David Stern could not dream of a better photo opportunity than the one he got a few days ago in Barcelona when former NBA All-Star and European basketball legend Vlade Divac took the opportunity to deliver a firm proposal for NBA expansion to Europe.

Stern has been fantasizing about NBA expansion to Europe for years, but I just don't think he has European basketball's best interest in mind at all.

The vision is very attractive. NBA franchises will be established in major European cities - Madrid, Moscow, London, Paris, Cologne and the European elite will finally step up to NBA level, expanding the international fan base of basketball and increasing its global appeal as slow and old European basketball executives vacate their seats in favour of NBA experts who will finally put the sport on a par with football in Europe.

The current forces and theories seem to support this dream. European players have been making an impact on NBA basketball for several years, and now Europe's top teams have been grabbing the recent headlines and national teams and professional clubs have been beating their NBA rivals with more regularity, generating a real buzz about a supposed marked improvement in the level of the Europea game.

Team USA has been denied two major championships in a row now -- at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the World Championships this summer in Japan. Unlike on previous occasions when it appeared as if they weren't giving it 100 percent, on the last two occasions they were giving it their all.

This week, on the NBA European tour, CSKA Moscow routed the Los Angeles Clippers 94-75 and FC Barcelona beat the Philadelphia 76ers 104-99. Maccabi Tel Aviv lost to San Antonio this time around, but last year they beat the Toronto Raptors in Canada, the first and so fat the only time that a European club has beaten an NBA outfit on American soil. It's clearly no fluke, I can almost see the day when Maccabi and CSKA go head to head with Miami and the Lakers for the NBA championship.

But it ain't happening and David Stern knows it. European basketball is a totally different game to NBA basketball. The major sport in Europe is football and while basketball has made inroads and created a solid niche to become an alternative secondary option for fans. It is why the Euroleague's top clubs come from cities like Tel Aviv, Athens, Malaga, Sienna and Moscow and for the very same reason it is why cities like London, Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam do not produce championship teams.

Let's do the calculation again: An average NBA team's annual budget is $100 million, with $50-60 million allocated for salaries. A top Euroleague team runs a budget of between $12-20 million. None of the Euroleague elite plays in a major city like London, Paris or Munich, meaning that in order to attract a major fan base, new franchises would need to be built from scratch.

That means building modern arenas for over 20,000 spectators and filling them to capacity at least 40 times a season. They would need to generate a fan base of a few million, at least, in order to justify their feasibility, negotiate broadcasting rights which would rival those of football and drum up significant merchandising sales. As all the big cities mentioned have major football clubs who already sport a fantastic tradition, compared to little or no basketball heritage and no major local basketball following, it simply would not work.

The real European basketball cities, on the other hand, could never compete. The clubs from Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Moscow and Athens have created the most effective European markets but they simply are not big enough to with the economics generated in Los Angeles and New York. Indeed, they could not even compete with Cleveland, Charlotte or New Orleans.

If that is the case, what is David Stern trying to achieve? The Euroleague has long become a breeding ground for NBA talent similar to the CBL or NBDL but with much better potential. The NBA has become globalised as American players dominate European clubs' rosters and scouts keep a close eye on them. What David Stern is really after is not European basketball, it's the European fans and their money. He can get closer to our pockets if he sells us the illusion of participation. If I feel closer to the NBA, then the chances are better that I would buy a Kobe Bryant T-shirt. If I fantasise about Maccabbi playing against the Lakers then I will pay to watch. Europe's population of some 300 million people has huge marketing potential for the NBA.

The bad news for European basketball is that it is singing its own requiem. There is no passion in farm systems intended to cultivate talented players who will eventually move on to play in the NBA. Call me an old fool but I miss the good old days when the European championship game actually meant something. I am not looking forward to financing NBA players wardrobes through David Stern's "peace and unity for everyone" facade.