The debutant African Basketball League (BAL) champions will be crowned when Al Ahly Libya face Petro de Luanda of Angola in Rwanda on Saturday.
The BAL has held a unique finals since it was first held in 2021, compared to the best-of-seven series seen in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The NBA, which is heavily involved in supporting and promoting the BAL, is also coming to an end with the Boston Celtics facing the Dallas Mavericks in the Finals starting June 6.
“This has been the most competitive BAL season we have ever seen. There are so many players who stand out,” BAL commentator Usher Komugisha told BBC Sport Africa in Kigali, where the play-offs were held.
“It’s a balanced final. Al Ahly Libya showed a lot of maturity, while Petro has reached the semi-finals of every BAL season and has a very intelligent coach, Sergio Valdeolmillos.”
BBC Sport Africa has been crunching the numbers from the fourth edition of the BAL and seeing how its stars and teams compare to their well-established big brother in North America.
What did the Most Valuable Players achieve?
Earlier this month, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic joined some of the NBA’s all-time greats in winning the league MVP award for the third time.
The Serbian averaged 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds and nine assists this season and completed 25 triple-doubles for the defending NBA champions.
Jokic, 29, became the second player to finish with more than 2,000 points, 900 rebounds and 700 assists in a regular season.
The BAL will only announce its MVP after the final in Kigali, but Jo Lual-Acuil is among the several names in contention.
The South Sudanese-Australian center was crucial in Al Ahly Libya’s run to the final in his debut season, breaking BAL’s single-game scoring record with 42 points in the Nile Conference victory over Uganda’s City Oilers .
Lual-Acuil is averaging 21.8 points and 9.9 rebounds, but is way down in assists compared to Jokic at 1.9 per game.
Petro point guard Carlos Morais, described as the ‘LeBron James of Africa’, could receive the award if the Angolan club win the title, while Kelvin Amayo of Nigerian team Rivers Hoopers and Samkelo Cele of Cape Town Tigers will also had impressive campaigns.
Who is more dominant in terms of wins?
The Boston Celtics have had the most wins in the NBA this season, leading the Eastern Conference standings with a 64-18 record.
The Celtics advanced through the play-offs, losing just two games in three rounds after beating the Indiana Pacers 4-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals.
In a much smaller sample of games, last season’s champions Al Ahly recorded the most wins during the BAL Conference stage.
The Egyptians won five of their six Nile Conference matches, with a winning percentage of 0.833, surpassing Celtic’s regular season record of 0.78.
Morocco’s FUS Rabat triumphed in three of their four Kalahari Conference matches, playing two games less afterwards Burundian club Dinamo withdrew.
How did the defending champions fare?
Despite boasting the NBA’s MVP in Jokic, the Denver Nuggets were defeated 4-3 in the Western Conference semifinals by the Minnesota Timberwolves, finishing second in the table.
Al Ahly aimed to become the first BAL team to win back-to-back titles, but fell in the play-off quarter-finals last Sunday.
They were defeated by fellow North Africans Al Ahly Libya, despite defeating their opponents twice during last month’s Nile Conference in Cairo.
The Egyptians led by three points at the start of the second quarter, but the Libyan champions turned things around in the third quarter to win 86-77.
It was Al Ahly’s biggest defeat margin in BAL history, excluding exhibition games.
Who were the underdogs?
By becoming the first team from their country to qualify for the BAL – and then also reaching the final at the first attempt – Al Ahly Libya turned heads this season.
With a 3-3 record in the Nile Conference, the club only qualified for the play-offs on points difference and came in seventh place.
But they defeated the title holders to advance to the semi-finals, where Al Ahly Libya defeated Rivers Hoopers 89-83 in extra time to reach the final.
The Hoopers, the first Nigerian club to reach the play-offs, also deserve mention after the farewell 2022 Champions US Monastir of Tunisia 92-88 to reach the last four.
The Port Harcourt club first appeared in the BAL in 2021, losing two of their three games, and then lost the second and third editions.
In the NBA, the Minnesota Timberwolves have been the standout underdogs, finishing the season as the third-highest ranked team in the West with point guard Anthony Edwards stepping up his game.
For a franchise that was created in 1989 and has yet to win its first championship, few would have expected the Timberwolves to reach the Conference Finals – where they were defeated 4-1 by the Mavericks.
How do the newcomers compare?
San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, the first pick in last year’s draft, was named NBA Rookie of the Year.
The 20-year-old Frenchman, who is of Congolese heritage, was a unanimous choice after averaging 21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists, a league-best 3.6 blocks and 1.2 steals. of ball per game.
At BAL, City Oilers’ Khaman Maluach and FUS Rabat’s Mohamed Sylla – two graduates of the NBA Academy Africa – are candidates for the award.
The 17-year-old Malauch has played in just six games this season, but the South Sudanese center still leads the BAL in rebounds and blocks, with 13.5 and 2.8 per game, respectively.
Fellow teenager Sylla joined FUS Rabat from BAL’s Elevate program, which matches candidates with competing clubs.
The Senegalese center scored 15 points and 11 rebounds in the quarter-finals against the Cape Town Tigers, but was unable to prevent his team from falling to a 91-88 defeat and the biggest upset of the season.
How would a BAL All-Star team fare against an NBA equivalent?
“It would be very interesting to see this kind of confrontation,” Komugisha said.
“We have players here at BAL who played in the NBA and some were drafted into the NBA.
“Of course, the NBA would have an advantage over BAL players, but the level of competition has increased a lot this season.
“There’s a lot of attention to detail in terms of training tactics but also the physicality of the game.”
Fellow analyst Queen John-Moseph said the BAL’s intensity is similar to the NBA.
“Gone are the days when African basketball was all about big men and aggressive defense,” he added.
“We see the hunger to win, the coaches outperforming each other and the type of plays we see in the NBA.
“The BAL attracted players from all over the world and some could match the NBA. I think it would be a very good game and they would be able to compete.”
