution of Sergio Rodriguezwhich would be similar to Yabusele trying the second time in the NBA in 2016 (also in the Sixers), Luka Doncic, Facundo Campazzo, Gabriel Deck and Usman Garuba. The two Argentines left in the middle of the season.

High quality players leave. Capital letters in some cases. Problems that Madrid know how to overcome. First, financially. For these seven cases (including Yabusele) he was admitted in theory around 20.3 million euros for the various exit clauses. In theory because it is a figure with nuances because some of these players did not manage to invest in full when they returned to the Spanish capital (payments were usually divided annually).

Because Real knows how to adapt to this new rhythm of entries and exits. He has endured the NBA’s merciless attacks, but he also knows how to take advantage of them remains. One of those exes who abandoned the ship, but didn’t find a new man who wanted them on board. Campazzo, Deck and, now, Garuba They have returned home. Sergio Rodríguez also returned, albeit with previous suspensions. And in the distant (very distant) horizon there is a belief that Doncic will close his career in the house where he grew up. Another great effect of Madrid that is, that its young players are attractive to the NBA: Doncic, Garuba, Juan Nuñez …

Former NBA in Madrid

But it is not only the former stars of the club who joined the team after an unsuccessful trial on the other side of the Atlantic. The locker room for the 2024-25 season will have eight players with NBA history. The three exes as well as Musa, Hezonja (who saw their careers relaunched) and Ibakawho previously had time in the Euroleague before joining the Endesa League, Tavares (direct flight to Barajas to become one of the best centers in Europe with many suitors around him) and Xavier Rathan-MayesNorth American baseball player with history. In total, 1,576 games in the NBA.

Race resurrection and cache enhancement (see Poirier, Ayón, Thompkins, Randolph, Taylor), promotions to club legends level (Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Rodriguez) that shows how well Madrid has experienced the modern wave … And, all this, with a special case, unique in this era: Sergio Lull, tempted by Houston, but do not allow himself to be tempted by NBA gold that has created a perfect symbiosis with the white team in the last ten years.

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