The Italian basketball top division looks to be highly competitive this season although there are two teams that are leading the way right now. AX Armani Exchange Milano were crowned champions last term and last season's winners are now bidding to secure a thirtieth top flight title, with last season's beaten finalists looking like a threat.
Indeed, it wouldn't be a surprise if we saw a repeat of the 2022 final where Virtus Segafredo Bologna finished runner-up. It was a classic final where the eventual champions came out on top, although a 5-2 scoreline doesn't reflect that the majority of matches happened to be close.
2023 Italian LBA Tips
There will be eight teams reaching the LBA playoffs at the end of the season, with the top eight in the final standings getting a chance to compete for the title. Last year, Virtus Segafredo Bologna were the top dogs when it came to the regular campaign and they won twenty-six of their thirty games before cruising through the play-offs.
There is plenty to like about Bologna who have opened the season by landing eleven victories from twelve and perhaps they can go one better than last season. Sergio Scariolo's side look even stronger than their performances last term and they have improved both from an offensive and defensive point-of-view.
Bertram Yachts Derthona Tortona are the third-best performing side in the regular season so far and they have scored eight wins from their twelve games played and that's a better ratio than last season where they were only able to claim seventeen wins from their thirty regular season encounters.
It's going to be an interesting tussle over the next few months to see which eight teams wind up in the play-off spots. There are a clutch of teams in mid-table although they will have to improve their overall performances in order to compete against the leading two sides in Italian basketball.
Bet On Italian Lega Basket Serie A 2020-21
The 2020-21 Lega Basket Serie A season is due to start on Sunday 27 September, with seventeen teams set to line up to compete in what is Italy's biggest basketball competition and several teams from this country also participate in the EuroCup, Champions League and EuroLeague.
The 2019-20 LBA season was brought to a premature halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the teams having played around twenty matches although the authorities decided that play couldn't continue in a country which suffered badly from the virus.
Who Are Favourites to Win 2020-21 Lega Basket Serie A?
Segafredo Virtus Bologna were the best team during the 2019/20 Lega Basket Serie A season, with Vu Nare winning eighteen of their twenty matches during the regular season and they will have been especially disappointed that the campaign was curtailed considering they were the best performing team in Italy by some margin.
The Bolognese side have already won 15 Italian Championships and 8 Italian Cups throughout their history, with Aleksandar Đorđević now tasked with delivering more success and the Serbian has previously coached the Bayern Munich team as well as his native Serbia.
However, the Lega Basket Serie A betting is likely to be highly competitive and Dinamo Sassari were also a strong team during the early part of last season, landing fifteen victories from their twenty games played. This is a team who have never been crowned champions although perhaps the 2020-21 LBA season is where their dominance will start.
The History of the Lega Basket Serie A
The top flight of Italian professional basketball is now over 100 years old, with the first season taking place in 1920-21 and the leading basketball teams in Italy have been competing against each other ever since.
Nearly 100 teams have been competing in the LBA since it started and we've seen many sides come and go in this time. However, none have been more successful than Olimpia Milano who have claimed the Lega Basket Serie A title on 28 occasions and the latest occurred at the end of the 2017/18 season.
Virtus Bologna are the second most decorated professional basketball team in Italy and have secured the LBA title on fifteen occasions although the last time that they tasted success was at the end of the 2000-1 campaign, with other teams having leapfrogged them over the past twenty years.
Indeed, Reyer Venezia waited decades to add to their title count of two after claiming crowns in 1942 and 1943, although they recently scooped the 2017 and 2019 LBA titles and that illustrates that this is a wide open and competitive league where the power regularly switches hands.
There are seventeen teams competing in the Lega Basket Serie A this season, with clubs from all over Italy hoping to be crowned champions come the end of the campaign.
Umana Reyer Venezia are the reigning champions although they made a slow start to the 2019-20 season and lost three of their opening five matches.
Segafredo Virtus Bologna could be the team to beat this term based on early season form, with five straight wins getting them off to a flying start.
The seventeen teams will play each other in a round robin format, with 32 rounds of fixtures being played before the leading eight sides go through to the knockout stage of the competition.
The playoffs is when the Lega Basket Serie A competition starts to hot up, with the LBA playoffs quarter-finals and semi-finals tending to be best of five formats, while the finals series is best of seven.
During the 2018-19 season, Umana Reyer Venezia narrowly landed the title when beating Banco di Sardegna Sassari in the final, while the champions had beaten second seeds Vanoli Cremona in the semi-finals by a narrow 3-2 scoreline.
Milano Favourites to Claim 2019-20 Title
Despite losing at the semi-final stage of the competition last season, AX Armani Exchange Milano are the strong outright favourites to win this season's title, with this proud club already boasting 28 Italian Championships and they remain the team to beat.
However, Milano were beaten 3-0 at the semi-final stage of the competition last term, losing to Banco di Sardegna Sassari, with the latter trading at 18/1 to win the Italian title this season.
Virtus Bologna are regarded as the second favourites to win this season's Serie A title, with this team having failed to make the playoffs last season and they lost (15) as many as they won last term.
Venezia are a 22/1 chance to retain their Italian crown and the other teams who are given an outside chance include Brindisi, Trento and Vanoli Cremona.
