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VTB League 2011/2012

Mindozas6

Mindozas6

Moderator
Today draw was settled for upcomin' VTB season:

Regular season

"A"

Khimki
Zalgiris
Unics
Budivelnik
Nizhnyj Novgorod
Astana
Kalev
VEF
Qualifier 1

"B"

CSKA
Lietuvos Rytas
Asseco Prokom
Azovmash
Spartak St.Petersburg
Lokomotiv-Kuban
Minsk-2006
Nymburk
Qualifier 2

Home-Away system (16 games for each team)

1st places goes directly to Final4, while 2nd placed teams will go to final round of play-offs, where they will face winners of match-ups between 3rd and 4th teams of the groups. Series will be played in best-of-3 format


Qualification tournament (will be held in Siauliai from 27th of September till 2nd of October)

"A"

Yenisey
Honka
Anwil

"B"

Kranye Krylya
Dnepr
Siauliai

2 top teams of each group will go to 2nd round (including points taken in 1st one) and will play against each other again


Regular season will start on 10th of October and will finish in March of 2012
 
So what do you know -in a few short years the league expanded beyond recognition.
I am not sure though which version i prefer - like in first year with short season and action packed finale,or like last year with some unfortunately weak teams added to expand the geography and lacking intrigue / suspense.
Time will be a judge.
The only thing i can say that i hardly care about the tournament.
I am going to watch the games and i hope there will be plenty of good ones,but you know,win or loose,it would not matter that much for me.
But i am ready to do 180 degree turn if necessary.
 
My point of view changed a lot since last season regarding VTB. I didn't look at it seriously then, but now it's getting really interesting, league surely becomes more competitive. More Russian teams = higher class tournament, Astana invests a lot in their team (5mln $ budget, recent signings says a lot), Ukrainian teams getting stronger (sadly Donetsk isn't here), VEF, Nymburk also shouldn't be a push-overs. Got little info regarding Kalev and Minsk, but even without them, there're enough good teams. Just to remember how few years back Zalgiris had to play in poor BBL - it's a big step forward IMO and not only for us.
Btw, BBL should become somekind of 2nd division of VTB, otherwise league is doomed
 
From now on, we will be saying..

The best leagues in Europe are
1) ACB
2) VTB League
3) The Field

The way it is, VTB has the potential to become better than the ACB. But it is not a national league and we don't know how it will run over the following years. As for attendance, the Spanish are incomparably better
 
Yeah, VTB is getting better and better. I hope to see Šiauliai qualifying for the main tournament - that would be very good for Lithuanian basketball because at perspective of level VTB is about similar to EuroCup, maybe even stronger by little and teams will play many games. It would be nice to see Šiauliai playing against such a teams like CSKA or Unics, Chimki. :)
 
I hope that Siauliai makes to the VTB also.They are again trying to improve their team with unknown players from weaker NCAA teams,but still I think they might beat both teams in their group.Krasnye Krylya should be the toughest oponent in their group with having players like Green and Brezec,but Siauliai are known to be able to compete against teams like Zalgiris and Rytas from time to time.For example,they lost to Zalgiris last season by only 10 points and were able to beat Rytas by 1 point,meanwhile still having one of the worst seasons in teams history.
 
As i heard our PBL should be repealed in next season. It just means that all russian teams, including VLADIVOSTOK eventually will play in VTB league. So, does it mean that two the main lithuanian giant will leave your LKL and will ONLY play in our VTB league?..
 
hustlerlt said:
I hope that Siauliai makes to the VTB also.They are again trying to improve their team with unknown players from weaker NCAA teams,but still I think they might beat both teams in their group.Krasnye Krylya should be the toughest oponent in their group with having players like Green and Brezec,but Siauliai are known to be able to compete against teams like Zalgiris and Rytas from time to time.For example,they lost to Zalgiris last season by only 10 points and were able to beat Rytas by 1 point,meanwhile still having one of the worst seasons in teams history.
Click to expand...

Brežec signed with Lokomotiv so that's good for them.

Šiauliai will have a home crowd advantage, besides that, they all will play from the preparations together (for example, last season they added Broadus when they were out of the EuroCup, then soon Harris moved to Ukraine, they got Delaš when season was already began, etc.) so this year it gonna be different. Besides that, American additions (especially Cameron Long) look to be great. They were possible NBA draft candidates so it's good for Šiauliai to sign him (I've read in Cameron's twitter that his mother has financial problems so he really wants to start his pro career and earn as much money as he can to help his mom..he looks to be very good from what I've read and heard from tohers).

What as for now, Šiauliai needs to get one more SF/PF player (it depends on that, where they are planning to use Žukauskas...) and even maybe PG because Long is more as a combo guard with shooting abilities so they need to find good substitution for Broadus. :)

Vaslover, no, they will play in LKL for sure because it really matters at getting Euroleague licenses and teams want to play there. As few days ago manager of Lietuvos Rytas told that they understand other teams from smaller cities need them, they want to be part of Lithuanian basketball and they WILL play in LKL.

Same with Žalgiris, while the biggest problem is for BBL - they might loose Rytas and Žalgiris there...even VEF had discussion about not playing in the regular season as Rytas and Žalgiris did last season.

What as for Šiauliai, they're not playing in any other European tournament (they didn't want to play in EuroChallenge and they didn't qualify for EuroCup because they lost in LKL play-offs) so they have much more free time for games.
 
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DeJuan Blair with a strong qualifying tournament, we'll see how he does against better opposition.
 
vaslover said:
As i heard our PBL should be repealed in next season. It just means that all russian teams, including VLADIVOSTOK eventually will play in VTB league. So, does it mean that two the main lithuanian giant will leave your LKL and will ONLY play in our VTB league?..
Click to expand...
That seems a merge between PBL and VTB.

Would there be possibly a russian group and a "rest of the world" one for the 2012-13 season?
 
Gonzaka said:
That seems a merge between PBL and VTB.

Would there be possibly a russian group and a "rest of the world" one for the 2012-13 season?
Click to expand...

Most probably that we,ll see a merge between PBL and VTB. I just don,t understand that if Lithuanians and other countries a merge with Russians for what exactly they,ll compete and participating? For money, for the national idea or something else? We can only guess. Really...
 
vaslover said:
Most probably that we,ll see a merge between PBL and VTB. I just don,t understand that if Lithuanians and other countries a merge with Russians for what exactly they,ll compete and participating? For money, for the national idea or something else? We can only guess. Really...
Click to expand...

I'd put this question a bit differently. It's not like f.e. LKL or LBL is merging with VTB (they will stay the same), but PBL, so what exactly Russian teams will compete for? Money, national idea or smth else?
 
Mindozas said:
I'd put this question a bit differently. It's not like f.e. LKL or LBL is merging with VTB (they will stay the same), but PBL, so what exactly Russian teams will compete for? Money, national idea or smth else?
Click to expand...

My friend, it,s too complicate questions for me, for what exactly Russians teams will compete for...:)
 
vaslover said:
My friend, it,s too complicate questions for me, for what exactly Russians teams will compete for...:)
Click to expand...

Other question here - Euroleague. Who and what for will get licenceses or something like this? And how can it change local competition?

P.s. more and more Russian teams are getting in VTB...Enisey already qualified, it looks that very soon Krasnie Krylia will be in the VTB United League, too.
 
sagenas said:
Other question here - Euroleague. Who and what for will get licenceses or something like this? And how can it change local competition?

P.s. more and more Russian teams are getting in VTB...Enisey already qualified, it looks that very soon Krasnie Krylia will be in the VTB United League, too.
Click to expand...

That,s why I think this competition is UTOPIAN. For example, the first five places will get licenceses to euroleague . Can you imagine, that two best Lithuanian teams eventually will get six and seven places( it,s possible,why not actually, especially considering Russian money) in the regular season. So, how they,ll solve their problems?.. That,s why this competition seems quite doubtful.
 
vaslover said:
That,s why I think this competition is UTOPIAN. For example, the first five places will get licenceses to euroleague . Can you imagine, that two best Lithuanian teams eventually will get six and seven places( it,s possible,why not actually, especially considering Russian money) in the regular season. So, how they,ll solve their problems?.. That,s why this competition seems quite doubtful.
Click to expand...

Nor Zalgiris, nor Rytas, nor anyone else from LT plans to go out of LKL, so it'll stay as it is regarding Lithuania (A license + B license for LKL champ).
If in some utopical way LKL and other leagues would merge with VTB, still separate countries would have their places in EL, like it is in Adriatic League, so f.e. if Zalgiris finishes 6th and Rytas 7th - Zalgiris goes to Euroleague, VEF finishes 12th, they represents Latvia in qualies and etc., but it ain't gonna happen, not a chance in nearest future.
And I don't think VTB league is utopic or smth, IMO it's great replacement for BBL (for LT clubs), atleast VTB management is thinking some dumbs things like merging the leagues or smth... I don't mind PBL + VTB, but with others it ain't gonna work
 
Rule of the thumb generally is good - always follow the money.
Russians pay the money,they want this competition.
We play because money is good,and teams we play against are competitive,with only few exceptions due to expansion.
I guess finland idea was not good at all either way you look.But the idea of replicating old ussr type of tournament is not bad.
2 Lithuanian teams,Estonian,Latvian,Belorussian,few Ukrainian teams,replace Georgians,and there you go.
But once money stops,it will be back to BBL
 
Something weird happened today.Astana beat Zalgiris 86:78.No disrespect to Astana,but Zalgiris were the clear favourites to win this match.
 
I wouldn't say, that the result is very surprising. There were hard wins by Zalgiris against Kalev and even Naglis.
 
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