The NBA Wants to Buy the EuroLeague: The Owners Meet on 5 October at Lake Como

The NBA wants to buy the EuroLeague, and the owners are meeting at Lake Como

The rumour that circulated through European basketball for months now has a date and an address. The owners of the EuroLeague clubs meet on 5 October at Villa d'Este in Cernobbio, on Lake Como. On the table is the NBA's offer to take over the EuroLeague, along with expansion and a shift to a franchise system. An owners' meeting is called rarely - only when the question is too big for the regular board. America has supplied European basketball with players and style for decades; now it wants the league itself. The question nobody is asking out loud: what remains of European basketball when the owner is across the ocean?

Milan is chasing the 2030 Final Four, and Abu Dhabi has already bought the two before it

The same Italian report carries a second name - Milan, bidding to host the 2030 Final Four at the new Unipol Dome arena in Santa Giulia. The competition is Valencia, but it will most likely get 2028 at the newly opened Roig Arena. The Final Fours in 2027 and 2029 are already sold - they are part of the deal with Abu Dhabi and will be played in the United Arab Emirates. Milan last hosted in 2014, when the underdog Maccabi Tel Aviv brought down the favoured Real Madrid. So: Europe's biggest basketball event, two of the next four editions, is being played in the Gulf. European basketball is still called European - but it is increasingly played where the money is.

Kawhi Leonard on the move to Toronto: "I hope so. We're going to win"

Kawhi Leonard spoke for the first time about a transfer that is still not official. Asked whether he is coming to Toronto, he answered briefly: "I hope so. We're going to win." The deal that brings him back to Toronto and sends Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and future draft rights to the Clippers is awaiting signature - but after the penalty the NBA imposed on the Clippers for circumventing the salary cap through under-the-table contracts, both clubs agree the trade will close. Last season Leonard averaged 27.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists on 50.5 percent shooting from the field. He is returning to where in 2019 he brought Canada its first title - and is already training with the team even though formally he is not yet theirs.

Atanasov: "Going after every trophy and winning every game"

Reigning champion MZT Skopje Aerodrom has been working towards the new season for weeks, and coach Vasko Atanasov is not hiding behind modest goals. "My expectations with MZT are always the same - going after every trophy and winning every game," he says. The camp at Negorski Banji was used for technical and tactical work and for fitness, and the first friendly against Kozhuv ended with 111 points for the Skopje side - which says enough about the direction of the play. Atanasov talks about fast basketball and an offensive roster. The next test is GKK Stip, on Wednesday, at the opening of the "Jackson" sports centre. Pre-season statements are cheap everywhere in the world - but here, where the biggest club is often the only one with real ambitions, at least they are honest.

35 years of Macedonia: athletes did what politicians could not

For the state's 35th birthday, sporting memories surfaced again - and not by accident. The first goal by Zoran Boskovski, Shaqiri's corner in England, the European title of Kometal, the two crowns of Vardar's handball players, and the biggest of them all - Kaunas 2011, when the basketball team showed a face the world remembered. The medal slipped away by a hair, but that generation is written down forever. What gets forgotten again is that all of it is down to individuals and a great many sacrifices, not to a strategy or state investment in sport. The Olympic medals of Shaban Trstena, Mogamed Ibragimov and Dejan Georgievski show up in every anniversary video, but rarely in any budget. Sport has united this people more times than any political platform - which is exactly why it is strange how little it costs those who wave it around the loudest.