EuroLeague American Tour

• 1. Introduction

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  The EuroLeague American Tour was a series of basketball games that brought some of Europe's top club teams onto NBA courts. Between 2009 and 2012, squads from cities like Moscow, Belgrade, and Tel Aviv travelled to the United States to test themselves against professional opponents playing by NBA rules. Players including LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobili appeared in these matchups from 2006 until 2012. What drove European clubs to make this crossing? Who came out on top? And what does it mean that, by 2015, two European teams squared off against each other on American soil for the first time?

• 2. A Tradition Since 1978

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  Friendly competition between NBA and European club teams did not begin with this tour. Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Washington Bullets met in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1978, establishing a tradition of transatlantic basketball that would continue for decades. The NBA's own Global Games also regularly staged EuroLeague versus NBA matchups, meaning the American Tour was entering an already active landscape of cross-continental play. What the EuroLeague American Tour added was a structured, recurring format that brought multiple European clubs together in one trip, giving it a different character from the one-off friendlies that preceded it.

• 3. The 2009 Opener

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  Olympiacos, Maccabi Tel Aviv, and Partizan Belgrade made up the European contingent in the first edition. Their American opponents were the San Antonio Spurs, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Denver Nuggets, and the Phoenix Suns. The European clubs lost all four games. Despite the sweep, individual performances still stood out: Aleks Maric of Partizan Belgrade scored 35 points across his two games, topping all players in the tournament that year.

• 4. Growing the Field

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  CSKA Moscow and Caja Laboral made the trip in 2010, facing five NBA teams: the Memphis Grizzlies, the Miami Heat, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the San Antonio Spurs. That edition produced the highest single-edition scoring output among the tour's top performers. Ramunas Siskauskas of CSKA Moscow tallied 54 points across three games, a total that stood as the series record among the listed topscorers. Cleveland and San Antonio both appeared again, making them the only franchises to feature in multiple editions alongside Memphis.

• 5. Real Madrid and Siena

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  The 2012 edition featured Real Madrid and Mens Sana Siena, matching them against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Toronto Raptors, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the San Antonio Spurs. Bobby Brown of Mens Sana Siena scored 42 points across two games, the highest individual total that year. The Cleveland Cavaliers and the San Antonio Spurs each appeared in this third edition, completing three-tour participation records for both franchises. Real Madrid's appearance marked the first time one of European football's most recognizable sporting names crossed into the basketball tour.

• 6. Later Years and a Historic First

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  In 2013, CSKA Moscow returned to the United States, playing the Minnesota Timberwolves and the San Antonio Spurs. Maccabi Tel Aviv made two further trips: in 2014 against the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Brooklyn Nets, and in 2015 against Olimpia Milano in New York City and Chicago. That 2015 match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Olimpia Milano marked the first time two European clubs met each other on American soil. New York City and Chicago as venues gave that encounter a profile that no purely NBA-versus-EuroLeague game could have offered in quite the same way.