Ponderings of the Man from Mpofana...

The NBA is seen as the pinnacle of club/franchise basketball in the world & many of the world's best players have played there but there are leagues that have their own benefits where basketball players can be as big a star as NBA players. Below are four basketball leagues & an intercontinental championship  that I feel are overlooked & underrated that are potentially as good as the NBA. Many may not think the Brazilian Novo Basquete Brasil league is as good but judging from the talent that comes from there, I'd say it's one of the better leagues in the world. It would be worth a watch as an alternative to the NBA or Euroleague.  The Euroleague is a favourite of mine & many others, it includes teams like Baskonia, Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, Anadolu Efes, Fenerbahce, Zalgiris, CSKA Moscow, Real Madrid, Barcelona & Bayern Munich. This is widely considered as the next best league after the NBA with some claiming it may...

I'm just watching some of the matches of the 2023 FIBA World Cup & analysing how Deutschland won the cup. I'm currently watching them wipe Japan away by a twenty-point lead in the second quarter in one of the group stage matches if I'm not mistaken. Some may wonder why Rui Hachimura wasn't selected despite no news of him being injured, I'm not sure myself. A lot of other really good players weren't included in their national teams for this World Cup.  Team USA   No country had more notable omissions like the USA, their Olympic basketball team for the 2024 Paris Olympics looks more like the Team USA we're used to ("assembling the Avengers", as they say) than a team led by Anthony Edwards & Austin Reaves who are both very capable players but are not on the level of Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant & LeBron James. Then, strangely, in the Olympic roster for the USA men's basketball team, Austin Reaves was omitted. No...