With playing in an overseas basketball league most of the players will receive exposure and a stable salary. The style of play overseas is comparable to the United States professional basketball league known as the NBA with a few differences in pay and timeliness of that pay.
In the NBA of the United States contracts can swell to well over $5 million a year and of that 5 million, 100% is always paid regardless of injury or amount of playing time.
That is were one of the differences lies from international overseas basketball league players and NBA players. If there had to be one word that summed up the difference between the NBA and the overseas basketball league players that would be reliability.
European Continent
The players that make up the rosters in the overseas basketball league are all contained within the European continent.
From top to bottom the rankings are listed below in terms of quality of play and contractual obligations that are offered regardless of injury and playing time.
• Spain
• Italy
• France
• Germany
One of the missing entries and countries where basketball is played is the country of Greece. With the recent and long-standing economic troubles and hardships that the country of Greece has endured over the past 20 years it’s easy to see why the level of play and the competition has been slighted in the Greek leagues.
This in no way means that the Greek players are not as competitive and talented as they have always been as a Greek player is comparable to the best Spanish player on any given Saturday.
One of the best teams to play internationally for can be found in the country of France. The best thing about playing basketball in a league in Paris, France is the timeliness of the paycheck and the 100% fulfillment of any contract signed regardless of the generalities that may come up from time to time in a basketball player’s life while in Europe.
The overall feeling of a basketball player playing professional basketball overseas is that the experience that can be had is priceless. Many players start off their professional basketball careers in these basketball teams and move onto lucrative contracts in the United States and the NBA.
Italian basketball is known for its speed and lovely cheerleaders as the French league is known for politeness and proper responses of the fans. What’s great about playing international basketball overseas is that the people that one gets to meet and the sights that one gets to see and experience are beyond believable.
With great skill and great basketball playing skills, a lucrative contract could be landed from one of the lower cellar dwelling teams of the NBA. This success and reliability to the NBA can be readily seen with the great and most-recent imports from both Spain and Greece.
While many international players do travel overseas to playing United States NBA many also are content to stay in their home country and play international European basketball league action. The basketball league of Europe is a multinational conglomeration of countries and is getting stronger year after year.
One must recall that the sport of basketball is a very new phenomena in Europe and this is the place for soccer or football to be more aptly and correctly named, is still king. A recommendation for any country to be a player’s sight to play basketball in the overseas basketball league selection would have to be Spain as this is the number one country for international basketball all around.
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