The London Lions Are Raising The Standard Of British Basketball

Forbes Business SportsMoney The London Lions Are Raising The Standard Of British Basketball Mark Deeks Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Writing analysis of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Mainly.

Following Click to save this article. You’ll be asked to sign into your Forbes account. Got it Nov 29, 2023, 11:59pm EST Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin ISTANBUL, TURKIYE – NOVEMBER 15: Matthew Morgan of London Lions gestures during BKT EuroCup week 7 .

. . [+] Group A match between Besiktas Emlakjet and London Lions at BJK Emlakjet Sports Complex in Istanbul, Turkiye on November 15, 2023.

(Photo by Mehmet Murat Onel/Anadolu via Getty Images) Anadolu via Getty Images Without wishing to violate the sacred journalistic edict of not inserting oneself in the story, I have long occupied what has for the most part been an awkward position in the world of professional basketball commentary. Simply put, much to the chagrin of my imaginary careers advisor, I have for the longest time chosen to work in a career that struggles to exist in the country I live in. I am an Englishman, born and raised, and have never lived elsewhere.

I also never plan to. It is no secret, though, that when compared to the nation’s overall economic might, its general love of sport and relative excellence at most of them, basketball just has not taken hold in the United Kingdom. Those who call themselves basketball fans usually if not always really mean that they are NBA fans; the homespun product, both in terms of both the strength of its domestic teams and the national team set-up, has long been lacking.

We just do not feature much on the landscape. Inevitably, basketball fandom – and, latterly, work opportunities – have been much harder than they should be for I and those like me who happen to love this game. Some fine individuals notwithstanding, the British basketball product has long been hampered by an extremely tricky convergence of myriad factors (politics, in-fighting, a lack of heroes, a jarring lack of central funding, broadcasting issues, lack of facilities, cultural apprehension, insufficient coaching, and too many big fishes in small ponds not wanting the pond to get any bigger because they like being the big fish, to name but a few ) that have held it back for so long.

If you wanted to enjoy the game locally, there was not much to find. And if you wanted to enjoy the NBA, the time difference made it extremely hard. A consistent theme throughout the story of British basketball has been trying to build from the ground up.

That is to say, developing community outreach and schools basketball programmes, et cetera , so as to try and make a cultural footprint for the game, introduce the next generation to it from an early age, and try to crack off at least a chunk of the dominance that football (the soccer version) has amongst the working class. The purist’s model, essentially. Prima facie, this sounds right.

In many ways, it surely is. But it was not the only way to build a brand. And nor does it have to be done in isolation.

With this in mind, in 2020, the franchise that less than a decade before had become the London Lions received new ownership, taken over by Miami-based venture capitalists 777 Partners, and while still doing those community programmes, the comparatively enormous levels of investment have seen the Lions assemble a quality team comprised of both Brits and imports. Instead of the bottom-up approach, there now existed the possibility of building from the top down. And in the world of sports, trickle-down economics can be a viable option when nothing else worked.

MORE FOR YOU The Best Post-Travel Tuesday Deals You Can Still Shop Today: Save On Airfare, Hotels And More Microfinance Company Of Billionaire Kumar Birla s Daughter Is Now India s Second Largest After Acquisition The Real Reason Mark Cuban Is Exiting Shark Tank And Maybe The Mavericks As a result, Britain, England, and London specifically now have a basketball team of internationally-respected calibre for the first time in at least a generation, and possibly ever. With their 101-87 win over BC Wolves of Lithuania this week, the Lions have advanced to a 7-2 record in the EuroCup (Europe’s second-tier intracontinental competition, akin to football’s Europa League), and clear in second place in Group A , behind only the heavily-invested-in French side Paris Basket. And in British Basketball League play back on home soil, the Lions – almost never playing at full strength in a conscious squad rotation system- have walked back to the top of the table with a 14-2 record , the odds-on favourites to defend the title they won so easily last season.

The Lions are doing this with players of pedigree. Headlining the line-up is former NBA player Sam Dekker – who, freed from the confines of his limited NBA role, is back to his versatile point-forward best – while other NBA-calibre players like the high-flying Josh Sharma, versatile forward Donte Grantham and big-time scorer Matt Morgan (all of whom have NBA summer league experience) give him things to work with. The extremely fundamentally sound Gabe Olaseni forms a dominant tandem at the five spot with Sharma, while former NBA player Tarik Phillip pairs with Luke Nelson, Conor Morgan and Jordan Taylor to make for a very potent offensive unit.

Over the two previous seasons, players such as Marquis Teague, DeAndre Liggins, Tomislav Zubcic, Kosta Koufos, Miye Oni, Julian Washburn, Kylor Kelley, Isaiah Reese and Byron Mullens have also suited up for the Lions. Where once it was a miracle for an ex-NBA player to ever play in Britain, the Lions have normalised it to the point where it is now only a question of which ones there will be. Consider also that due to injury, Dekker has not played much this season; as good as they are right now, then, the Lions still have more to come.

And this, to the long-embattled British basketball fan, is hugely exciting. This decision to pivot both the Lions and the wider BBL into the international private equity market has done little to nothing to temper the aforementioned political wranglings and lack of camaraderie that has anchored the game for so long. Interlopers are forever having to explain themselves.

This is further complicated by the fact that 777 not only own the Lions, but also now a sizeable share of the British Basketball League itself, an extremely unusual arrangement worthy of proper examination. What I am selfishly concerned about in this piece, though, is the end result of it all. And when looking at it selfishly in this was, as any fan might, the end result is a basketball product the likes of which have never been seen within a car ride of my house.

Journalists, reporters, writers of whatever things like this are; we are supposed to be mere observers, and, as such, keep our own views and biases out of the story. But that is not going to happen here. I am biased.

For the longest time, I have wanted the sport that has shaped the last 20 years of my life, and the country of my birth, to start getting along better. I want basketball in Britain to matter . Through the the Lions and the quality product it has produced, both on the court and in the arena (where the game time entertainment has also taken a big leap forward), they now are.

British players, both self-produced and adopted through heritage, are playing quality basketball and beating quality opponents in full view of everyone who wants to watch it. None more so than I. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn .

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