North European Basketball League
North European Basketball League, or NEBL (English North European Basketball League) is a former basketball league, which had its gaming operations from 1998 to 2003.
History
The idea of an international and commercially successful league modeled after the NBA in Europe to install was 1998. Initiated by Šarūnas Marciulionis a doctoral Cup 1999 was conducted with eight teams participating. This was followed by regular championships with participating in the lead up to 31 clubs. First, it should be a competition for northern European countries Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden and Finland. Later, the competition was expanded to include the countries of Eastern and Zentraleuroopas Poland, Czech Republic, Russia. After also countries from Western (Denmark, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain) and southern Europe ( Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia) to come and have even participated teams from Turkey and Israel, the competition finally lost its regional character. After a few years, the draft horses CSKA, Zalgiris Maccabi lost their interest in the competition. With regard to the reorganization of the European cup competitions by the FIBA agreed in 2002, no longer discharge the competition. In the 2003 /03 season, only the Final Four was played by the four best teams in the Northern Conference of the FIBA Champions Cup. The North European Basketball League was in its form as a model for the Adriatic League, developed later (from 2001), Baltic Basketball League (from 2004), which can be called as the successor of NEBL, or even the VTB United League (from 2008).