At a competition level, it meant a qualitative leap; but also took its toll in the political arena, whereas new entities and new actors took the stage.

First at all, FIBA, after the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, made professionalism official. The most of the European countries, up to that point, have had domestic competitions that largely depended from its respective national federation, who were amateurs in theory but in practice there was a concealed work activity.

Each one of them took a different tack. Some were kept in line with a federation that operates a fully rented first division but with minimal changes regarding management delegation, such is the case of the French LNB. Others, however, left their Federation and formed themselves into a completely independent club association. This is the model of, for example, Spanish ACB, Italian LEGA and Greek League, to name a few.

And others, who until then did not have a national competition, when they did, it implemented in the form of an independent professional league. Their consideration as the ultimate expression of national basketball is determined by the status quo, such are the cases of Argentine Liga Nacional (LNB), Australian NBL, Korean KBL, Mexican LNBP and Venezuelan LPB, among others. The NBA, of course a special case, fell into this paradigm.

The last group consists of the new countries formed after the fall of communism, derived from the split of the former Soviet Union (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.) the former Yugoslavia (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro) and Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic and Slovakia).

The "turning point" roughly also marks the beginning of the era of cumulated statistics. Until then, FIBA competitions only computed basic numbers (points, games played, two pointers made –for statistical purposes, FIBA does not take field goals together-, three pointers made, free throws made and attempted, and personal fouls). From this point, they began to compute rebounds (both total and split in offensive and defensive ones), assists, steals, turnovers, blocks (for and against), personal fouls (committed and received), minutes of play, and -based on these criteria- the player’s efficiency rating.