NBA clubs have not come to Russia even once. All the more upcoming games. At the first stage of the European tour of some clubs of the best basketball league of the world, the Los Angeles Clippers in Moscow will alternately meet first with Khimki and then with CSKA. In a week, the army team will have a tournament in Cologne, where other NBA teams will come. The meetings will be held according to the so-called average rules, which nevertheless more closely resemble American ones. A quarter will last 12 minutes, a six-meter arc will become almost seven-meter, and the balls will be overseas standards. Basketball itself is supposed to be of very high quality.
Americans in sport, and not only in it, are great snobs. But only until snobbery is inseparable from profit. Another “dream-team” account lost the world championship, in the NBA itself “foreign” influence is more and more felt. So the current American basketball landing in Europe is a spirit of the times, and, most likely, such voyages in the offseason will receive the status of traditional ones.
The Los Angeles Clippers team arrived in Moscow according to all the rules of the “show time”. Their task is not only to warm up well before their season, but once again to show the world that the NBA remains the greatest basketball association in the world. Hence there are open, widely publicized (albeit with a dosed presence of the press) trainings, and a visit to a special boarding school with Russian basketball players with the opening of a computer class and a library, and walks around Moscow with mandatory accompaniment by journalists.
As for the basketball itself, we think that the attitude to the upcoming games is more serious. Although the Americans, and above all their coach Mike Dunlavy, unanimously reiterate that we are not talking about any walk. Enough already walked up at the World Cup. And if the principle role of the result is not thought in principle, then in any case, the Americans came to spend a quality preseason in Russia.
For ours, this message is also true. CSKA is by far the strongest club in Europe, Khimki is the second in the country, where the strongest club in Europe comes from, but no one has bothered to test its capabilities in matches with the ancestors. Especially at the beginning of the season. The outcome of the games with “Clippers” is not taken to predict. In fairness, I must say that the meeting of Russian clubs among themselves is interesting insofar as. Moscow and Moscow Region clubs will have more than one opportunity to find out the relationship throughout the season. Moreover, the weight in the matches of the regular season will have a completely different meeting.
Russian teams rarely met on the floor with NBA clubs. But our basketball players have experience. The center of the Moscow army, Aleksey Savrasenko, when he was still a player of the Greek Olympiakos, went to the site against Michael Jordan himself and his “Chicago buffaloes”. So the idea of overseas basketball has something to tell his comrades. If required. But the main thing is clear. The trump cards of the Americans, firstly, is that they are Americans and play their own game. And secondly and thirdly - athleticism and speed. In order to knock these trump cards out of the hands of opponents, there are quite cool players in both CSKA and Khimki. But how to do it is already a test for Ettore Messina and Sergey Elevich.
Valery Wingurt