Dubai GM Dejan Kamenjasevic outlined the club's long-term vision, aiming to become a EuroLeague shareholder and help reshape European basketball, while dismissing NBA Europe as unlikely to succeed without cooperation with the EuroLeague.
Credit Dubai Basketball
Dubai Basketball general manager Dejan Kamenjasevic has outlined an ambitious vision for the club's future, including becoming a EuroLeague shareholder, helping reshape the ABA League, and strengthening European basketball amid ongoing discussions about NBA Europe.
Speaking in an extensive interview with Mozzart Sport, Kamenjasevic stressed that Dubai's project is being built around a 10-year plan rather than short-term results.
Dubai aim to become EuroLeague shareholders
Dubai have only completed their second competitive season, but Kamenjasevic already has a clear idea of where the organization should stand within the next few years.
The club's ambition is not only to compete in the EuroLeague but eventually become part of its ownership structure.
"If we're talking about the near future, let's say halfway through that plan. We've now completed our second season. We still have another two and a half to three years to complete that first five-year, Olympic-style cycle, more or less," Kamenjasevic said.
"I think by then we must, or should, become a shareholder of the EuroLeague. We should also be co-owners and co-founders of 'ABA 2.0.'"
Kamenjasevic believes the next stage of European basketball should feature a stronger and more unified competition structure.
"I think by then we should already have one European competition system and one domestic league – continental, not merely regional – that would capture, I would say, 100 percent of European basketball's capacity," he continued.
"There would then be no room for any organizations or stunt-like NBA incursions, or similar projects, in Europe."
Kamenjasevic dismisses independent NBA Europe project
Dejan Kamenjasevic
Dejan Kamenjasevic
Dejan Kamenjasevic
The potential arrival of an NBA-backed competition in Europe has become one of the major talking points surrounding the future of the continent's basketball landscape.
Kamenjasevic, however, does not believe such a project can succeed independently from the EuroLeague.
"We now have many cases where American investors have started investing in European basketball, which is very significant because it shows that they now believe more in this European basketball system than in NBA Europe, which is some cloud that is constantly hanging around us," he said.
"People keep saying they are going to create something, but nothing ever happens and nothing will happen, unless they reach an agreement with the EuroLeague on the commercial side."
For Kamenjasevic, cooperation between the NBA and EuroLeague represents the only realistic scenario.
"I think that is the only thing that can happen. I have been saying that from the very beginning," he added. "Everything else absolutely makes no sense for a EuroLeague that today is stronger than ever."
Dubai GM believes Middle East expansion helped EuroLeague
Kamenjasevic also believes the EuroLeague's expansion into the Middle East has been crucial in strengthening the competition's position.
He pointed to the Final Four in Abu Dhabi, other events in the region, and Dubai Basketball's emergence as key developments.
"We shouldn't forget that one of the key steps for the EuroLeague toward where it is today was opening the Middle Eastern market," Kamenjasevic said.
"The Final Four in Abu Dhabi, now the Super Cup in Abu Dhabi, and Dubai Basketball Club. If it hadn't done that, the EuroLeague today would be a completely different league, one that would already have been colonized by the NBA."
"We should never forget how important all of that is because this ecosystem is created from many small and large details. This is one big detail."
Kamenjasevic also questioned why a potential NBA expansion into Europe is widely accepted while a European league attempting a similar move in the United States would face a very different reaction.
"If tomorrow we said that we wanted to create 'EuroLeague USA,' they would stop us immediately and say it couldn't happen," he argued.
"And then we ask ourselves why the NBA can create a project in Europe. They can do that, but we can't have 'US EuroLeague."
Dubai want to leave lasting impact on European basketball
Credit Charles Verghese/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Image
Kamenjasevic emphasized that Dubai's long-term ambition extends beyond trophies and results.
He wants the club to eventually be viewed as an organization that helped strengthen European basketball as a whole.
"When I look at Dubai through that vision, I want us to be able to say that we helped European basketball stabilize, develop and achieve a certain level of independence," Kamenjasevic said.
"That we helped the environments we entered and worked with, such as Vojvodina, and perhaps some other areas in the Balkans where we might expand in the future. That we helped them survive, mature and, in some way, come back to life."
Part of that plan involves developing a sustainable business model rather than relying indefinitely on ownership investment.
"We want to have a self-sustaining club that no longer depends on investments from our owner or the city, but supports itself through the four main pillars every club should have: merchandising, television rights, sponsorships and ticketing," he explained.
New arena also part of Dubai's plan
Dubai's vision also includes significant infrastructure development over the first half of their 10-year plan.
"We genuinely want, within three years, to become that kind of club – recognizable around the world, in Europe and America – so that people can come and copy that model from us," Kamenjasevic said.
"Already within that five-year period, our vision includes a new arena and a new sports and recreational center."
If the organization reaches those goals by 2029, Kamenjasevic expects the final five years of the project to focus more on consolidation than expansion.
"If we accomplish all of that between now and 2029, I think the following five years should simply be about stabilizing everything, maintaining everything and then – retirement for some of us," he concluded.
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