Joining Ball in Europe as a contributor is Sam Chadwick, a youth-team assistant coach and aspiring sports journalist/head coach (so call ‘im the BiE intern, then) based in Great Britain. Sam’s home team is the British Basketball League division three team Solent Kestrels, his favorite team is Unicaja Malaga (“as Joel Freeland plays for them and he used to play at my club,” he explains), and his favorite NBA team is the Chicago Bulls (“a consequence of growing up in the 90s”). Sam also writes his own blog on all things basketball-related at BehindTheB.blogspot.com.
When I was first contacted about writing for Ball in Europe, editor Os Davis told me to try and keep the focus mainly on European players and specifically (as I live in England) on British players and teams. Straight after I started looking for a story, a player or a team that I could base my first column/article on. In the end, I simply decided to write an article on a team that I know the most about: the Solent Kestrels, née the Solent Stars, a team that I personally have played for and the team I learned the game from.
Back in 1992, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and some others on the Dream Team covered up the verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry expensive Reebok logos on the red, white and blue jumpsuits the team wore while accepting their gold medals. Those of us old enough to recall even remember some hand-wringing when Mister Nike Air himself implied that he might not attend the gold-medal ceremony with the offending logo on his gear.
Chris Finch, the mastermind behind the development of Team Great Britain in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games, has scored himself a new job in America. Finch will be departing 
Finch takes his CV – which includes leading Dexia to the EuroCup finals in 2008 and to the Belgian top division finals in 2008-2009 – to Texas, where he is clearly seen as having NBA-level potential. Said Rockets general manager Daryl Morey: “Chris is a young, up-and-coming coach who already has a wealth of coaching experience.”
Team Britain may not be playing EuroBasket 2009 with Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, but at least they’ve got … Jamie Vanderbeken.
Bad news for fledging Team Great Britain’s Eurobasket 2009 chances: Luol Deng joins former Chicago Bulls teammate Ben Gordon in the “out” category.