Marcus Goree to stay another three years in Moscow
June 3, 2008
Our friends over at undrcrwn Europe are former basketball professionals (Ibi Diarra, Frankfurt Skyliners) and stay in contact with their former team mates. One of Ibi´s friends, Mario Kasun battles for the ACB championship right now, but unfortunately is down 0-2 against Tau Ceramica.
Another friend of Ibi, Marcus Goree has won everything this season - most important thing: the Euroleague. Marcus recently visited Ibi at his show room in Frankfurt, Germany.
As we learned there, Marcus Goree will stay another three years with CSKA Moscow - not too bad of a choice I guess…
What happened to the Euroleague cheerleaders’ contest?
May 23, 2008
Remember that story, when bra-maker UNNO, the Euroleague and the Dreamcheers teamed up to send somebody to the Euroleague final four and not only watch the games but also dance with them?
Unfortunately I did not see that during half time, but Eva from Dreamcheers sent me the video:
Don’t you think the Euroleague should have chosen some college kids from the US to do that? Nothing against the two winners, but some drunk college guys would have been more fun to see jumping around with the girls.
Speaking of the Dreamcheers, one day in my life I felt a little bit like Jason from SPORTSByBROOKS - hanging out with hot chicks and taking pictures:
I am sure though you rather see the girls without me ..
Euroleague Final Four: A halftime with Jordi Bertomeu (Part 2)
May 8, 2008
Here is the second part of our interview with Jordi Bertomeu.
How does this agreement between Euroleague basketball and AEG impact the choice of Final Four locations?
The agreement with AEG is for three years. What is sure that is that the Final Four 2009 is in Berlin. We will be in London either in 2010 or in 2011. So there is still one year missing. We won’t be in Germany two years; that would be too much. And we don’t want to exclude non-AEG arenas as well. If we go two out of three years, that’s OK for us. We are in talks with Rome for the organization of a Final Four. If they are ready in time, we will go to Rome, but the question remains if they are ready.
Talking about the Final Four formula, the question about the format itself has been raised. Is a Final Four tournament or a best-of-five series the better format?
The best-of-five series was a mistake. It was probably the best basketball ever to be played in European basketball, but it was a disaster on the media front. There were only three broadcasters, for example, that covered the whole series. We will stick with the Final Four format for sure. This gives us the possibility to organize an event. We can meet everybody here and the media from all around Europe can be present to cover it. So I can say that I am happy to recognize my first mistake by having organized the final phase in the best-of-five series. The Final Four will be the format in the future for sure.
FIBA announced some rule changes. Does the Euroleague have a position on this?
We agree with these new rules nearly 100%. The only exception is the alternative position which I consider the worst rule. I am convinced that the other rules will change the game in a positive way. They protect the talented players with which we are satisfied. But why wait until 2010 to implement them? FIBA tells us that it’s difficult to find an agreement with all the different federations. On the other hand, the Euroleague cannot go their own way because then teams have to change the lines on the court every week because of different rules in Euroleague and their local leagues. So we try to find an agreement with the leagues to make these changes already for the next season. In the first discussions, most of them seemed interested.
What is your opinion about the World Club championship that has been announced by FIBA? Can you give us more details about this competition?
I don’t know more than you about it. Nobody from FIBA has explained the concept to us so far. We just know about it through the newspaper. First of all, the dates are impossible to realize it. The national leagues start on these dates. Also, it’s very unclear who will play, who will be the TV rights holder and so on. It is just an additional competition like the pre-Olympic tournament. The goal of it is to sell TV rights by using players that belong to ULEB teams.
It is very difficult to find good dates so for the moment we are in the darkness about this competition. We are not against such a tournaments but not on the proposed dates. The calendar is how it is.
Three points: Patriotism, Pepu and Pot
May 6, 2008
Welcome to this week’s (read: last week’s slightly belated) Three Points, the weekly column in which the expatriate takes his shot (or three) at roundball from a galaxy far far away, a galaxy called Europe…
In the afterglow. An excellent, if sleep-derived weekend was had by all Eurohoops fans, with Euroleague Final Four and championship games punctuating the NBA playoffs.
(Incidentally, what a run for top-level basketball this year, eh? Just consider this calendar: March Madness, followed by various European league playoffs in April; Euroleague finals and NBA playoffs in May; NBA finals in June; the Acropolis-Eurobank International Tournament and Olympic qualifiers in July; and the Beijing Games in August. Sweet.)
As a personal note, i’d like to thank the BallinEurope head cheeses Tobias and Christophe for going to Madrid and partying, um, i mean for their reportage and virtual presence in live chat. It was great fun rapping with Rob, uhg80, Michelle, Dimitrios (sorry about all those hits to your wallet, dude), Stevan and the rest. Let’s do it again next year, and bring a virtual friend.
Niceties aside, the rant now begins. Trajan Langdon was named MVP of the finals – no problem there; 21 points, seven boards and a couple steals is pretty impressive. And most American fans will surely remember Langdon as having put together a distinctly unimpressive three-season career with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the early 2000s – again, no problems there to be fair; 5.4 points and 1.3 rebounds per over 119 games is easily critiqued.
This expat’s problem came in a mostly quite good piece by ESPN’s specially contracted reporter on Euroleague, the Times of London’s Ian Whittell. Some representative lines from “Langdon wins Euroleague Final Four MVP” included stuff like “ ‘Home’ for Langdon is now Russia” and “Making a career in Europe is not a bad alternative.”
Sure, i’m taking The Worldwide Leader in [American] Sports personally, but that’s what blogging is for. Though we know the NBA is the top level of basketball competition in the world, the tone of “America number one” in Whittell’s piece is a bit off. (As one not familiar with Whittell’s soccer stuff, one wonders about his attitude toward the Premiership’s partyline of its own “obvious” “superiority.”)
The “alternative” line kinda stung because of certain personal experiences applying for work in the ‘States. Let me tell you, in many America-centric circles, the prevailing attitude is that any sort of publishing work done in, say, Europe simply doesn’t matter, and European professional certification is often disregarded. Those with differing experiences should feel free to tell me all about it, because i could use some positivity on the subject.
After all, for this writer, making a career America is not a bad alternative.
Sayonara, Señor Hernandez. International b-ball will soon be wishing Pepu Hernandez well, as the Team Spain coach will step down from the position after the Olympics. From the official announcement at FIBA.com:
Hernandez, who led Spain to the gold medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship and silver at the EuroBasket last year in Madrid, has decided that his “cycle will have come to an end” with the national team.
“I want to thank the FEB for giving the opportunity to have enjoyed an incredible experience,” [Hernandez said]. … “Our mind is on the [Olympic] gold medal, that is why I want to ask for the suppport of everyone, players, coaches, FEB and of course, the fans.”
Though Hernandez served as national team coach for only two years, the coach has surely raised the bar for Team Spain forever in taking the FIBA Worlds gold in 2006 and the Eurobasket silver in 2007.
¡Buena suerte en las Olimpiadas, Señor Hernandez!
Maybe he should have just said he never inhaled. Josh Howard took a particularly egregious PR U-turn this week after admitting on Michael Irvin’s Dallas radio show that he “smok[ed] weed in the offseason sometimes,” a “personal choice and personal opinion.” In fact, said Howard in restating a line put forth by others before him, “I think that everybody in the media world and in the sports world knows that NBA players do smoke marijuana.”
A personal choice and personal opinion, indeed, involving a substance which is hardly a steroid-class performance-enhancer nor an alcohol-level destroyer of lives.
America’s close-mindedness on the issue ultimately forced Howard to backtrack from becoming the first contemporary American athlete to really take a stand on an alternate to alcohol vis-à-vis party drugs. Stephen A. Smith had a particularly frothing-rabid well thought-out take on the issue.
Unfortunately, efforts to balance out such a representative take, such as Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley’s consistent cool kidding about Howard’s habits, went mostly ignored by stroppy Smith types worried about the children. Guess Sir Charles is still not worried about being a role model.
Howard, on the other hand, clearly is. His second take on the matter went like this: “I recently talked about a controversial topic with members of the media. I used poor judgment and I want to apologize to my fans, the Mavericks and the NBA. I am fortunate to be playing basketball in the League. I realize I have a responsibility as a role model for young fans, and I take that responsibility seriously.”
As for Mr. Smith … dude, chill out. You’re killing the buzz, man.
Next week: The final fate of the Cape Verde national team. Maybe.
The fans of the Euroleague Final Four
May 5, 2008
If you followed BallinEurope closely this weekend. you will probably have noticed that I’m into taking pictures. When we did our pre-Final Four organization, we wanted to do another contest for “The Fan of the Euroleague Final Four” and draw another picture - well, that last part isn’t true: We can’t draw everybody.
It’s really interesting though to see what fans from all four teams looked like and I was running around for about one hour taking the following pictures.
Even though we do not have a contest, which would be your Final Four Fan of 2008?
Euroleague champ 2008: CSKA Moscow
May 5, 2008
Not that much of a surprise, is it? Read more
Euroleague Final Four: Interviews after the Final
May 5, 2008
CSKA Moscow reconquered the Euroleague title this weekend in Madrid. After the announcing of Ettore Messina’s new contract, the Russian team won a game that was fantastic in the first half and then quite clear in the second.
Matjaz Smodis
Will Bynum
Euroleague Final Four: 3rd Place to Siena
May 4, 2008
The meaning of the game was probably very little, but the players still showed great basketball and even sent the game into overtime. In the end, though, Siena won the game 97-93, which they also really deserved. Here are some pictures form the game:
Ettore Messina says “no” to Barcelona, NBA
May 4, 2008
But “yes” to another year in Moscow. Great news at least for European basketball:
Today PBC CSKA and the head coach of the club Ettore Messina reached the agreement to sign the new ‘1+1’ contract. The current agreement with the coach expires after the 2007/08 season.
Andrei Vatutin, PBC CSKA CEO:
- I am glad we made the agreement with the best coach of Europe. We did not miss a single Euroleague Final in three years. I think there is no sense to look for any other reasons to continue our relationship. It was very important to agree the contract during the Final Four.
With the Euroleague Final Four Final just coming up, this announcement from CSKA and Messina at 7.30pm, 1-1/2 hours before the Euroleague final, may be huge.
Great news!
Madrid as a basketball tourist
May 4, 2008
I finally found a few hours to enjoy Madrid. So far I have only been running around between gyms, metro stations and restaurants. I have been to a lot of cities in Europe in the past three months but Madrid is by far the best city when it comes to “city life.” Last night, when we were on our way to the Euroleague Gala (thanks for the invitation - it was a great show), I saw streets filled with hundreds of tourists, locals and basketball fans.
Today I took a little tour - It had to be little, because I was REALLY exhausted from the last few days, as you can see in this picture.
Of course I had to stop at the Plaza España: an oasis in the middle of busy city roads, but with the beautiful statue of Don Quixote (the most famous Spanish novel, written by Miguel de Cervantes).
As tourists were lining up to take pictures of themselves with the statue, I noticed something interesting. Check out this picture:
I know the guy at the statue looks like he is doing something really weird, but look at the statues neck:
Every single tourist will have CSKA Moscow in their pictures, thanks to a crazy fan who climbed up the statue to put that scarf around the statue’s neck.
As you can see some people were excited to wear on their chest the 2008 MVP: Ramunas Siskauskas!
I also met a really nice Maccabi fan who told me his story about getting tickets. He bought them for 250 euros each, then had to sell them because he thought he would not be able to come, but then bought them again for 500 euros each because he had the chance to come. This is what I call DEVOTION.
