BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Episode #35 of the BallinEurope/heinnews co-produced “Talking the Charge” podcast series is now available online and is downloadable from iTunes – and o boy, it’s a good one.

Days after Olympiacos made European basketball history, we’re still amazed by another incredible run by the Reds and so discuss the context of this back-to-back title victory. Also up for discussion are reasons why Real Madrid and FC Barcelona should be proud and CSKA Moscow a bit ashamed. And what about that Red Army side? Will they blow up the team? What is the future of Ettore Messina, Milos Teodosic and Nenad Krstic with the club after a most disappointing Euroleague finish?

We also weigh in on the results and performances of the Nike International Junior Tournament, with particular reference to the finalists, champions Club Joventut Badalona and runners-up FC Barcelona – an extreme contrast in styles vis-à-vis club development within the economic realities of European sport in the 2010s.

Of course, this show’s highlight is the brief interview with none other than The Human YouTube Highlight Clip himself, Ricky Rubio. In remarkably succinct fashion, La Pistola weighs in on this year’s Euroleague Final Four, the past frustrating season with the Minnesota Timberwolves (and the importance of Nikola Pekovic) and the possibilities for Team Spain in the upcoming Eurobasket 2013 tournament.

Finally, our sports movie review of the week focuses on the 2008 film The Wrestler featuring Mickey Rourke in an outstanding tour de force career-comeback performance.

Check out the entire podcast here or to subscribe from this episode ad infinitum, enter http://heinnews.com/feed/taking-the-charge/ into iTunes or any podcast aggregator.

Thanks for listening and talk to you next week!

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In what is apparently an effort to either increase fandom or sheerly generate publicity for international basketball tournaments, FIBA officials started their week by announcing the introduction of an entirely new wrinkle to the game: Any shot taken from or behind the half-court mark will now be awarded five points. Reportedly, the rule change – which is effective immediately – was done with the intent to “ensure that such spectacular actions finally get the rating that they deserve,” according to a FIBA official speaking through Google Translate.

German Basketball Federation (DBB) president Ingo Weiss explained his “yea” vote for the five-pointer with, “You can draw from such a decision of FIBA your hat. You can imagine how chaotic the conference, with more than 200 participants and a translation expires in 36 languages and dialects, but in the end, almost all the participants have decided, we also naturally from DBB. We were also able to enforce the fact that the center line and not used, as another line is drawn. The new scheme is a further nuance our great sport – its impact cannot yet be assessed.”

Referees’ signal for successful five-pointer

According to FIBA statistics, successful half-court shots occur in approximately 0.12% of games; analysts for the German federation estimated, however, that some 5% of game outcomes could be affected by the new rule.

Further explain DBB officials: “This requires only that the center line will be painted in a red signal color. For the referee’s 5-point rating is not a problem: They show a shot attempt with outstretched hand (five fingers) to, at the other hand comes to success. This is also a reason that of the originally planned 6-point scoring again was abandoned…”

BallinEurope will now weep for the future of basketball. Directly after having Google Translate taken outside and shot, that is.

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Kirilenko in 2008

Russia-based Sport Express and FIBA are this morning reporting what many have suspected all along what was inevitable: That Andrei Kirilenko is to retire from international play. Kirilenko explained that he’d already recently discussed the possibility with Russian Basketball Federation president Alexander Krasnenkov and that he “didn’t want to keep everyone in suspense for long.”

Citing common concerns among international players about fatigue and personal life, Kirilenko told Sport Express that “I’m not ready to spend most of the summer with the team and not with the family.” He hopes that the fortunes of Team Russia remain high and that he wishes to “transfer the authority and responsibility to” the younger generation of national teamers.

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Episode #21 of the BallinEurope/heinnews co-hosted “Taking the Charge” podcast series is now online. With the entire Euroleague taking a bye this week, David Hein and yours truly keep the EL-centric talk to a minimum, but stay focused on basketball nevertheless with an interview of Bundesliga CEO Jan Pommer.

Pommer is not only enjoying some nice success as the German league has continuously and consistently broken attendance records, but is also one of the more strident voices sounding off against FIBA’s planned reform (BiE prefers to think of it as “deform”) of international tournament structure…

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This one goes out by request. After a few hours of research (and lots of time spent frustratingly chasing dead ends) BallinEurope comments on FIBA’s first big official move of 2013 – the seemingly inevitable rule changes coming to international basketball representing further acquiescence in the shadow of the NBA.

The story
So here’s what’s known. Back in July, a group of 13 from all around the basketball and business worlds produced a list of proposals under the auspices of the Euroleague’s Basketball Rules Summit.

The summit’s chief goal was to tweak the game to make “the competitions cleaner, fairer and more exciting,” and while most prescribed changes were cosmetic (e.g. jump-ball rules, timeout changes), one radical idea then put forth would make the uniform standard court size based on NBA specifications.

In late November, the Euroleague Commercial Assets Assembly (CAA) met on the subject of certain proposed rule changes with regard to, well, the bottom line of top-level European basketball clubs. While the CAA typically addresses and assesses issues connected with ticket sales, broadcast rights, investment, corporate social responsibility, etc., the commission took it upon itself to discuss two wide-sweeping transformations: the recommendations from the summit and FIBA’s proposed reshaping of international tournaments.

After this meeting, the CAA agreed to send onto FIBA the rule-change proposals, including: Continue Reading…

BiE likes to write up this particular roundup at year’s end for a couple of reasons: Firstly as a thank you to the readers who check out BallinEurope however frequently; like they say in sports, this website wouldn’t exist without the audience.

Secondly, a look back at which BallinEurope stories drew the most attention provides a nice microcosm of what was most of the minds of European basketball. Yes, national heroes playing in the NBA still reign supreme, but international tournaments happily still get ample due here on The Continent.

So without further ado, here are the stories that you, the readers, decided were the true headline-grabbers in 2012.

1. Splitter opines Adelman key to Rubio’s success; Ginobili says “impressive”
When Ricky Rubio finally eked his way into the Timberwolves’ starting lineup, the results were immediate and positive. Of course, those of us who’ve been following The Human YouTube Highlight Clip since his days as the youngest-ever player for Barcelona could sit back and say “I told you so” – like Tiago Splitter and Manu Ginobili did.

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Now up and running is episode #12 of the “Taking the Charge” podcast series, a co-production of heinnews.com and BallinEurope.

Amid a lot of chatting on recent events in basketball including the frankly bizarre $250,000 fine handed the San Antonio Spurs for recently not suiting up stars to play the Miami Heat in a televised game; Team Spain’s new coach Juan Antonio Orenga, who BiE believes could well have been the perfect choice for the job; questions of who might be the perfect coach for Team Germany (to be announced tomorrow) and Team Russia (to be announced on/by December 24), a question to which BiE has a perfect answer for either; and various Euroleague/NBA speculation, analysis and such.

The real highlights, however, are the brief-but-telling interviews with CSKA Moscow head coach Ettore Messina and his big man Viktor Khryapa. David Hein’s chat with Messina comes particularly recommended: In fewer than 500 words, the Red Army general manages to succinctly explain why CSKA will only get better as the Euroleague season goes on (yikes!), two areas in which his coaching was improved by his year with the Los Angeles Lakers organization and his take on FIBA’s international tournament format changes.

Plus, as always, Taking the Charge brings you fresh music (this time it’s Vir, post-punk hailing from New Zealand and operating in Oakland, plus the movie of the week, the classic American football-themed Marx Brothers flick “Horse Feathers.”

Check out the entire podcast here, and talk to you next week on Taking the Charge!

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Barcelona’s future: Alex Abrines, Mario Hezonja, Marko Todorović

At just 17 years old and despite missing the entire 2011-12 regular season, Hezonja finally got a taste of the action in Barça’s 78-48 laugher over Beşiktaş in Turkey last Friday night. His Euroleague debut stat line read five points, two rebounds and one steal in a few ticks under 12 minutes of play.

Hezonja again did not play in Spain this weekend, unlisted on the roster for Barca’s 81-64 win over Cajasol in Liga Endesa play; the 12th-man spot was filled by 20-year-old Todorović of Montenegro. In the Beşiktaş game, Todorović’s 12 minutes of court time was the most he’s gotten all season and the national teamer was good for four points, four rebounds and two blocks.

Potentially the nucleus of a shiny new Barca frontcourt? Continue Reading…

Apologies from BallinEurope for not weighing in on this … thing until this morning, but after rereading it for the nth time, BiE felt the rant building but wanted to avoid posting an overly emotional response. Perhaps a day and a good night’s rest would temper my viewpoint; maybe upon waking this morning, we’d all discover after logging in to FIBA.com that the Eurobasket manipulation had all been a smokescreen for the hiring of Mike D’Antoni. Or something.

Or does one…?

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Some good news from the developing basketball program in Armenia came to BallinEurope today as the country’s federation announced the first official training camp for the newly-established men’s national team, set for the 2013 off-season in Yerevan. It’s the first step on the path to the 2014 FIBA Europe Division C Men’s Basketball Championship, Team Armenia’s first-ever appearance in the tournament.

Zareh Zargaryan, formerly of CSU Dominguez Hills, stated that “It’s truly an honor to be able to play for Armenia. I have been dreaming of this since my childhood days.” Team Armenia coach Carl Bardakian echoed the sentiments in saying that “Our coaching staff and players are fully aware of the significance and responsibility of competing under the tri-colored flag of Armenia.”

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