Liga ABA

Liga ABA, also known as Adriatic League, until September 2011 known as the NLB Liga ABA for sponsorship reasons, is a top-level regional basketball league, featuring teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Israel, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

The league exists alongside scaled-down national leagues in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Montenegro (Košarkaška liga Srbije, A-1 Liga, Prvenstvo BiH, 1. SKL, and Opportunity Liga). All but one of Adriatic League teams join their country's own competitions in late spring after the Adriatic League regular season and post-season have been completed. The only exception to the above is Maccabi Tel Aviv, which plays a full schedule in the Israeli national league Ligat HaAl.

Adriatic League is a private venture, founded in 2001 and organized by Slovenian limited liability company called Sidro. Adriatic Basketball Association is the body that organizes the league and is a full member of ULEB as well as a voting member of the Euroleague board. The competition can be thus be considered a local version of the Europe-wide Euroleague, in which a few Adriatic League clubs also compete (usually Partizan, Cibona, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Olimpija). Adriatic League has inspired a similar competition in the Baltic states - the Baltic Basketball League or Baltic League.

History

Throughout mid-to-late 1990s, in the years after the breakup of SFR Yugoslavia and ensuing Yugoslav Wars, various basketball administrators from the newly-independent Balkan states talked about re-assembling a basketball competition to fill the void left by the dissolution of the Yugoslav basketball league whose last season was played in 1991-92.^[1]

Such a competition was agreed upon in principal at a meeting in Ljubljana on 3 July 2001 by representatives of four basketball clubs: KK Bosna, KK Budućnost, KK Cibona, and KK Olimpija. The day is considered to be the league's foundation date. Though club representatives from four countries attended the meeting, the main individuals behind the venture were six Slovenians and Croatians: Roman Lisac, Zmago Sagadin (at the time head coach of Olimpija and arguably the biggest authority figure in Slovenian basketball), Radovan Lorbek (at the time president of Olimpija), Josip Bilić, Danko Radić, and Bože Miličević (at the time president of Cibona). The name chosen for the competition was the Adriatic League, invoking the Adriatic Sea as a common thread for participant countries thus purposely avoiding the terms 'Balkans' or 'Yugoslavia' that at the time carried a fairly undesirable public perception in Slovenia and an extremely negative one in Croatia. Established as a private venture, the league was placed under umbrella of Sidro d.o.o. company that was registered in Slovenia on 14 September 2001. The company actually controls the competition through legal entity called Adriatic Basketball Association (ABA), which also manages the league's day to day operations.

At a time when European club basketball was in turmoil with clubs divided between embattled FIBA and surging ULEB, the Adriatic League founders used those circumstances to carve out a place on the map for their organization by tying their boat to ULEB, which was seemingly on the way up and looking poised to wrestle the top continental club competition (Euroleague) out of FIBA's hands. Logistically, the 2001 establishment of the Balkan-wide regional Adriatic League meant that existing national basketball leagues in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina underwent major re-organization with their respective top clubs leaving the domestic competitions to compete in the regional one. Still, the national leagues weren't fully dismantled, though they were largely marginalized since their respective best clubs only returned in late spring for the end of the season. The only exception to the above was KK Budućnost that continued playing full schedule in FR Yugoslavia's domestic YUBA league (which remained intact) in parallel with its participation in the Adriatic League.

On the public relations front, Adriatic League was met with strong and mixed reactions. Though many hailed it as an important step for the development of club basketball in the Balkans region, many others felt that it brings no new quality and that it is not worth dismantling three domestic leagues. There was a lot of negative reaction from political circles, especially in Croatia, with even TV panel discussions being broadcast on Croatian state television. A very vociferous opinion in the country saw the league's formation as a political attempt to reinstate Yugoslavia.^[2] The league organizers for their part did their best to appease the Croatian public with statements such as the one delivered by Radovan Lorbek in Slobodna Dalmacija in September 2001:

Ten years later, in a 2011 interview for the Serbian newspaper Press, Roman Lisac explained the league's behind the scenes strategy during its nascent stages was actually quite different:

On 28 September 2001, the league announced a five-year sponsorship deal with Slovenian company Sava Tires from Kranj, a subsidiary of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The deal also included naming rights, hence from 2001 until 2006, the competition was known as the Goodyear League.

Debut season

With twelve clubs taking part in the inaugural 2001-2002 season, the competition commenced in fall 2001 with 4 teams from Slovenia, 4 teams from Croatia, 3 teams from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and 1 team from FR Yugoslavia. The very first game was contested in Ljubljana between KK Olimpija and HKK Široki on Saturday, 29 September 2001 at 5:30pm.^[6]

Though the competition purported to gather the strongest sides from former Yugoslavia, as mentioned, teams from Serbia were noticebly absent, particularly Belgrade powerhouses and biggest regional crowd draws KK Partizan and Red Star Belgrade. In addition to no clubs from Serbia proper, the league had no Serb-dominated clubs from Bosnia-Herzegovina either. Since the league founders mostly avoided talking about the issue due to fears of media backlash, the fact that no invitations were extended to Serbian clubs was generally explained through security issues due to organizers' fears of crowd trouble if Croatian and Serbian clubs were to start playing again in the same competition. Then in early February 2002, the public got a preview of just that when Cibona and Partizan met in Zagreb as part of that season's Euroleague group stage. In a nationalistically charged and incident-filled encounter, Croatian fans peppered the Partizan players with rocks, flares, and even ceramic tiles before physically assaulting Partizan head coach Duško Vujošević in the guest team dressing room after the game.^[7]

The Adriatic League debut season was marked by dwindling attendances and lukewarm media support. Still the league did receive a bit of a shot in the arm on 24 February 2002, when its managing body ABA got accepted as full member of ULEB.^[8]

Second season

For the 2002-03 season, the league remained at the total number of 12 teams, while it went through major re-tooling internally. By the time season started, four teams dropped out (Sloboda Dita, KK Budućnost, Triglav, and Geoplin Slovan) to be replaced by: Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv, Red Star Belgrade (the first team from Serbia in the competition), the Bosnian Serb outfit KK Borac, and Croatian club KK Zagreb.

Getting Maccabi on board brought the league some much needed credibility and positive media exposure. Still, it was understood all along the Tel Aviv club wouldn't stick around for long. Much more important for the league's long term business was negotiating acceptable terms for the Serbian clubs to join the competition. To that end, Lorbek and Lisac went to Belgrade in early April 2002 with an offer of taking in three clubs from FR Yugoslavia for the Adriatic League's 2002-03 season.^[9]

Maccabi Tel Aviv left the league after one season, but the league expanded to 14 teams for 2003-04, and to 16 for 2004-05.

Competition

Like most European leagues, the regular season consists of a double round-robin schedule, with each team playing every other team home and away. The top teams in the league then advance to a playoff round to crown the league champion.

From 2002 through 2004, four teams qualified, and the playoffs were termed the "Final Four"; starting in 2005, eight teams advanced to the "Final Eight" round. All playoff rounds consist of one-off knockout matches, unusual among European leagues. However, since all Adriatic League clubs play in domestic leagues at the same time, and many also play in the Euroleague, the current format has the virtue of limiting fixture congestion for the playoff sides.

Current season teams (2011-2012)

Champions

• KK FMP competed under the name Reflex in 2003-04 season.

Performance by club

Performance by country

NLB League Awards

NLB League Clubs

The following is a list of clubs who have played in the NLB League at any time since its formation in 2001 (as Goodyear League) to the current season. NLB League teams playing in the 2011–12 NLB League season are indicated in bold. A total of 27 teams have played in the NLB League.

NLB league records

• Highest Index Ratings in a Game

• 59 by Dejan Milojević, Budućnost vs FMP on January 3, 2004

• Most Points in a Game

• 45 by Milan Gurović, Crvena zvezda at FMP on September 30, 2006

• Most Two Point Field Goals Made in a Game

• 15 by Nikola Peković, Partizan at Split on December 9, 2007

• Most Three Point Field Goals Made in a Game

• 10 by Josip Sesar, Široki vs. Union Olimpija on November 19, 2005
• 10 by Teemu Rannikko, Union Olimpija at Zagreb on December 18, 2005

• Most Free Throws Made in a Game

• 19 by Igor Rakočević, Crvena zvezda at Reflex on April 16, 2004
• 19 by Milan Gurović, Crvena zvezda at FMP on September 30, 2006
• 19 by Milan Gurović, Crvena zvezda vs. FMP on December 16, 2006
• 19 by Damir Mulaomerović, Zagreb vs. FMP on January 19, 2010

• Most Rebounds in a Game

• 23 by Tommy Smith, Split vs. Reflex on October 4, 2003
• 23 by Boris Savović, Hemofarm vs. Radnički Kragujevac on October 22, 2011

• Most Assists in a Game

• 16 by Ivan Tomas, Zagreb vs. Krka on October 12, 2002
• 16 by Miljan Pavković, Radnički Kragujevac vs. Cibona on October 9, 2011
• 16 by Steven Marković, Radnički Kragujevac vs. Krka on December 17, 2011

• Most Steals in a Game

• 9 by Curtis McCants, Split vs. Zagreb on December 16, 2003
• 9 by Andres Rodriguez, Union Olimpija at Partizan on November 7, 2004
• 9 by Jure Močnik, Helios at Split on April 6, 2005
• 9 by Goran Jeretin, Crvena zvezda at Partizan on April 30, 2005

• Most Blocks in a Game

• 7 by Smiljan Pavič, Union Olimpija vs. Bosna on November 27, 2004
• 7 by Slavko Vraneš, Partizan at Cibona on January 10, 2010

• Most Turnovers in a Game

• 11 by Jiri Welsch, Union Olimpija at Pivovarna on February 9, 2002

All-Time Leaders

Since the beginning of the 2001-02 season:

Notable players

Well-known basketball players who have played in the NLB League include:

Footnotes

There is mistake on official site of NLB league. Gecevski (22.27 avg Val) is named MVP for that season, because Gurovic (29.3 avg Val) was accidentally erased from the MVP list.

External links

• Official Site
• Eurobasket.com League Page
• Fantaziranje.com Fantasy for NLB League