The Spanish professional basketball league ACB is the best league in the world besides the NBA..

Full text: Asociación de Clubes de Baloncesto (ACB)

Established: 1957

Number of teams: 18

Spain's domestic league ACB is well-known in the basketball circle and is almost the most balanced and fastest-growing league in the world besides the NBA. Among the five main players of the Argentine team, fourth in the World Championships and champion of the Athens Olympics, only Ginobili does not have a Spanish league background. ACB has also become the league that contributed the most players to this World Championship besides the NBA.

The annual budget of each team in the ACB League is approximately 5.686 million euros, allowing the hiring of two non-EU players. The average player salary reaches 276,000 euros, and the average audience per game is 5,700. Adeco Estuiente has attracted 12,000 spectators every game for many years. The Spaniards are not only very enthusiastic about going to the scene, but they can also watch three games every week from pay TV stations. The Canal channel spends 15 million euros to purchase the annual broadcast rights.

The two most famous teams in the ACB League are Real Madrid and Barcelona. They are also the only two ACB teams controlled by football clubs. Judging from their records, Real Madrid and Barcelona are the twins of Spanish basketball: Real Madrid has won the domestic league championship 28 times, and Barcelona has won 12 times.

Due to the booming domestic professional leagues, various clubs have performed well in European competitions. Real Madrid has won eight European club championships, and Barcelona has entered the semi-finals of the European League many times and won the championship.

In addition to the ACB league, the Spanish Basketball Association also organizes professional LEB and LEB-2 leagues, with 16 teams in each level. In addition to the professional level 3 league, there is also the non-professional EBA league, which is eye-catching in that it has 90 teams participating.

Compared with the ACB first-tier team, its second-tier team can be called a purely Spanish basketball team, and no foreign players are allowed to be mixed in. For example, Gasol's younger brother Marc Gasol was once the leader of Barcelona's second team. Spain's youth league is recognized as the best in the world. After the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, some famous coaches came to coach Spanish youth teams. Marcelas, the general manager of Barcelona, ??has a famous saying - "Cultivating an excellent player is more important than winning 5 youth championships."

The current championship team is called the "Golden Boy" by the Spaniards ", most of them are top figures in the ACB league, such as Navarro, nicknamed "Bomb" as an outside killer. Before the leader Gasol was drafted by the NBA in 2001, he led his team to win the World Youth Championship in 1999. Seven years later, the mature Gasol finally brought Spain its first basketball championship trophy. Behind the trophy is the strong, prosperous and vibrant ACB League.

NBA stars from ACB

Scola Calderon, Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez Rubio (No. 5 pick this year)