NBA can’t do that, or not have plans to break their partnership with FIBA… it’s like FIFA breaking up w/ EPL or IPL break up with ICC… do you know that fiba and nba even have merge partnership w/ BAL in Africa.. that means both have their mission to increase the popularity of basketball in Africa… even the EASL and WASL in asia has the support both of NBA and FIBA.. why? Both have plans to compete with the popularity of football (whether they tell it or not, it’s obvious)… you didn’t know how the business side of their partnership, the reason why NBA is also support FIBA’s new format.. is to increase the awareness of the sport worldwide…. You don’t know what will exactly happen if they break up, they will both lose millions of dollars since both are same in terms of their goals worldwide… the history of basketball is not the same for football and cricket… 10 years ago, basketball is only 9th most popular sport, NBA is globally popular, but there is still lacking, the international presence of followers… fast forward now, the basketball is now 2nd (or 3rd in some sites) as most popular sport… the reason? International players taking over the sport and increase international competitions… don’t tell NBA can easily dispatch FIBA since they are both the biggest institutions of basketball world… the reason why volleyball is just only 6th most popular because even it is Olympic sport and have international competitions is because no prominent professional leagues for volleyball, maybe there are but not as big as NBA in basketball or IPL in cricket…