NBA vs. Euroleague: An Analysis

Most people who follow basketball around the world would agree that the best basketball league is the NBA. They would also agree that the second best league is the Euroleague, which is made of the best teams from various domestic leagues in Europe, and which runs concurrently with the domestic leagues.

But how much better is the NBA? We can use subjective criteria, like how we feel a given Euroleague team would do in NBA competition, and vice versa. Unfortunately, this can lead to people choosing information to fit preconceived notions about the levels of the respective leagues. For example, it's a common belief in some quarters that NBA players are selfish, have no fundamentals, only play one-on-one, etc. On the other hand, we could look at the results of previous Euroleague vs. NBA games, factoring in things like location, scoring margin, and the strength of the teams in their respective leagues.

Since the 2003-04 preseason, there have been 30 games between NBA and Euroleague teams. The NBA teams have won all five scheduled for this preaseason, all of which were home games for the NBA teams. Since we don't know how the involved teams will fare in their respective leagues this season, I will discard them, and only consider the previous 25 games.(1,2)

For those of my reader who don't follow the Euroleague, it consists of several different stages, but I'm only going to consider the Regular Season, which consists of 24 teams divided into three groups of eight (four groups of six, starting this season), who play a home-and-away round robin, with the top five teams from each group and the best sixth place team among the three groups, advancing to the Top 16 (or the top four from each group, starting this year).

Of the 25 games I'm considering, 14 have been on the NBA team's home court, eight on the Euroleague's home court, and three on a neutral court (in Europe).

Neutral Games: NBA 3, Euroleague 0.
Combined NBA regular season winning percentage: .626
Combined EL regular season winning percentage: .690
Scoring Margin: NBA +14.7
Conclusion: It's hard to make a strong conclusion given the sample size, however, the scoring margin is pretty comfortable.

Euroleague Home Court Games: NBA 4, Euroleague 4.
Combined NBA regular season winning percentage: .476
Combined EL regular season winning percentage: .670
Scoring Margin: Euroleague +.1
Conclusion: By looking at just the head-to-head record and scoring margin, it would appear that the Euroleague and the NBA are at a similar level. However, taking into account the quality of the teams within their respective leagues, and home-court advantage (more on that later), it again appears that the NBA is better.

NBA Home Court Games: NBA 13, Euroleague 1.
Combined NBA regular season winning percentage: .504
Combined EL regular season winning percentage: .633
Scoring Margin: NBA +21.4
Conclusion: The Euroleague's only win on an NBA court was the two-time defending champions and eventual EL runners-up Maccabi Tel Aviv's last-second 105-103 win over a 27-55 Toronto Raptors team. Some of the more embarrassing Euroleague losses include: 2006-7 Efes Pilsen (8-6) losing 120-66 to 42-40 pre-Stephen Jackson Golden State Warriors, Maccabi Tel Aviv losing their last three away games by a combined 87 points to NBA teams with a combined 120-126 record, all in seasons either coming after or leading to a match in the Euroleague Final, 2007 EL champions Panathinaikos losing to Houston and San Antonio by 37 and 22 points, respectively. Outside of Maccabi's fluke win, and two other close games (six- and three-point wins), the NBA is 11-0 with a scoring margin of +26.5 points.


Conclusion: The NBA's 20-5 record is skewed by the disproportionate number of home games for NBA teams. The Euroleague's relatively impressive record on their home courts is also skewed. While teams usually win a higher percentage of games on their home court, the percentage doesn't go from 7% on the road to 50% at home, nor is there usually a 20-point swing between home and away games. How do we account for such a large disparity? I would hypothesize that Euroleague home-court advantage is magnified in a once-a-few-seasons situation where the fans get to see their team take on an NBA team, and that therefore, the record in NBA arenas is more indicative of the true disparity between NBA and Euroleague teams.

What does the record look like when home and away games are weighed equally? The Euroleague winning percentage against NBA teams would be 28.6% (2/7). The combined winning percentage of the NBA and Euroleague teams would be 65% and 49%, respectively. In other words, a team with a 65% record in the Euroleague regular season would win about 23 games in an NBA season. But how would a team with a 50% record (in other words, an average team) do in 82 games against teams with an average winning percentage of 50% (in other words, an NBA schedule)? Well, if a .500 team would win 76.9% as many games as .650 teams, which I'm assuming it would, or at least somewhere close to that, then the average Euroleague team would win 18 games, which is roughly the average record for the worst team in the NBA.

How would the best Euroleague teams do? No team has won the Euroleague after playing NBA teams in the preseason, but there have been five runners-up who have done that. These teams have a combined 2-3 record (1-0 home, 0-1 neutral, 1-2 away), which is fortunate considering the -6.8 scoring margin, and the NBA teams averaged 31.2 wins. Also, there have been seven games between defending Euroleague champions and NBA teams. Defending EL champion teams have a combined 2-5 record (1-1 home, 0-1 neutral, 1-3 away), also fortunate considering a -11 scoring margin. The NBA teams averaged 42.7 wins. Four games have been contested between the defending EL runners-up and NBA teams. All of them were played by the 2006-7 Maccabi Tel Aviv. They went 0-4 (0-2 neutral, 0-2 away), losing by an average of 22.5, although their NBA opponents averaged 54 wins. In games in which a Euroleague team either reached the Final the previous season, or would go on to reach the Final, the Euroleague teams were a combined 2-10 (1-1 home, 0-3 neutral, 1-6 away), which is fortunate considering the -16.2 scoring margin in such games. The NBA teams averaged 44.8 wins. It's hard to reach a conclusion with such a small sample of games. However, it would appear that even the best Euroleague teams would make below average NBA teams.





(1) ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne, BC Khimki, Estudiantes, and of course, the Chinese national team, were not Euroleague teams when they played these games.
(2) I am only going to consider the exhibition games from the 2000's because I can't know for sure which European teams were in the Euroleague or what their records were before 2001, and because most would agree that the landscape of international basketball has changed between 1999 and 2003, with non-American players and leagues improving and closing the gap between themselves and American players and the NBA.