BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Since BiE will typically have to play catch-up with a week’s worth of Euroleague games on Saturdays, a new concept comes to the website in the Sunday hangover. Those of you who have followed BallinEurope since the days of its origins may recall the old “Monday cigarettes” column – and this one hopes to recall those days (but with video clips!). And so, notes and observations from the opening week of play in the big league…

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After several hours of driving, I have finally arrived back home from Berlin, and I’ve had enough time to think and remember the impressions of the 2009 edition of the Euroleague Final Four. So the typical Monday cigarettes will be jumped over and be replaced by my own personal memories of the weekend.

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The Top 16 starts this week, so let’s first check out the nicest stories of last week and also take a little look forward.

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After a little break, we are back with some more smoke from around the European basketball universe.

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• Stanko Barac could move back to TAU Ceramica soon
• What a night in Belgrade with a overtime win for Crvena Zvezda against Buducnost
• In Germany, Brose Baskets Bamberg ended an 8 game losing streak in the German League and Euroleague combined with a short win against Trier. Christian Hoffmann came up with a surprising performance however for the losing team, he scored more points in this game than in his whole season so far.
• As you know, we at Ball in Europe have a love/hate relationship with Euroleague TV. But when I saw this EL.TV clip on youtube, I had some doubts about the seriousness of the person that uploads the videos. I was asking myself what is the stranger thing, calling a video about Dajuan Wagner "simphony" (sic) making an allusion to the German composer Richard Wagner, the fact that Richard Wagner is not known for composing symphonies but operas, the fact that Wagner’s well known Valkyrie is also used in the movie Apocalypse now or the involuntary sarcastic description of the video on youtube: Dejuan Wagner is a very consistent player.
• The Copa del Rey is coming closer.

• Update on the injury of the Turkish Freshman Dogus Balbay at the University of Texas
• ESPN discovers the Euroleague
• What can Hervé Touré do better? Write books or dunk the ball?
• FMP Zeleznik wins the Hospitalet Tournament for U18 teams
• ACB.com elected the pictures of the year 2007
• Jared Reiner loves Serrano ham
• Kerry Gibson got fired in Lithuania, but his agent has found him a new team in Romania. Good Luck Kenny (this is not irony or sarcasm…). Gibson has been replaced by Adam Schaper.
• That memorable Euroleague night where I did not watch one game had some nice infos however, as I heard today that Mehmet Becirovic will leave Olimpija for the exact reasons that I have described 1 month ago. Reports say that Aleksander Dzikic will be the new coach of the team. He worked as an assistant coach in Partizan and Minnesota Timberwolves.

• After the much commented Kerry Gibson story, it is good to see that there are also Americans that adapt well and are happy to play in such strange places as Lappeenranta, Finland
• Omri Casspi, one of the top prospects in Europe, has a dad that is a little bit too much into the development of his son
• After having demolished Real Madrid in "El Classico" this week, Barcelona got hammered by Vive Menorca this Sunday. Up and down…
• The French All-Star game this Saturday was the worst one I ever saw. At least, some of the dunks of the Contest were good
• Signing frenzy in Germany: Kimani Ffriend to Brose Baskets, Chad Prewitt comes back to Artland Dragons, Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje extends his contract with Oldenburg and Jason Miller signed with Jena
• After having beat Spain during Eurobasket with a big 3, Marko Tomas wins it again, but this time in traffic
• You know 1-on-1, you know 2-on-2, or even Streetball 3-on-3 action? If so, in Berlin was this weekend the final of the German 4-on-4 challenge
• The French LNB League is celebrating its 20th anniversary. And they just published a Top 10 of the best blocks of the Finals history. I hope they come up with more…

• The Russian giant Gazprom is actually planning to build a European Hockey league to compete the NHL. Is something similar also possible one day in the basketball area? Who knows…
• Marcus Slaughter explains his view about being cut by Hapoel Jerusalem. As we reported that he has been with an escort lady during the trip to Strasbourg, Slaugther now says that this girl was not a prostitute but a good friend. How many times did we hear that story…
• Why has Zalgiris won against Bologna? Check out these very interesting reasons from DeJuan Collins.
• Delonte Holland is apparently close to being cut. For all the other teams, here is a Top 10 of what he can do, in offense.
• Sometime I am surprised what kind of information is worth a news. But to mention a surprise meeting between FMP and Vlade Divac in a plane shows also the importance that Vlade has in Serbia.
• Zadar is now officially the best team in Croatia as they beat Cibona this weekend in the Adriatic league. Coach Aleksandar Petrovic has the same feeling.
• Big surprise in France where Clermont beat Euroleague team Le Mans. Tony Skinn was the match winner with 29pts, 6rebs and 4asts. For Le Mans, Nicolas Batum (21pts 5stls) and Antoine Diot (15pts 5asts) survived in the game with good stats however.

• Nicolas Batum announces that he will be in the NBA Draft this upcoming summer.
• The first Bundesliga basketball game in the German Free-TV for three years was a blowout win by ALBA Berlin in Bamberg. However, we saw one of the nicest plays of the season so far.
• The 22nd edition of the World Junior Tournament will be held from June 18 to 22 in Douai, France. Former players that showcased in Douai are Carmelo Anthony, Tony Parker or Andrei Kirilenko
• Vote for the Adriatic League All-Stars and the German Bundesliga All-Stars
• Second player of the month award for Vladimir Stimac in the Baltic League
• Curtis Borchardt wins the MVP of the Day in the Spanish ACB
• After being waived by Prokom Trefl, Eugeniusz Kijewski is now rumored to become Polish NT headcoach
• Alpella, which is a club formed to let young players develop, beat Efes Pilsen this Saturday. Apparently, they have developed too much that they have beaten the two Euroleague competitors from Turkey. Omer As?k is putting his names higher and higher in the Mock Drafts by another monster game 25 points, 14 rebs. and 6 assists vs. Loren Woods and Andre Hudson! (Thanks for the hint, Kerem)

• Did you know that the former Arizona Sun Devil Mike Batiste started playing professionally in Belgium and was a regular scorer from the three point line? If you want to know even more about him, check the video from Euroleague.TV
• Here is also the video from Danilo Gallinari’s last second game winner during last week’s game
• And another game winner, this time from Serbian Marco Marinovic in the Spanish ACB
• Basketball can be so beautiful
• We talked already about the problems young Europeans faced this year when joining a NCAA team. Now, one of them,  Lucca Staiger got the definitive result of his appeal: out for season. Staiger was already not very confident on Iowa State media day a few weeks ago.
• No more Earl Boykins in Lietuvos Rytas but maybe Travis Best in Estudiantes
• Vote for the Prospect of the month on europeanprospects.com
• Our friend David Hein interviewed Milenko Tepic after the Euroleague loss against Bamberg