Thanks so much for this. Could I ask a further question? What's the difference between EuroLeague and EuroCup? Two different leagues? But are there structural differences? Geographical? Money? Is EuroCup like the minor league for EuroLeague? Can a EuroLeague team get demoted (relegated) to EuroCup? Do they have separate drafts for talent?
Always curious what happens to our great players over there. No coverage to speak of here...
Well no geographical differences between League & Cup, both cover all continent (&Turkey + Israel)
Cup is the B league of Intercontinental play, for exemple in France the first 3 teams of the LFB (national championship here) qualify for Euroleague, then 4 to 8 in the standings generally enter EuroCup play.
Euroleague regular season season play is divided in 2 groups of 8 teams, each meeting the others twice .
Then begins the fun, the first 4 of each groups qualify for Quarters-Final which are set A1vs B4, A2 vs B3, ...
The teams # 5 & 6 of each group in the regular standings are reversed to EuroCup where they enter directly in Quarter-Finals.
After Quarters, it is played as FF in Euroleague + a game between losers of semis for 3rd place.
In Eurocup, Quarters are draws between all teams with all "hasard", Euro League losers can meet each other or mett the last 4 qualified who entered Eurocup at the start of the season, then QF, SemiFinals & Cup are played with teams meeting home and away and point average making the decision if it's a tie .
So, yes, cup is B-League for teams who couldn't enter EuroLeague.
EuroLeague was previously known as Champions League.
EuroCup was previously known as Copa Ronchetti.
There is no draft in Europe, a young talent can be signed by whatever team wants him and he agrees to play for.
For exemple, the women team of Lyon ASVEL (Tony Parker is the ownerof this team) has this year entered the youngest player ever to play in a EuroLeague match, Juste Jocyte (lithuanian girl born in Washington DC) at 14years29days old.
LINK - Juste Jocyte EL debut
Juste Jocyte - Wiki (EN)