Basketball Basis of the European Basketball

In this blog I am going to try describing what are the basis of European style of basketball and how it deifiers from the NBA style.

First and the most important thing when it comes to European basketball players are their individual skills:

1.court vision: a player's ability to see everything on the court during play — such as where his teammates and defenders are set up — which enables him to make better choices in passing; the best point guards possess this.

2.crossover dribble

when a ball handler dribbles the ball across his body from one hand to the other.

3. downcourt or down the court:

the direction of a team on offense moves, from its backcourt into its front court and toward its own basket, the main difference from the NBA basketball is that European players use only 3 maximum 4 players in this type of move.

4. established position:

when a defensive player has both feet firmly planted on the floor before an offensive player who runs into such a defender is charging

4. zonal defense:

just 10 years ago zonal defense was illegal if any NBA team would perform this type of defense they would get the technical foul, in Europe this type of defense is very popular and lots of teams are using it as their main weapon, especially when they play against NBA teams during the Summer. The basis of this defense is keeping 3 players inside of paint and only 2 payers outside in order to prevent the three point shoot from the opposite team.

5. shooting:

most of European players that play in the strongest basketball league in the world NBA are mostly there to improve their team's three point shoot. European players put more emphasis on shooting rather on crossovers or their physicality like American players do. They also spend over 2 hours a day practicing only mid-range and three point shoots, which is very unusual for Americans. This is why the best shooters in the league are guys like Novitzky, Stojakovic, Galinari, Belineli, Nash and Ginobili.

link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAtLEBnibV0

6. the last, but at the same time the most important base of European basketball that are even NBA players using is move called Euro-step. That's the move when you are about to finish the layup and in the last moment you decide to change direction of your steps by moving your right foot to the left and your left foot to the right. The NBA player that is doing this move better than anyone is San Antonio Spurs super-star Manuel Ginobili. This is not surprise from this Argentinean, considering that he spent almost 4 years playing in Kinder Bologna-Italian team that was competing in the Euro League.

Besides these basis of basketball that i was just talking about there are hundreds of more, but the ones that I presented are the most significant and very helpful in order to learn something more about some different styles of this game.