Ah, well, then. At present, Prokhorov is in Russia in an effort to win votes for his liberal, pro-business Right Cause party with few delusions of actually, you know, becoming Russian president; the Washington Post states that “his main goal at the moment is to force a second round, by keeping Putin under 50 percent and emerging as the second-place finisher.”

Right Cause currently holds no seats in the Duma after earning about 2.14% of the vote in 2008 elections, and The ‘Post reported last week that Gennady Zyuganov and his Communist (!) party are running second and “Opinion polls put Prokhorov, the 46-year-old owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, at the bottom of the list of contenders with support of around 4 percent.”

So let’s assume Prokhorov will be sticking around in his American office for some time to come, then. BiE will now leave it up to Nets fans to decide whether that’s positive or not; the big guy himself appears to believe that everything is “going according to plan” with their team.

First, to set the table a bit for the thriller-capping final bucket in this week’s Eurocup match between the visiting Italian side and Lokomotiv Kuban: Benetton had trailed throughout the Group L matchup before finally putting together a 14-1 run to close out the third quarter and enter the final ten minutes up 55-53.

After some nip-and-tuck, Benetton found itself with a two-point deficit with 3.4 seconds remaining on the game clock. Taking the ball out of bounds after a timeout, Sani Becirovic appeared to have been ordered to look for a game-winning shot opportunity. (Gutsy call by coach Aleksandar Djordjevic; while common wisdom says to play for the win on the road, still. Gutsy.)

With 19 points already to his credit, Thomas broke free from his defender thanks to beautiful pick by Benjamin Ortner and found an open spot on the left side beyond the arc. Though Ali Traore came over to defend Thomas, well, just recall that old basketball axiom about never leaving your feet too soon…

Best of all for Thomas’ side, the clutch shot and subsequent W put Benetton into a tie with the Lokomotiv for group supremacy with three games to go in the Last 16 round.

At this speed, what particularly stands out are the number of times the ball appears stuck on the CSKA end of the floor, dramatically indicating the massive amount of half-court offense The Red Army prefers to play – and certainly exploited in this 91-75 Moscow victory. Enjoy and, whatever you do, don’t blink.

• This game was quite the textbook example of the 13th man’s value to Kazan, as the second half was all Unics riding the home support after a disastrous second quarter.

• What was the deal with the Unics bench? Is coach Evgeny Pashutin simply unwilling to go seven deep with this side? Pashutin looked to be running his preferred quintet into the ground as Nathan Jawai, in for about 11 minutes, proved the only viable substitute for the Russian team last night. Terrell Lyday, Vladimir Veremeenko, Petr Samoylenko, Henry Domercant, and Mike Wilkinson all went for 28 minutes or more to score 68 of the team’s 76 points. Yes, Jawai had the other eight.

BiE gut feeling questioned why Lynn Greer got 10½ minutes of playing time and Kelly McCarty only saw 7½ despite neither looking particularly sharp.

On the other hand, maybe Pashutin is simply doing the clever “small market” thing; minutes appear to be well evenly distributed in Kazan’s PBL play and a bit less so in VTB United League games. Last Sunday, Kazan hosted VEF Riga; with a VTB game on Saturday vs. Minsk 2006 and possibly in Russia on Sunday vs. BC Khimki Moscow region, Pashutin is probably applying the soccer coach mentality and leaving a few top-tier players with energy to play in less crucial games. They’ll have to rely on an assist from that no. 13 again, with the four games in seven days; thus far, Unics is 2-0 in the homestand.

• And, of course, Bostjan Nachbar is not yet aboard. Strange that while statistically the battle for the boards was nearly dead even at 33 for Fenerbahçe and 32 for Unics, empirically the latter appeared to kill the former on the glass. With four, Veremeenko was the only Kazan player to notch more than one offensive board – a situation that should improve with Nachbar aboard – though the Russian side won anyway…

• Playing without the injured Roko Ukic (and Mirsad Turkcan suiting up but taking a DNP) seemingly put Fenerbahçe at a disadvantage outside going into the match, but the unexpected emerged: Bojan Bogdanovic and Omer Onan teed off to go a combined 7-of-9 on threes, while the team shot 50% overall beyond the arc.

And yet … the Fenerbahçe frontcourt was beaten badly and consistently in the second half. Oguz Savas, Gasper Vidmar and Emir Preldzic were harassed by foul trouble – the latter two throughout the game – and saw limited playing time.

• Incidentally, Bogdanovic was high scorer in the game with 24 points on 7-of-11 shooting, getting particularly brilliant in the second while scoring from everywhere to contribute 13 during his team’s unanswered 15-point run. How badly do you want this guy in the ‘States, Nets fans?

• True as ever is the European basketball fan’s answer to his/her NBA counterpart who scoffs as the lower number of games played on the Continent: “Yes, but in Europe nearly every game matters as opposed to meaningless games in April in America.” Unics Kazan now sits atop Group G at 1-0, while Fenerbahçe Ülker has dug itself a “hole” at 0-1 … and already the complexion of the Top 16 has changed.

The U18 portion of the annual tournament is now comprised of Atletas Kaunas, VEF Riga and Canarias Basketball Academy. On the U21 side, Eiffel Towers Den Bosch, Canarias and Wilbraham & Monson Academy from the US and an as-yet unnamed fourth team will compete.

The Wingate Institute was founded in 2009 under the direction of former University of Connecticut/Team Israel player Nadav Henefeld. Heading up the team is Israel U18s coach Ariel Beit Halachmi, who reportedly expects six of the Wingate players to be suiting up for the national team in upcoming Eurobasket tournaments.

The Rinus de Jong Invitational will be played in Den Bosch, The Netherlands, December 27-30. The official website may be found here.

Coming to America

Messina began his career in Italy but then started “to feel uneasy” with his native basketball environment. “Moscow was the place where I felt the best,” he explains. In Russia, we won championships on the road, celebrated on the court with rival fans applauding us. In Italy, this would be inconceivable. In Spain, they are passionate, too, but for sure there is not the acrimony we have in Italy.”

Though, even Spain was tough sometimes to digest: “I wasn’t happy with basketball matters and I felt like a stranger. I was bothered by the fact that when we won, I was Ettore Messina. When we lost, I was ‘the Italian’.”

On the NBA, Messina’s future home: “I am curious and worried. Curious to experience the day-to-day life of the NBA, to coach great players. Worried because I hope I get accepted by others. I hope I’m ready – we’re finally getting started.”

Enrico Cellini is lifelong basketball fanatic and a long-time sportswriter with a focus on Italy and Spain. He was born among European hoops, was raised watching the NBA, and thinks choosing between American and European basketball is like choosing between one’s mother and father. You can follow him on Twitter or check out his Italian-language blog Hoop Addicted.

After bagging Euroleague player of the week honors – What did BallinEurope say? Awesome highlight clip runs at the bottom of this post – for a third time this season for his play against Unicaja Malaga, Kirilenko started for CSKA Moscow at Krasnye Krylya Samara last night, only to literally hit the floor in the first quarter after tangling with the Wings’ Joseph Alexander in chasing an errant pass. The gasping in both Moscow and Utah – not to mention in AK-47’s insurance brokers’ office – was surely great after seeing the following gnarliness.

Kirilenko suffered a broken nose and a concussion on the play and will reportedly miss some playing time, though the actual number of games hasn’t been stated.

CSKA Moscow won the game, 88-73, and is 3-0 in the PBL. In Euroleague play, the Red Army host Žalgiris Kaunas on Wednesday.

BiE said he’d post CSKA Moscow vs. Unicaja Malaga highlights in order to inspect Kirilenko’s statistically odd game a bit more thoroughly, but free throws make a terrible clip…

As for Jankunas, well, reader Euroleague > NBA rightly complained, “Where is the article for Jankunas? Look at this box score!” (BiE’s assuming the exclamation point and may EL>NBA please accept apologies for not writing up Paulius; BiE was watching the CSKA game.)

And, damn, that’s crazy stuff, too. Here’s Jankunas’ line:

Minutes played – 27:53
Points scored – 24
2-pt FG shooting – 6-of-8
3-pt FG shooting – 0-of-1
FT shooting – 12-of-16 on nine fouls drawn
Offensive rebounds – 9 (!)
Defensive rebounds – 2
Total rebounds – 11
Assists – 0
Steals – 2
Turnovers – 0
Blocks – 0
Performance Index Rating – 38, just one point lower than Kirilenko’s that night.

Unfortunately for Jankunas and his Zalgiris Kaunas, the team suffered a historic defeat at the hands of KK Zagreb, who took their first-ever Euroleague win by a score of 80-78. The highlight clip, in which Jankunas is a bit more in evidence than his Russian competitor in the early running for EL Player of the Week award, runs below.

So what do you think thus far, readers? Who had the better game? Still having not seen the Zalgiris-Zagreb game, BiE’s natural inclination is to go for the AK-47, but those nine offensive boards from Jankunas? Whoa…