BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

A select squad of U21 players from Belgrade will complete the field in this bracket of the Den Bosch-hosted Rinus de Jong Invitational playing out December 27-30.

Serbian team Mega Vizura took the inaugural competition in the U20 bracket of the Dutch invitational tourney last year. This year, Belgrade Select brings twin towers from the Partizan organization in 6’10½ (210cm) Dusan Bogdanovic and Nemanja Miskovic; Bogdanovic was pursued by Real Madrid earlier this year and is said to be undergoing scouting from the NBA.

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Just days ago, Peja Stojakovic appeared to be a viable free agent for an NBA team with roster holes, a still-deadly long-range assassin at the age of 34, a 19-year veteran with gas enough in the tank for late-game daggers and smart D, a prototypical European baller with an American championship pedigree. “Couldn’t he drain a few 3s for a contender?” rhetorically asked hoops sage Bill Simmons last Friday.

Alas, it was not to be. The Serbian sharpshooter will not be part of the Dallas Mavericks’ quest to repeat as NBA champions, announcing his retirement from professional basketball late Monday night. Citing injuries to his neck and back, Stojakovic decided his physical struggles were “a wakeup call” for him to leave the game at this point.

On the plus side, Peja has the privilege of going out on top, in 2011 not only topping his seeming long-time personal rivals the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA playoffs, but also finally earning the ring which had eluded him for a dozen seasons ‘Stateside.

Today BallinEurope pays tribute to the gold-medal winning, NBA title having, future FIBA Hall of Fame nod achieving legend in the traditional fashion … let’s go to the ‘Tube!

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BallinEurope sends out hearty congratulations to Serbian great Vlade Divac on his nomination for possible entry into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s “Class of 2012.”

While Divac may be known as a famous trivia answer (“Who was traded for Kobe Bryant?”) or by the dreaded “F-word” (i.e. “flopper” as used in – really – this Los Angeles Times blog entry detailing the story of Vlade’s honor), this nomination shows a lifetime of accomplishment on the basketball court. Heck, in the NBA alone, Divac topped 13,000 points, 9000 rebounds, 3000 assists and 1500 blocked shots over 16 seasons. And then there were those “Dream Team” years with Team Yugoslavia and the glorious early days with KK Partizan in the 1980s, highlighted by Korać Cup titles and Divac’s “Mr. Europa” trophy.

Today, BallinEurope pays tribute to a personal favorite on the occasion in the best way possible: With a YouTube-laden rundown of his long and memorable career! Check out Divac’s progress through turns with Partizan Belgrade, the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings, the “Dream Team” Yugoslavian squads, and of course KK Crvena Zvezda during the 1999 NBA player lockout…

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When was the last time Adam Morrison went for 30 points on any level of basketball?

The former Gonzaga Bulldog has been making waves in the European game since joining KK Crvena Zvezda (a.k.a. Red Star Belgrade). Morrison’s most recent effort wasn’t against just any bunch of slouchers, either: The long-locked one totaled his 30 on 12-of-19 overall shooting in a 101-93 Adriatic League loss to Euroleague side Union Olimpija. After three games, the ex-Zag is averaging 18.7 points per game, good for fifth-best in ABA ball thus far.

Below runs the highlight reel from the Olimpija game, just in case this sounds too unbelievable to be true.

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All right, this one’s starting to go viral within the basketball-related blogosphere, so for posterity’s sake, BallinEurope runs highlights from this week’s tough guy in European basketball.

That’s right: BiE’s talking about Adam Morrison, the former NBA washout Gonzaga Bulldogs star currently plying his trade with Red Star Belgrade. Thursday night saw the Stars taking on Eurocup side Bayern München in Belgrade in a “friendly” match.

Morrison, actually looking quite a bit buffer than he ever has, apparently took offense at Bayern big guy Bogdan Radosavljevic brushing him aside to grab an easy rebound on a Red Star fast break. Morrison got in the face, and that was all she wrote for the Zag: Morrison was ejected immediately, sent to the locker room with a game-high 17 points, and got a standing ovation … they love him in Serbia already! See for yourself below the break.

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With a quite respectable history over the past 20 years – particularly in the FIBA EuroBasket tournament – Serbia has earned a reputation as one of The Continent’s great basketball powers. A little concern may be justified, then, at Team Serbia’s relatively disappointing eighth-place finish in this year’s European national-team tourney; indeed, at least one news source sees Serbia’s early bouncing as a symptom of greater illnesses affecting the team’s national program.

The English-language version of the Serbia-based Blic online ran a piece on Monday which sought answers under the headline “Basketball stifled by financial troubles and busy calendar.” Writer Tatjana Dragojevic investigated some of the woes she (and others) see as dogging Serbia hoops; today BallinEurope takes a closer look at some points of speculation.

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All right, so who had FYR Macedonia winning that game?

Come on! While the BallinEurope prognosticators took something of a hit in the comments section here beginning a few nanoseconds after Vlado Ilievski’s game-winner, few truly had this one pegged. Team Russia coach David Blatt kinda sorta probably wasn’t surprised, but even the mystical crustacean Lazdeika had Lithuania to win last night.

And hey, note that right here at BallinEurope it was guessed that “this game comes down to turnovers; FYR Macedonia needs to hang close throughout and exploit the three or four opportunities they get.”

(Incidentally, Macedonia won the turnover battle, 14-8.)

So BallinEurope plods forth with another two sets of official Fearless Predictions™ for tonight’s France-Greece and Serbia-Russia games. BiE’s man in the U.K. Sam Chadwick joins in on the fun in forecasting the matches again and, as yesterday, neither writer read the other’s opinion before posting.

Also provided strictly for the reader’s edification are some lines from the sportsbook, in this case Sporting Bet. As BiE previously stated, whether gambler or no, it pays for the fan to know the bookie’s stand; after all, these guys have the most to lose financially if they get it wrong. (But they cleaned up a bit last night, eh?)

And a few more YouTube clips…

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Congratulations from BallinEurope go out this morning to Team Lithuania, who took the FIBA U19 World Championship title with an 85-67 victory over Serbia last night. Jonas Valanciunas again contributed a dominant performance with 36 points, eight rebounds, three blocks and three steals; to no one’s surprise, the Lithuanian was named tournament MVP. (Excited yet, Raptors fans…?)

And the podium was all European this year, with Russia upending Argentina for third place in the tournament. Dmitry Kulagin of BC Nizhny Novgorod went for 24 points, eight rebounds and four assists in 38 minutes of play; Kulagin’s three-pointer at the first-half buzzer may have been crucial to the result, reducing the Russian deficit to five points.

Video and official FIBA writeup follow the break.

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The FIBA U19 World Championship closes out today, and BiE is proud to say that two of Europe’s finest basketball powers, Lithuania and Serbia, will be meeting for the title. Following, a few links, video clips and the like serving as a preview for the big youth match.

• The biggest audience in North America for the final game may be in Toronto, as the Raptor Nation considers their first-round draft choice Jonas Valanciunas; FIBA’s official website asks what may be a theoretical question: “How do you stop Valanciunas?” The Lithuanian has averaged tournament highs at 21.4 points (second-best is Team Croatia’s Boris Barac with 19.0), 14.6 rebounds (topping Assem Ahmed of Egypt’s 12.2), and 3.2 blocks (topping the 2.9 logged by Lucas Nogueira of Brazil) per game. The duties today will be handed to Nemanja Besovic, to whom BiE wishes best of luck.

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Congratulations go out from BallinEurope this morning to Partizan Belgrade, whose dynasty (or, as the NLB official site would have it, “dominancy”) in Adriatic League basketball rolled on last night when the Black-and-Whites won their fifth consecutive championship.

So let’s go right to the official writeup on the game:

(AdriaticBasket) – Partizan is the 10th NLB League champion! In a thrilling final, played in Ljubljana, Slovenia on Thursday, the team from Belgrade defeated Union Olimpija and won its fifth consecutive trophy in the regional league 77:74…

Really, that’s it. At least it was as of 7.30am CET.

And while one YouTube is typically worth a few thousand words, that site too is sadly bereft of stuff on the game. The boxscore implies that sixth man Curtis Jerrells was the hero for Partizan, with a huge 20 points in 29 minutes. For Olimpija, four players scored in double figures – including Samo Udrih off the bench – and Goran Jagodnik contributed a 12-point, seven-rebound effort before fouling out.

While BiE is well-known as a stat monkey, even yours truly admits that the numbers are inadequate here. What’s up with the lack of coverage, NLB folks…?

But hey, here’s a picture of some Partizan fans at the game…

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