Greek Basketball Coach Believes NBA Teams Would Struggle To Beat EuroLeague Teams

In the past few years, the story of American teams winning titles and calling themselves 'World Champions' has sparked great debate online. That first came to fruition with Noah Lyles, the American sprinter who made comments on it, but it has long been talked about in basketball, especially with the talent and the popularity of EuroLeague.

Now, Ergin Ataman, Head Coach of Panathinaikos in Greece has addressed the controversial conversation directly, making a controversial statement of his own. That statement was that without stars, NBA teams would struggle to beat EuroLeague teams, and while that's a major caveat to make, he has stood by it.

“Some ask, ‘Why take out the stars?’ Well, because those stars are exceptional. But look at the evidence: in the last World Cup, the USA didn’t bring their top-tier stars and couldn’t even win a medal, even with one of the greatest coaches of all time, Mike Krzyzewski. Of course, Serbia had Jokic and Bogdanović, France had Wembanyama. But the last World Cup was very telling for me. Without their top stars, NBA teams struggle. Meanwhile, EuroLeague basketball—with its toughness and fight—feels much stronger compared to the NBA regular season.”

For years now, European basketball has clearly been the much more team oriented game, but after the USA claimed gold at the Olympics, it's hard to agree with Ataman on this one. There's a reason why the NBA draws players from Europe, and that is because it's the highest level of the sport, and with our without stars, these NBA teams are still the best in the entire world.