2024-25 BC Dubai
060 · 2025-05-31 · medium
If there was a gigantic pile of money in the middle of a desert, and you didn't have any ethical or moral concerns about how the hell it got there, would you go and take it? But enough about the NBA expanding to Las Vegas. I've referenced the Dubai Basketball project before in this space, but that was two years ago, before anybody had any idea what shape it would ultimately take. Because everything was all informed speculation at that point, it's perfectly alright that everyone turned out to be totally wrong about it. For one, there was this mysterious new semi-generic team in the Lithuanian LKL called Wolves BC, which opened its home office in Dubai despite playing its home games in Vilnius. Since it paid its way into the EuroCup, there was a fair amount of prognostifying about a fix being in, that Wolves was headed straight for the top basketball level of a continent the United Arab Emirates isn't even on. In terms of rumors over receipts, there was popup-ridden website reporting that the Mubadala Investment Company – a/k/a the UAE's sovereign wealth fund – was on the verge of purchasing a turnkey EuroLeague wildcard entry, which would promptly raid the NBA free agent class of 2024. (I figured Klay Thompson would be the top target.) Well, history turned out this way instead: the Al Naboodah Group, which controlling-interests the Al Ahli footsoccer club, partnered with Lithuanians (different ones) to construct a franchise from scratch. In March 2024, the semi-generic Dubai BC signed a three-year contract to play in the Balkan ABA League, which makes exactly as much sense as the timeless Mid-Majority "Gonzaga to the Big East" trope. Dubai to Belgrade is 2,400 miles, so is New York to Los Angeles, and part of the deal is that DBC pays everyone else's travel expenses. And they can afford it! At the time of this writing, they're tied with Partizan in a best-of-three semifinal series, on the strength of a thrilling May 29 overtime win at the NBA-sized Coca-Cola Arena, which looks like a freaking spaceship. The first-time charmers might have been motivated by the big news earlier in the day: the EuroLeague will re-expand from 18 to 20 clubs for 2025-26, and Dubai BC will just so happen to be one of them. It's the hardscrabble culmination of a long and arduous road that stretches back fourteen entire months, a golden journey that will invariably inspire loud whispers about sportswashing. "Human rights, which we like to speak about in Europe, are better respected here than in some European countries," says general manager Dejan Kamenjasevic. Hungary, okay, maybe? Belarus?