Europe's elite teams play in the Euroleague, widely regarded as the best basketball in the world outside of the NBA. 24 teams are divided into 3 groups of 8. Teams from leagues all over Europe compete including powerhouses such as Real Madrid, Tau Ceramica and FC Barcelona from Spain, Maccabi Tel Aviv from Israel, Efes Pilsen Istanbul from Turkey, CSKA Moscow from Russia, Partizan Beograd from Serbia Montenegro, Virtus Bologna, Scalovini Pesaro and Benetton Treviso from Italy, Opel Skyliners from Germany and Olympiakos from Greece. Fans often wonder where international players that burst onto the NBA scene come from; the answer is easy --- the Euroleague. Recently, Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobli and Mehmet Okur have successfully moved from the Euroleague to the NBA. More European talents are sure to follow. Teams competing in the Euroleague must meet specific standards in terms of Arena capacity, youth programs, budget and other guidelines designed to ensure only the best basketball teams in Europe are involved. Set up similar to the famous European Soccer league "Champions League", winning the league championship in countries such as Spain, Italy, Germany and France earns an automatic bid to the international competition. Games are often played midweek on a home and away format within each group for the first round. The second round of the Euroleague eliminates teams with poor records eventually advancing to a Euroleague Final Four to crown a champion. Many basketball fans familiar with both Euroleague and NBA enjoy the Euroleague style of play more because it is more halfcourt execution, passing and cutting, team basketball. Obviously, the main difference between Euroleague and NBA action are the differing rules --- Euroleague plays by FIBA rules while NBA uses their own.
