you’ve heard of the NABA. you’ve heard of Summer Basketball. now get ready for my favorite basketball AU: the Global Basketball Association (GBA)

a thread

there are 196 recognized countries in the world. most of them already have a basketball league

the first step of the GBA is a regular season — all of the teams in an individual country face off to see who wins. the winning team of each country is sent to the

GBA TOURNAMENT

the GBA Tournament is basically the same as a regular basketball season but it’s global, with one team representing each country. so hypothetically we could have nearly 200 teams in the tournament. TRADES ARE ABSOLUTELY ALLOWED

sorry LeBron, you’re in Kazakhstan this season

trades level the playing field for teams with less basketball talent due to a lack of basketball in their country — this keeps powerhouses apart

the GBA is split up into eight conferences so it still comes down to two teams facing off for the championship title

yes, there are a few plot holes:

1. a new international set of rules has to be established
2. broadcasting might be confusing to set up
3. no wars can start over this thing and it should probably be sanctioned by the United Nations
4. funding per country will be uneven

I think to solve the rules issue we should just adopt one set of rules for a particular league

idk anything about broadcasting but remember this is a hypothetical

the UN should definitely set some sort of rules regarding this if they haven’t already for the Olympics

funding is the tricky thing because some country leagues might not be able to afford participating in the tournament. to combat GDP loss there could be one established location for the playoffs — the home court of the team that won the year before

or it could be on a neutral ground basis like the Super Bowl & the Olympics — but this will be set in the official GBA rules/whatever the UN has to say about rule making & keeping the playing field level

ps idk if this would run yearly, bi-yearly, etc it’s a hypothetical

anyway, that’s it for my GBA thread. I hope you enjoy and I hope you want the GBA to happen because it is SUCH A COOL CONCEPT

FAQ:

1. yes, the NBA still exists
2. yes, GBA tournament teams can trade for players who lost in the first round of the GBA (national tournaments)
3. yes, the Raptors will have to leave the NBA and join Canada’s basketball league
4. yes, there will be a GBA draft

regarding point 3: if the GBA were to happen after the 2018-2019 season, the Raptors would be representing the United States, so any non-US teams in the NBA would have to join their home country’s league