Yarone’s Weekend Joints - Part II

Part II of the Weekend Joints breathes air before the weekend comes to an end.

Three-ball diversity

Seems like Olimpija finally found the path to the W. In their win over Alba, the Slovenians finished 11-of-24 from close range and 13-of-33 behind the arc. The Germans had big problems deciding who to stop first, as no fewer than seven different Olimpija players stepped outside the arc to hit shots. On an average night, a team will have three or four players with at least one three-pointer: Seven is a big number in that category. Power forward Miha Zupan was steaming hot at 4-of-7 from that distance, some of those hits were made in ways the greater shooters don’t hit so often. Keep in mind that in the entire previous season, Zupan made only eight three-pointers and that in the first four games of the season he had gone 0-of-6 from the arc to realize what kind of a night Olimpija needed to get their debut win.

New kid on the court

In early August at the U18 Division B European Championship, Mirza Sarajlija led Slovenia back to where they belong by winning the lower-division title. Sarajlija was projected him as a prospect, and he earned his place in the all-tournament team, but it didn’t seem likely the 17-year-old guard would influence a Euroleague game less than four months later. The 1991-born talent already showed his skill set in several Adriatic League games and on Thursday played his first-ever Euroleague game, igniting Hala Tivoli right away. He scored no less than 13 points with three downtown rocks in addition to three rebounds, two steals and an understandable five turnovers. Very, very few players have such a Euroleague debut on their resume as a teen. Keep an eye on Sarajlija…

Rarity in Pionir

The fact that Partizan came close — sorry, very, very close — to beating CSKA is surprising, but nothing’s shocking. After all, in the previous season, the Russian giants lost at Olimpija in a close game, 74-72, on a buzzer-beating shot by Marko Milic. Partizan is a much better team than Olimpija of last season, and playing in Pionir isn’t easy for anyone, so those things happen. The real shocking episode from that night in Pionir was that CSKA was out-rebounded, 45-29. Even if you take out the last four offensive rebounds of Partizan in the final seconds (actually, the fact Partizan took four offensive rebounds in the deciding last play says it all) you still get a big 12 rebound gap. The rarity is that the Euroleague champs are almost never out-rebounded by that many. In most games they will grab more, sometimes many more, rebounds than their opponent. When they do lose that battle, the deficit will be no more than minus-five (as it was that night in Ljubljana). Other than a few occasions, most of them coming in games which CSKA has it decided early and allows the other side to come back, such a gap rarely happens.

69 reasons to visit Badalona

No details here. Clear and simple. In the second and third quarters, Joventut Badalona combined for no fewer than 69 points. God damn it.

New (temporary) king

Ksistof Lavrinovic of Montepaschi scored an index rating of 25 this week against SLUC Nancy and it seemed like the easiest 25 ever. Lavrinovic reached that on a night in which he was only 2-of-9 from the field and missed all four attempts from distance (the difference between a missed and a made shot is four index points). The fact he did this coming off the bench and in less than 20 minutes is not surprising if you follow his performance closely. This season, he took over one of the most interesting stat categories in the Euroleague. He tops the “All-Time Index Rating per Minute” category with a great 0.78 point per minute. Right behind him is Maceo Baston at 0.72 and, to understand how big a 0.06-point difference is in this ranking, just have a look and note that the distance between second place and 20th place is 0.1. The active Euroleague player closest to Ksistof is Mirsad Turkcan with 0.65, a long way behind. The only asterisk the twin carries is the fact that he’s played only 27 Euroleague games so far. Mark your calendars to check on Ksistof when he reaches 40 and 60 games to see where he stands.

It DOES get worse than that

Part of the reason Zalgiris leads the ranking of turnovers per game is the fact they play long stretches, and sometimes full games, with two young point guards. This week they got back their original signing for the point guard position – the American Willie Dean III who’s a little more experienced. Considering his performance against Barcelona, it’s likely Zalgiris would have done a better job without him that night. Dean came back from an injury and missed all of his six shot attempts to win the unofficial PVM award of Week 5 with an index rating of -8. The more disturbing part is that this isn’t even Dean’s worst performance in his very short Euroleague career, as on Week 1 he wrote an index of…-9.

Another new kid on the court

Sarajlija wasn’t the only kiddo to shine this week. Partizan usually give the stage to Serb talents, but Jan Vesely is a Czech big guy who’s certainly justifying the exception. When will he turn to a name everybody knows is a matter of time. For now he’s a 1991 born big guy who stops only after 210 centimeters and loaded with talent. Before stepping on the same court with Savrasenko, Smodis, Lorbek and Morris he played only two Euroleague games, and in both it was for short minutes in which he did pretty much nothing but adjusting. Against CSKA only Milenko Tepic played more than his 25:48 minutes. He still didn’t express his offensive skills, and finished with just a single point and three losses, but his three offensive boards and the six on the other side of court, in addition to effective defense in the paint, made him one of the nicest surprises this week.

Turkish muse

Quinton Hosley made his break last season while playing for a mid-size club in Turkey by the name Karsiyaka. He averaged 22.9 ppg and 11.6 rpg to become one of the hottest items on the market this summer. Eventually he landed in Madrid, where he had some ups and downs so far, but once back in Turkey, for a Euroleague game @Efes, Hosley was once again on fire. He set individual season highs with 24 points and a 23 index rating, missed only two shots in 11 attempts and the most impressive part was scoring three times from distance after missing all five attempts in the four previous weeks.

Under 70

Fifth week in a row the big team of Kaunas fail to reach the 70 points barrier, and their season high remains on 67. This week they stopped on 60 and marked another sad chapter in their impressive history book. Since season started, in five games, which roughly results 20 quarters, Zalgiris climbed to 20 points or more in only three of them.

Once in…Edu

Eduardo Hernandez-Sonseca came off Joventut’s bench to win the MVP of Week 5 with a shocking index rating of 38. That performance threw me back to the Top16 of the 2001/02 season. Back then Hernandez-Sonseca was a 19 year old prospect on the bench of Real Madrid. A seven footer who can score from close and long range, rebound and run the floor and could become something very interesting one day. Maybe. Well, Edu didn’t play much that season, as expected, and even when he did, showed only flashes of skills here and there. Until Real had a field trip to Perm to face Ural Great on Week 4 of the Top16 back in 27^th of March 2002. Both teams already had no chance to qualify on, the Spanish team arrived with only eight players on the roster due to injuries and whatever, so the kid got a chance to play. The final score was 104-113 to Real, in a game some claimed was fixed to be an “Over”, but for EHS it didn’t matter. He reached 28 points, in 10/14 from the field, 8/8 from the line, six rebounds and four blocks on the sure path to 36 index rating night. The following season he got a bigger role on Real’s roster but showed great inconsistency ranging from nights of 13+12 vs. CSKA to 2 points, 0 rebounds and 2 turnovers against ASVEL. From then till today he never came even half way to what he wrote down on Thursday night in international competitions, unless you demand to count an index of 30 against Guilford Heat last season.

No need to foul

Unicaja managed to grab a key win in Tel Aviv despite missing about half of their roster, which hurt their usual wide rotation, but didn’t effect their aggressive defense. Nevertheless Maccabi drew only 13 fouls that game. No player drew more than three. Go over 23 other Euroleague teams this week and you won’t find another sample like that. That’s not even the first time it happens to Israeli powerhouse this season. In the last three weeks Maccabi didn’t draw more than 18 fouls in any of the games. The lack of a slasher AND a post-up player limits the options of the current Maccabi roster, and helps their opponents to play tough and avoid fouls.

Will the real Rawle Marshall please stand up?

Despite the title it has nothing to do with any fist-fight. This is pure basketball talk. In the off-season Rawle Marshall was a hot name in the market. Lots of teams were interested in the US forward who played great for Hemofarm the past season, but most of them had doubts if he’s a very good Euroleague player or “just” a stud for a Eurocup team. Five games inside his debut season in the Euroleague and still no clear answer. So far he stands on two great performances, two he would prefer not to mention and an average one. In the two bad games and the average one he hit only nine shots in 37 attempts. In the game @Unicaja he excelled with amazing 7/10 from long distance, but stood on 1/6 inside the arc. Against Olympiacos he dished four assists, in the other four games combined only half of that. @Le Mans made four turnovers, in the other four combined just two. It goes way beyond stats, as Marshall at times seems like the real deal with his athleticism, size and skills, but then looks pretty far from someone you can put the ball in his hands and rest peacefully. It’s the most reasonable thing for someone who witnessed European Basketball for the first time only last year, and has no more than five Euroleague games in his resume, but from now on, as adjustment time is over, Marshall shall be examined under closer look.

History in Sopot

A long streak came to an end on Wednesday night in Sopot. A historical incident took place on the Polish court. The info is disclosed in front of you: Sarunas Jasikevicius finished 13:32 minutes with 0/5 from the field, no fouls drawn and three turnovers to reach a terrible -8 index rating, but worst of all 0 points. In eight Euroleague seasons Saras had a few rare games in which he didn’t score a field goal. Even in his two huge seasons with Maccabi he had a game like that in each season. Along the way there were some games with just a single bucket, and very few games with a negative index rating, but never ever, in all his 140 Euroleague performances, he finished a game with no points as in Sopot. There’s probably some symbolism in the fact that Saras will, most probably, start the new streak next week when he plays in his…home town – Kaunas.

Yarone’s Weekend Joints - part I

Probably the best thing would be to start with an apology for the delay, and get this out of the way. I’d like to thank the academy and blame Chris for the delay, not because it’s really his fault, but just because it’s fun to blame him on everything. Give it a try…

Week 5 of the Euroleague was full of stories and anecdotes. Some wrote new lines in the history books, others are on the way there.

After only one team won on the road in Week 4, this round of games displayed no fewer than six road wins, and three home wins by up to five points. With Olimpija and Milano taking their first Ws, and CSKA Moscow coming closer than ever to join the 23 other teams with a digit higher than 0 in the losses column, week 5 was one to remember.

Well, at least until Week 6.

Here’s the first part of the Euroleague Weekend Joints of Week 5 on Ballineurope.com.

Congratulations Jaka!

First of all, let’s congratulate Jaka Laka for becoming the 4th player in history to reach 2,000 Euroleague points this week, but that wasn’t the only mark he celebrated at Kaunas on Thursday night. It was also Lakovic’s 150th game in the Euroleague and only the fifth game ever in his eight-season Euroleague career that he didn’t miss a shot from three-point land, not counting nights he took just a single attempt. Jaka hit all five of his attempts in this game, two more threes than the entire team of Zalgiris, by the way (Zalgiris went 3-of-18 beyond the arc). Three times, Lakovic went 2-of-2, while on January 9, 2003, when he wore Pao’s green jersey and played at Tel Aviv, he had a 5-of-5 night as well.

Perfecto Greer

Not only Jaka was hot this week. Olympiacos’ Lynn Greer was also 5-of-5 from behind the arc, and for him it was the first-ever Euroleague game in which he was perfect from that range, excluding a single 1-of-1 display.

Road, bitter road

The Final Four hosts from Berlin suffered a 77-69 defeat at Olimpija, and allowed the Slovenians to celebrate their debut win of the season. After one leg in the regular season, Alba stands on a 2-3 record and it’s easy to label them. Both wins were registered in the O2 arena in front of a packed arena, and in both cases it was a close win. On the road, it’s a totally different story and there Alba lost all three games without putting up much of a fight. The eight-point difference is deceiving, as Olimpija held a double-digit lead in the closing minutes. Add the awful loss at Tau and a nine-point defeat at Fenerbache Ulker, and it’s gotten easier to place your bets from now on when it comes to Alba. In the second leg, they will play in Roma and Badalona, not the most comfortable spots to pick up a road win, so most probably in order to get some Euroleague oxygen, Alba will have to use the help of the O2 ha ha ha.

Don’t miss out…

Just in case you missed Panionios’ Aaron Miles beating the halftime buzzer with a super-cool coast-to-coast drive, check the Top 10 plays of Week 5 according to Euroleague.TV and survive the first nine to watch this beauty.

The big crisis

OK, this one has nothing to do with those red screens on your Wall Streets, but Efes Pilsen is in a big one of their own. The 95-81 defeat at home to Real Madrid marks Efes’ third loss in a row. Two were in Abdi Ipacki, and just to keep you fresh the first was to Panionios, while the third was in Moscow, where it’s more than reasonable to lose, only Efes was trashed by 22 points after a 27-9 first quarter start by the champs. Over the weekend, Efes re-signed Predrag Drobnjak to fill in at a center spot that felt kinda empty after the injury to Mario Kasun. Drobnjak was on the only two Efes teams to make it to the Final Four, back in the early days of this decade, before he moved to the NBA. Now he’s far from his prime, but let’s see if his arrival will bring good momentum to Ergin Ataman’s factory. Otherwise, Ataman himself could be next to pay for the damage. If you’re looking for a win, the last place you want to visit is Pionir and face Partizan, especially after they suffered an aching home loss, but that’s exactly what awaits Efes next week. Hopefully for Efes, Drobnjak and Milos Vujanic will feel at home enough to stop the downward spiral.

He’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

CSKA climbed to 5-0 and remained the only team with a perfect record in the Euroleague. To make things worse, on anyone who’s not a CSKA fan, this week marked the return of Matjaz Smodis. God forbid…

Heart-attack Partizan

The team to draw the most sympathy and empathy this week, beyond any doubt, is the group from Beograd. The one point loss to CSKA, and the heart-breaking finish, when Partizan missed no less than five attempts in a row in the last seconds to win the game, captured whoever enjoys an underdog win. Check out this fan-made video from the Pionir seats. The last play starts 6:40~ inside the clip. This fan won’t win the prestigious “Camera man of the year” award, but turn up the volume, hope your neighbor doesn’t have a machine-gun, and focus on the sights and especially sounds around the play. This was Partizan’s second single point defeat this season, and all of their five games were close ones, decided by no more than five points.

32 is the new 11

Drive your car around the world, and other than a difficulty to avoid food poisoning (at some point or another) you might also find it hard to locate a good Spanish player playing outside the ACB. Other than in the NBA and Jorge, who just couldn’t say no to the crazy Khimki offer, there’s only one more player to name - Lottomatica’s Rodrigo De La Fuente. This week was a special one for the out stander. In the 76-67 home win over FenerUlker, at the age of 32, after 11 seasons in the Euroleague and 172 games, he set a career high in rebounds by collecting 11.

Damn rims

Prokom’s home court is called the “Arena of 100 years” and it certainly won’t be named anytime soon “Arena of 100 points”. The rims there are anything but friendly to most visiting teams. Pao escaped with a 60-67 win but they have nothing to be ashamed of. In the last six games in front of those rims no team scored more than 68 points.

Arc range darkness

Lottomatica wrote their fourth win in a row, and would probably revenge Alba, for their only defeat so far, next week in the Palalottomatica, but something strange happened in their win this week over the Istanbul’s chocolate factory of FenerUlker. All of Roma’s hits from long range were scored by the big guys. Power-forwards Roberto Gabini and Angelo Gigli were 3/3 from the distance, while all the others combined 0/6. No outside hit was made by the guards, despite one thing Repesa doesn’t miss is guards who can hit the ball. The reason was that while on the romantic scene being passive sometimes actually works, in basketball if you don’t hit you can’t score. Sani Becirovic and Allan Ray didn’t try even once from that distance, while Ibrahim Jaaber stepped up with a single attempt. For Sani it was only the second time he finished a game without taking a long range shot in his last 18 Euroleague games, while Ray broke a streak of 21 games in which he made the effort.

Road bitter road - part II

So CSKA are 5-0 but this week was the second time in a row the Euroleague champs have trouble to score and win on the road. Their previous trip out of Moscow finished with a 54-58 win in Madrid behind a terrible shooting day. The 62-63 loss in Beograd saw CSKA connect only a duo of baskets from long range in 14 attempts. Yikes! That wasn’t the only reason Partizan came so close, but to read on the second, and more peculiar one, wait for the second part.

Off-bench Diamantidis

Some would tell you that a team must have a stable starting five for things to work, but Zeljko Obradovic will reply to that with however you say “Bullshit” in Serb. Often Obra changes his starting line-up, but in Sopot it was standing out more than the usual. Batiste, Spanoulis, Tsartsaris, Hatzivrettas and Kecman on court. On the bench waited five that can assemble one of the best line ups in the Euroleague: Jasikevicius (we’ll get back to him in part two…), Pekovic, Nicholas, Fotsis and Diamantditis. The last still managed to finish with the best index rating of the night with 26, but broke a streak of 66 games in which he was a starter for Pao. The last time Dimitris saw the jump ball from the bench was in Week 4 of the 2005/06 season, andeven then, on November 24th 2005, in OAKA he was the best player on the team and finished with an index rating of 23.

Retro Le Mans

It’s shocking enough Le Mans scored 87 points in four quarters against Olympiacos, but the fact they, once again, lost a close game is something stat experts need to look into. Just a reminder, if you missed that part here in the previous weeks, last season, under a different coach and different roster, Le Mans also lost all their first five Euroleague season games in the closing plays. This season they already lost two games in overtime, first @Maccabi and this week vs. Olympiacos. The bad news for Le Mans is that last season, in Week 6, the close losses streak was put to an end, not in the positive way, with a 91-71 defeat @Cibona. Next week they host Unicaja. We shall see….

The “Disgrace Escaping” mission

After five weeks Zalgiris stand on a 0-5 record. It’s likely for the Kaunas club to finish their season earlier than expected, and considering the off-court happening around the club this season it’s reasonable, but in the remaining five games they’ll need to work hard to escape disgrace. Up to today Zalgiris stands on a horrible 19.6 turnovers per game average. Right and far behind are SLUC Nancy with “only” 16.8. Now, being behind Nancy isn’t such a big shame, it’s the history books awaiting for Zalgiris. Unless a big improvement will arrive soon to Kaunas they’ll be known as the team that made more turnovers per game than any other team in a season. In all of the Euroleague history, under ULEB (excluding the first season which its stats isn’t available on the web), the team with the highest tpg average was the 2001/02….London Towers with 18.0 per game.

Most Turnovers Per Game by Season
Season	Team	TPG
2008/09	Zalgiris Kaunas	19.6
2007/08	Olimipija Ljubljana	16.0
2006/07	Cibona Zagreb	17.7
2005/06	Strasbourg	16.8
2004/05	Estudiantes Madrid	16.5
2003/04	Alba Berlin	15.2
2002/03	Buducnost Podgorica	16.1
2001/02	Kinder London Towers	18.0

Fantasy Challenge: Follow your own tips!

Another week is over and once again, my team finished somewhere in the top half of the “middle-of-nowhere” range. Across the board, my players performed well (8 out of 10 were between 9.9 and 22.0) but none went for an extraordinary MVP-level performance. But I have to say that I am happy with the trades I made: Bringing in Zoran Planinic and Nikola Pekovic were good moves, as the two combined for 35.2 ranking points instead of the 0 I would have gotten without the changes.

On the other hand, I don’t know what happened to Emir Preldzic, who made a nice 0 and Mirza Begic who threw up came up with 9.9 ranking points in just 4 minutes of play. I would suggest to Mirza that he be sick a bit more often but play 40 minutes despite throwing up constantly. I have to think on my forward rotation a bit this weekend, as Immanuel McElroy seems to be on the downturn as well. We will see what comes up.

If you check on who I advised you to sign last week, I can only say, “Christophe, why do you tell the guys out there who to sign but don’t take the guys yourself?” Carlos Jimenez (23.1), Mike Hall (18.7) and Charles Smith (27.0) were three names I mentioned. And I didn’t pick up any of these three, despite having an unused trade. No wonder I have a new favorite song:

Luckily, the standings still show that I’m not doing everything wrong. I am currently ranked at the edge of the Top 10 and so I’m still in the race for new K1X shoes or some Euroleague goodies. At the top of the table is still the fight between djalix and EVICROCK, separated by only 0.5 points. Looks pretty tough at the moment and neither player has given up on winning those Euroleague Final Four tickets.

And because I was so harsh on myself before when I was talking about the moves I did not make, I would like to mention my current good ranking in two other fantasy leagues. In the league hosted by our friends at Basketsession, I am currently ranked 4th, which may sound nothing special, but I am in front of French Euroleague fantasy guru Bricko and his CSKA Brickowski team. Additionally, another 4th place is in the books for me in the Interbasket Private League, which I also consider a nice performance.

Have a nice weekend…

Musings of a Partizan virgin

Sorry for the lateness; i knew a true fan wouldn’t miss the live Euroleague TV feed, but in a small corner of hometown Budapest it was the US last night and an American holiday. First thing this morning, though, it was on my screen.

The following is my first riff on Partizan basketball as a black-and-white fan, inspired by the wonderful minimalism of the all-time greatest fan blog ever. (An opinion which surely has nothing to do with my devotion to the Los Angeles Lakers and Red Hot Chili Peppers diehard.)
If a Budapest flat was Thanksgiving town on Thursday, Belgrade was certainly heart-attack city.

CSKA Moscow had allowed fewer than 60 points per game, but the Pionir crowd like a football crowd could exhort more out of Partizan on adrenaline alone.

At first, it all looked so good to take down the monster: Planinic was planless, Morris out early with foul trouble, Langdon lackadaisical through the first half.

Partizan is defined by the three-pointer, said the Euroleague.TV head; Partizan would go 4-of-23 for the game and all its key plays threes made and missed.

Like when Tripkovic nailed the three to tie it at 52 to end the third and glimpse the end to CSKA’s streak.

Like when Tepic’ long ball, cruising leisurely ‘round the rim, wasn’t left well enough alone by Vilicovic. And went out, maybe to make the difference.

But hope stayed alive as the clock ticked down: Tripkovic another buzzer-beater … a Vilicovic steal and a coast-to-coast two to tie it up.

And then hearts went into throats at one, two,
Three,
Four…

Five?

Five! shots underneath fail to go in. The Pionir run ends at seven and Partizan stands at 2-3.

63-62: Not quite a backbreaker or a dealbreaker. Not quite the Moscow kingmaker or Belgrade eliminator. But an Undertaker heartbreaker, nonetheless…

What’s wrong with Americans in Europe?

Dario from basketbalcentral.it just sent me an email on Rawle Marshall, who plays for Cibona and also in the Euroleague.

Rawle got into a fight in a domestic league game against Split.

These fights of Americans have happened very often in recent weeks. I had to check immediately if Rawle is also from Arizona, as are his fight buddies Loren Woods and Joseph Blair, but thank god he is not: Rawle went to Oakland University, although he had a one-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks.

Here is the video evidence, thanks to Dario:

All of the editor’s Devotion to…

The masses (well, a few of you anyway) have weighed in and i’ve tossed around a few considerations as to my favorite Euroleague team since opened for discussion here at BallinEurope.com and over at Facebook last week.

As you no doubt have noticed, it’s Partizan. The arguments pro and con were weighed, but most impressive was the sales pitch delivered on behalf of the Serbian team.

Longtime BallinEurope loyalist UHG80 noted Partizan’s tradition, mid-range budget, excellent fanbase (well evidenced by response to my posts) and good chance at the Final 16 – all even though he’s “pretty much neutral”! Plus, UHG80 also mentioned one of this b-ball fan’s favorite words, “Divac”; this ultimately may have put Partizan over the top for my heart.

Stefiva, apparently also not a Partizan fan as her comment went without mention of such, described getting in with Partizan as tantamount to “cheering for Golden State Warriors only much more satisfying.” Big plus points there.

Finally, Facebook user Ivan Wani Molerovic from within the hardcore fanbase declared, “Let die everyone who don’t love PARTIZAN … Partizan iz more than a club, it’s our life, hope and biggest love … Forever together…” All right, then, that’s settled.

Runners-up for this fan’s attention included:

•  Maccabi Tel Aviv. I loved the display on Maccabi history at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts this summer and damn, you gotta dig that yellow-and-blue color scheme. Plus, they do have a killer website in English, great fans, and what NBA fan could easily resist a chance to cheer for Carlos Arroyo and Marcus Fizer?

•  Lottomatica Roma. One of this traveler’s favorite cities in the world, fandom would surely give me a great excuse to visit la Città Eterna again, no? Figure in Brandon Jennings with those sweet deep red unis and Roma was tough to pass up. But surely losing Jennings and probably missing the Top 16 in 2010 will suck, and who wants to be around for that?

•  Montepaschi Siena. Francesco Cappelletti, BallinEurope’s man in Italy, sent me an email which read, “choose Montepaschi! Not only because it is my team, but also because they probably play the best European basketball after CSKA Moscow, and because Italian basketball was born in Siena in 1871!” Tobias himself also pointed out that Siena is not affiliated with any football club, surely a rarity in Italy. It was tough to pass on these guys, particularly since their play in Euroleague 2007/2008 was so enjoyable, but if I’m siding with an Italian team, it would be Roma.

•  Le Mans. Since I’m residing in Hungary, a country with apparently little hope of improving its basketball program within the next 137 years, Le Mans would probably be the closest thing i have to a home team, less than 150 km from the family’s ancestral homeland of Poitou-Charentes. Unfortunately for Le Mans’ hopes, i dithered on this decision until last week, meaning Le Mans had plenty of time to sink in the Euroleague standings and in the race for my Devotion.

Despite these worthy contenders, however, Partizan it is – and what a time to join, eh? Right on the eve of hosting the monsters from Moscow; we’ll see about that awesome home crowd. Go black and white!

NIKEiD Fantasy Challenge: Now what?

Currently, it looks like a lot of decisions have been made in the Euroleague fantasy league. The time to gain sure credits is nearly over, and only a few players are still available at reasonable prices to give you good credit boosts. I’m thinking here mainly about players like Mirza Begic (49 credits) or Sergio Llull (26 credits). But if you don’t have them in your team already, it’s really time to think about what your goal is.

My personal moves

As for myself, I have enough credits right now so I have to check which players can bring me the most credits for the least value right now: This is the reason why I’m selling Ersan Ilyasova, who has not been in his best shape recently. He’s still worth decent value, so it’s a good move in order to buy a more productive player. I’ll use this money to replace one of my two young point guards and give Zygimantas Janavicius away to bring in Zoran Planinic: He should be able to bring up some good numbers in Serbia against Partizan Belgrade. In the paint, I’m bringing in Nikola Pekovic, as I think that he’s now at a good value of 57 credits and should easily dominate against Asseco Prokom.

OUT: Ersan Ilyasova (FC Barcelona) and Zygimantas Janavicius (Zalgiris Kaunas).

IN: Zoran Planinic (CSKA Moscow) and Nikola Pekovic (Panathinaikos).

Take care of injury minutes

A good move to get interesting players right now is to check out the Injury List for possible “playing-time gainers.” For example, Marcus Haislip is out for three weeks so Boniface N’Dong should see some major playing time this week. Additionally, Carlos Jimenez will probably have a nice game in the absence of the high-flying US player.

With Marko Milic injured and Union Olimpija playing against ALBA Berlin, it may be interesting to gamble on Damjan Rudez who should profit from Milic’ absence. He is currently a bargain at 22 credits and if you want to take some risks, he may bring you 10 or more ranking points this week.

See who’s hot right now

Players often go on streaks, by which I mean they play a few good games in a row. One of these players currently is Mike Hall of AJ Milano. He was the MVP of the last game day, despite his team’s loss in Madrid. Hall managed to score 28 ranking points, however, and he is currently priced at only 30.4 credits: a sure winner in terms of credits first of all, but he looks particularly hot as he came up with a valiant 18 in the weekend’s domestic league game against Air Avellino. AJ Milano will play at home against Panionios, and the chances to earn the 10% bonus with Hall are also quite good.

Another guy who is hot right now is Charles Smith; the US-born guard will play against his former team Real Madrid, and the chances of him coming up with a great scoring effort for his Efes Pilsen squad are good. At 36.7 ranking points, Smith is a good value with which to fill up your roster, and his 18-point performance this weekend in the Turkish league shows that Smith is ready to score.

Four-armed player with first win in EuroCup 2008/2009

On opening night of the newly created EuroCup, Lietuvos Rytas beat ASVEL Villeurbanne easily, 95-74, in front of 7500 spectators and Euroleague CEO Jordi Bertomeu. Matthew Nielsen is no longer playing for the Lithuanians, as he signed a new deal with Pamesa Valencia and will probably leave in the next days.

The story of the game, however, was the first-ever four-armed player to be used in an official competition. You may think that we have drunk too much Svyturys and/or Stumbras, but check out the picture below to believe what we say.

Picture had to be deleted - so if you haven’t seen it - you won’t understand the story. bite.lt, according to Roman von krepsinis.net, stole the picture from them.

It’s no surprise that Zalgiris fans are now crying again and claiming that the ULEB should take a closer look at this case and not allow stereoids or other doping methods in order to give an unfair advantage to their eternal rivals from Vilnius. We’ll follow this case very closely here at BallinEurope.com…

EuroCup LIVE - Bamberg vs. Turow

Dave Hein of heinnews.com is live in Bamberg to present us the first game of the EuroCup, EuroChallenge or old FIBA Eurocup mixed with the ULEB Cup - I don’t know what it actually should be, but it’s the next level after the Euroleague.

The game starts at 7.30pm local time. Meanwhile the game between Khimki Moscow and STB Le Havre will be shown on Eurosport.com LIVE and for free starting at 5pm. This is a good opportunity to follow Carlos Delfino and Jorge Garbajosa.

CSKA Moscow women’s team withdraws from Euroleague

The official statement comes as no great surprise to BallinEurope, since we discussed the problems at CSKA women’s basketball team a few days ago. As basketcentral and the official CSKA website just informed, CSKA will drop out of Euroleague play.

It was said that even the CSKA men’s team tried to help out the women’s team financially to augment assistance from the Russian federation, which was trying to find new sponsors for CSKA, but player contracts have been just too much. Don’t forget that CSKA signed Becky Hammon, who has a Russian passport, for two years with a €1 million contract. Besides Hammon, there are also WNBA stars such as Katie Douglas, Janel McCarville, Ann Wauters and Edwige Lawson.

Compared to men’s basketball, this is as big a blow as if the men’s team of CSKA pulled out of the Euroleague: A pretty huge deal!

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