The Euroleague Final Four is the world's second most important professional basketball championship. It began in Barcelona on Friday with Panathinaikos defeating Montepaschi Siena and then Maccabi Tel Aviv handled Real Madrid fairly easily with a strong second half.

In the title game on Sunday, Dimitris Diamantidis and Panathinaikos withstood a late charge from Maccabi to win the 2011 Euroleague Championship. 

If the NBA ultimately endures a season-long NBA lockout and the 2012 NBA Finals are cancelled, the 2012 Euroleague Final Four in Istanbul will ascend to fill its role as the world's most important professional championship.

The Euroleague plays a single elimination weekend after several stages of round robin play and a best of five quarterfinals. It may not always produce the most worthy winner, but it does turn basketball into an event sport that the NBA does not allow itself to become other than the All-Star exhibition each February. While last season's champion, Regal Barcelona, didn't even qualify for the Final Four, there is little doubt that Panathinaikos was a deserving champion.

For most North American basketball fans, watching a seven-game series between Panathinaikos and Maccabi would be akin to watching one between the Cavaliers and Wolves with the first overall pick on the line. Fatigue from all of the physical play and clogged lanes would set in and the one element it has over the NBA (passion) would be diluted.

But for North Americans waking up on a Sunday morning, watching the Euroleague title game should hold at least a passing amount of intrigue.

As the Internet has increased accessibility, the Euroleague has unquestionably become exponentially more popular in the United States.

Some of the big name American players in this tournament were Jeremy Pargo, Mike Batiste, Nick Calathes, D'Or Fischer and Malik Hairston. To find a player with significant career NBA minutes, we need to look to Marko Jaric of Siena. For the most part, the best players in these games would be 12th or 13th men on even mediocre NBA teams, so the quality of these teams is much greater than the sum of their parts.

While several All-Stars of the NBA have threatened to play for top European teams if there is a lockout, it is not a realistic proposition on all sorts of levels. We will see a few players of the Josh Childress variety move over, but it is unimaginable to think of LeBron James winning the 2011 NBA Finals MVP and then the 2012 Euroleague Final Four MVP.

Individual players are unable to have the singular impact on the game in the European style. It is a complete team game, which may not be as aesthetically pleasing, but makes for an intense battle of wills. Because of this palpable sense of importance placed by the players and fans, the sense of meaning the game has is immediately transfered to those who would consider themselves bystanders.

I'm not so pessimistic about the NBA labor situation to expect a complete cancelation of the 11-12 season, or sufficiently bullish to believe basketball fans in North America would take to Euroleague in anything approaching the numbers the world watches the NBA. This isn't a Ford/Mercedes debate where the NBA will lose its fans to a foreign alternative, but at least there will be an entertaining alternative if the NBA ends up only offering its fans a season of deprivation.

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