That detail tells you everything about where this franchise is right now: producing elite basketball regardless of postcode.
Dubai Basketball face Panathinaikos Athens today in EuroLeague Round 33, the latest chapter in what has quietly become one of the most compelling stories in European sport. The club was founded in 2023. Three years later, it is competing against Real Madrid, Olympiakos, Fenerbahce, and Barcelona in the most prestigious club basketball competition outside the NBA. It has beaten all of them.
The trajectory is dizzying even by Dubai's standards for ambitious sporting projects. In January 2024, the Adriatic Basketball Association confirmed Dubai's inclusion for a three-year term. The club's founders, Abdulla Saeed Juma Al Naboodah and Dejan Kamenasevic, hired Jurica Golemac as head coach, signed Nate Mason as their first player, and brought in Davis Bertans as the franchise's first athlete with NBA experience.
On September 22, 2024, Dubai played their first ever ABA League match at the Coca-Cola Arena and beat Red Star Belgrade. Not drew. Not competed bravely. Won. They went on to defeat Partizan, Zadar, and Cedevita Olimpija, reaching the ABA League playoffs in their debut season before Partizan eliminated them in the semi-finals.
Then came the EuroLeague. In June 2025, Dubai received a five-year licence to compete in Europe's top tier, becoming the first non-Israeli team from outside the continent to play in the competition. The budget was set at a reported 16 million euros. The roster was assembled with the same purposeful ambition: Bacon for scoring, McKinley Wright for playmaking, Mfiondu Kabengele for interior presence, Filip Petrusev for versatility. Golemac was tasked with turning a collection of talented individuals into a team capable of surviving against clubs with decades of European pedigree.
October was a reality check. Dubai went 2-5 in EuroLeague play, the harsh lessons of elite continental basketball administered by Monaco, Partizan, and others. But even in that opening month, there were flashes of what was to come. On October 14, Dubai demolished Fenerbahce 93-69 on the road in Istanbul, a result that sent shockwaves through the competition. Kabengele scored 26 points. It was not a fluke. In the same month, they beat Barcelona. These were not narrow escapes against distracted opponents. They were statements.
December brought stability: three wins from five EuroLeague games, including a 99-92 home victory over Olimpia Milano that saw Bacon pour in 25 points. January was tougher, 2-5 against a brutal schedule. But then February arrived, and Dubai Basketball caught fire. Four EuroLeague games, four wins. They beat Olympiakos 108-98, scoring with a fluency that had the Coca-Cola Arena rocking. They beat Real Madrid 93-85, outplaying the most decorated club in European basketball history. They went to Milan and won 96-78, with Kabengele collecting 22 points and controlling the glass. They closed the month against ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne, winning 96-85 to complete a perfect February.
The numbers from that stretch are remarkable. Dubai averaged 98.25 points per game across those four February fixtures while conceding 86.50. This was not defence-first survival basketball. This was an attacking team playing with confidence and creativity, Wright orchestrating from the point with his 5.5 assists per game, Bacon leading the scoring charts, and Kabengele providing the physical anchor with 7.25 rebounds per contest. Petrusev, who dropped 21 in a road win at Paris back in January, offered the kind of positional versatility that modern European basketball demands.
March has tested the franchise in a different way. Regional disruption forced the club to relocate home fixtures to Zetra Arena in Sarajevo, a decision taken in coordination with EuroLeague Basketball. Playing "home" games 4,000 kilometres from Dubai is not ideal for any team, let alone one in its debut European season. The Coca-Cola Arena, a 15,000-seat venue that has become a genuine home-court fortress, was suddenly unavailable. Ticket sales were paused. The rhythm of match-night Dubai, the pre-game buzz along Al Wasl, the growing community of basketball fans who have adopted this team, was interrupted.
Dubai Basketball responded the way they have responded to every obstacle this season: by winning. On March 12, playing at Zetra, they beat Baskonia 100-94. Three days later, same venue, they put 114 points on Crvena Zvezda to win 114-91. The scorelines do not suggest a team unsettled by unfamiliar surroundings. They suggest a team that has internalised its identity and carries it wherever it goes.
The ABA League campaign has been equally impressive. Dubai sit near the top of the standings with an 18-2 record, including a commanding 95-78 win away at Buducnost in Montenegro that demonstrated the squad's depth and discipline on the road. The twin-competition schedule, EuroLeague midweek and ABA League at weekends, has stretched the roster but also hardened it. Golemac has managed minutes judiciously, rotating his lineup to keep legs fresh and confidence high across both fronts.
What makes this story resonate beyond the basketball is what it represents for the Gulf's sporting ambitions. Dubai has hosted world-class events across a dozen disciplines for decades, from tennis to horse racing to Formula 1. But hosting and competing are fundamentally different propositions. Dubai Basketball is not a tournament brought to the city for a week. It is a franchise, built from scratch, competing year-round against the best in Europe, with its own players, its own identity, and its own fans. The Coca-Cola Arena on EuroLeague nights has become one of the most atmospheric venues in the competition, a fact acknowledged by visiting coaches and players who have spoken about the energy generated by a crowd discovering elite basketball for the first time.
The season still has distance to cover. With five regular-season rounds remaining before the April 17 conclusion, Dubai's position in the 20-team standings will determine whether their debut campaign extends into the play-in round or ends at the group stage. Either outcome would represent a remarkable achievement for a club that did not exist 36 months ago. The fact that the conversation is about potential postseason qualification, rather than mere survival, speaks to the speed at which this project has developed.
Bacon, Wright, Kabengele, Petrusev, Golemac: the names may not yet carry the recognition of the stars who grace the Coca-Cola Arena in other sports. But they are building something. A basketball culture does not appear overnight. It grows through Wednesday night wins against Italian giants, through February runs that announce a club's arrival on the continental stage, through players named in weekly awards while competing far from home.
Dubai Basketball's debut EuroLeague season is not finished. But it has already exceeded what anyone outside the franchise imagined was possible.
