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Home - NLB Adriatic league
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 NLB Official Web page - http://www.adriaticbasket.com/main.php
NLB on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nlb_league
Passion plus Talent equals NLB League by Alex Milic
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About NLB Adriatic league
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Adriatic
League, currently known as the NLB League as part of the naming rights
sponsorship (from 2001 to 2006 known as the Goodyear League), is a
top-level basketball league that features teams from Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, all of which are
former republics of SFR Yugoslavia. The league is a private venture,
founded in 2001 and organized by Slovenian company Sidro d.o.o.
The league exists alongside scaled-down versions of domestic leagues in
each country. All of its teams join their country's own competitions in
late spring after the Adriatic League season has been finished. The
Adriatic Basketball Association, set up by Sidro company, is the body
that organizes the league and is a full member of ULEB and a voting
member of the Euroleague board, so this league can be considered as a
local version of the Europe-wide Euroleague, in which many Adriatic
League clubs also compete.
This league has inspired a similar competition in the Baltic states, the Baltic Basketball League or Baltic League.
History
The league was founded on July 3, 2001 with 12
teams, and started competition in fall 2001. The league had 4 teams
from Slovenia, 4 teams from Croatia, 3 teams from Bosnia-Herzegovina,
and 1 team from FR Yugoslavia
For the 2002-03 season, the league remained at 12 teams, with one team
dropping out and Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv joining.
Maccabi left the league after one season, but the league expanded to 14 teams for 2003-04, and to 16 for 2004-05.
The league reverted to 14 teams for 2005-06. In September 2006 the
league signed a general sponsorship contract with Nova ljubljanska
banka (NLB) and was renamed to NLB League, whilst keeping Goodyear as
one of the major sponsor.
Competition
Like most European leagues, the regular season
consists of a double round-robin schedule, with each team playing every
other team home and away. The top teams in the league then advance to a
playoff round to crown the league champion.
From 2002 through 2004, four teams qualified, and the playoffs were
termed the "Final Four"; starting in 2005, eight teams advanced to the
"Final Eight" round. All playoff rounds consist of one-off knockout
matches, unusual among European leagues. However, since all Adriatic
League clubs play in domestic leagues at the same time, and many also
play in the Euroleague, the current format has the virtue of limiting
fixture congestion for the playoff sides.
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