The ninth edition of the prestigious ‘International Basketball Migration Report‘reveals that Spain maintains its trend of recent years by increasing the number of foreign players (71%) and nationalities (51) in a Endesa League who lowered his scoring average by almost one point per game (80.7).
Spain is the country in the world that imports the most players. This was shown again by the 2019/2020 season as shown by the ‘International Basketball Migration Report’. Not even the pandemic manages to stop the progression that led Spanish Basketball to lead the world classification of foreigners with 745, mainly from the United States Y France, the two basketballs that had a greater flow of transactions with our country.
In a season in which, internationally, only the Basketball Champions League and the BCL Americas were able to finish their competitions and crown champions (Burgos and Argentine Quimsa), the International Center for Sports Studies (CIES) and FIBA have published the ninth edition of the International Basketball Migration Report, a seasonal view of migratory trends and sports trends around the world.
COVID IMPACT
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic forced to suspend competitions as of March 2020, a total of 8,900 transfers were made involving 7,371 players. This edition emphasizes how basketball is a global sport run by 213 National Federations and millions of players in which, one more season, Turkey has been a leader in BAT cases due to conflicts reaching 333 lawsuits in progress. A classification in which Spain is far from these dubious ‘privileged positions’ with only 44 cases.
The NBA for his part, he resumed his season in an isolated “bubble” environment with 22 teams competing from July to October 2020 and only 34 registered internal transfers, the lowest number since the 2006-07 season. One of the main reasons for this drastic decrease (134 in the previous season) was the cancellation of the NBA Summer League 2020. The WNBA and the NBA G League they maintained this downward trend in both internal and external transfers.
SPAIN DOES NOT CHANGE COURSE
As a curious fact, the Barcelona was the team in the world with the highest average height (202.1 cm) although the ACB league saw their scoring levels drop to 80.7 points per game (81.5 in 19/20) and to classify 4 teams in the World Top 5 of the roster with more foreign players. Specifically the Murcia topped this list with a 93.8% of foreigners in your staff. The Igokea Belarusian slipped to the second world position (83.3%) who complete Baskonia (81.3), Betis (80) and Real Madrid (77.8%). Logically, the ACB league is the league in the world with the largest capacity for foreign players with a 70.7% of foreigners. Far away Germany (58.5) e Italy (56.6) as major importers of players who, in the Spanish case, are increasingly veteran, which leads Spain to be the second league with the highest average age (27.4) tied with Greece and only surpassed by Japan (28.5).
BUT U21 OPPORTUNITIES
Where there has been a slight worldwide increase during the 2019-20 season has been in the percentage of U21 players and their respective playing time, the percentage in the leagues being 14.9% and the average of minutes played per game of 5 ,2 minutes. An average higher than that of the ACB (4.9) which had 32 players of which 18 are Spanish.
Check the full International Basketball Migration Report here: https://www.fiba.basketball/documents/ibmr2020.pdf
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