Official story from FIBA follows.

(FIBA) – Iran will look to make it back to the top in Asian basketball with former Slovenia coach Memi Becirovic.

Champions in 2007 and 2009, the national side came up short in its bid to win a third straight FIBA Asia title last summer when it was upset by Jordan in the quarterfinals. The federation then parted ways with coach Veselin Matic.

Iran, who confirmed the new coaching appointment on their federation website, played at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and at the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey.

“I accepted the offer of Iran because I found it very interesting,” Becirovic said in remarks on the Slovenian Basketball Federation website.

“I know the team because we played it twice in 2010”: Becirovic coached Slovenia against Iran at the World Championship, a game the European side won in Istanbul, 65-60.

“Asian basketball is being developed with big steps, and Iran has good conditions for training,” he said.

Becirovic is expected to leave for Iran in April.

As a tweet from Mensah-Bonsu’s former club CSKA Moscow rhetorically asks, “How does he score?”

Morrison began his 2011-12 season with Red Star Belgrade (a.k.a. Crvena Zvezda Beograd), with whom he notably achieved a 15.5 ppg average on just under 48% overall shooting in Adriatic League play – highlighted by his 30-point explosion against Union Olimpija – while winning over Red Star fans’ hearts.

No video appears readily available for post at the present moment, but below runs a recent upload from YouTube user CosmicEgg88 reminding us that Seattle is still pining for Morrison – and professional basketball for that matter…

At 11-4, Beşiktaş is currently in a statistical tie with Banvit BK in second place on the TBL table, ahead of Euroleague teams Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe Ülker. Morrison and the Eagles next play in Russia against BC Nizhny Novgorod in a FIBA Eurochallenge game on Tuesday, followed by a trip to Spain to take on Fuenlabrada, and finally the former Bobcat will make his new home debut against Türk Telekom Ankara after the TBL all-star break on Saturday, January 28.

Christophe tipped off 2012 by releasing EuropeanProspects.com – 2011: The Year in Review, an ebook in the Amazon Kindle format. This 80-plus (or 269K, if you prefer) virtual tome promises to cover “all the main stories from the past 12 months. You will get scouting reports on all the main European Basketball prospects that have competed in 2011, including reports from the FIBA U19 World Championship, the FIBA U16 and U18 European Championships, the Adidas Eurocamp, the Nike Junior Invitational Tournament and the Nike Hoop Summit.”

The ebook is selling for a mere $0.99 (or €0.99 or £0.77) and though Christophe states that “The goal is not to make a lot of money but to see a bit how this e-book process works and if this has some potential for the future,” BiE can assert that this work would be a bargain at many times the price.

Though English-language only, EuropeanProspects.com – 2011: The Year in Review is available at Amazon.de and Amazon.fr in addition to Amazon.com, and Amazon.co.uk.

Kate Kevorken is playing her senior year with the University of Nevada, producing nicely for the Wolfpack after cracking the starting lineup in her second season with the program. The two guard bagged her first Western Athletic Conference player of the week award on December 19 thanks to a 25-point (including the game-winner), 11-rebound show against Oregon. Ten days later, “The Encyclopedia” broke her personal scoring mark with 27 points in a losing effort to Mississippi State.

Eastward, freshman Sarah Halejian’s game grows seemingly day to day with the Yale Bulldogs. Halejian went for her career-high 14 points in a 92-41 blowout win over St. Francis, sharing Ivy League Player of the Week honors for her efforts; she yesterday matched that scoring mark with another 14 in Yale’s 80-47 home win over Baruch.

Yale coach Chris Gobrecht has noted Halejian’s abilities as a “gifted offensive player,” stating that she’s “becoming a very strong defender as well” – and remember, folks, Yale awards no athletic scholarships, thus Halejian must be backing up her play with academic performance. The Bulldogs themselves currently occupy third place on the Ivy League table at 10-4.

As for this summer, Basketball Federation of Armenia president Hrachya Rostomyan is hopeful that Halejian and Kevorken can be infused into a team moving up on the European radar; Team Armenia placed second in the 2010 FIBA European Championship Women Division C tournament behind MVP Christina Kepenekian and all-tourney Amanda Jackson.

Said Rostomyan: “We look forward to Halejian and Kevorken possibly joining the women’s national basketball team in 2012. After our silver-medal performance [in 2010 ...] the potential impact of players like Sarah and Kate would be invaluable to Armenia.”

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!

• Stojakovic broke into the professional ranks with Crvena Zvedzda Beograd (a.k.a. Red Star Belgrade) at the age of 15 (!) and soon this once-dominant side enjoyed back-to-back Yugoslavian championships in taking out Partizan Belgrade in the finals both years.

• After three seasons of development (and plenty of bench time), Peja was ready to take on a more decisive role with a club. That club turned out to be PAOK; for his newly-prized Greek citizenship, Stojakovic would eventually bag the Greek League MVP nod in 1998.

Unfortunately for club and player, the sole hardware Peja’s PAOK teams could collect was the 1994-95 Greek Cup. On the other hand, in these four years PAOK did manage a second-place Europe finish in ’96 and in Greece in ’98 (losing to former Laker Byron Scott and Panathinaikos; see second video directly below) plus two Euroleague Top 16 runs: The team hasn’t come close to this sort of success since.

• And then the NBA came calling. Having been drafted at no. 14 in the 1996 NBA Draft, by 1998 Stojakovic felt ready to cross the Atlantic. He’d join up with the Sacramento Kings – the team with which he’ll always be associated worldwide – at a most fortuitous time, as the pieces to build a perpetual playoff contender were falling into place … and perhaps personally key for Peja was the acquisition of his Yugoslavian teammate Vlade Divac for 1999-2000.

• Speaking of Yugoslavia, Peja was happily able to enjoy success on perhaps the greatest national team of the ‘00s. Playing alongside the likes of Divac, Dejan Bodiroga, Marko Jaric, Dejan Milojevic and Vladimir Radmanovic, the side took the 2001 Eurobasket tournament and the 2002 FIBA World Championship.

On his part, Stojakovic was second-highest scorer in the 2001 competition (behind Team Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki) at 23 points per game, good for tournament MVP honors.

And in Indianapolis’ FIBA Worlds of 2002, Peja was again his team’s high scorer, still managing to help Yugoslavia over Argentina in the final match with 26 points despite uncharacteristic 2-of-12 shooting on threes. Stojakovic snagged an all-tournament nod for his efforts.

• Meanwhile, back with the Kings, Stojakovic worked his way into the starting lineup for 2000-01. Over the next five years, Peja would contribute lines 19.2-24.2 points and 4.3-6.3 rebounds per game while hitting enough three points to eventually place him at no. 4 on the all-time list in the statistical category.

• Though team-wise Sacramento had limited success from 2000 to 2005 in being forced to compete with Shaq ‘n’ Kobe’s Los Angeles monsters, the accolades for Stojakovic kept followed. He won back-to-back “Mister Europa” awards as Continental player of the year in 2001 and 2002 while receiving invites to three NBA All-Star games.

In fact, it was at the all-star games that perhaps Stojakovic earned the greatest amount of appreciation throughout the U.S., as he consistently became a Larry Bird-like force in the annual 3-point shootout competition. In 2001, Peja took current all-time threes leader Ray “He Got Game” Allen down to the wire, but ultimately had to settle for second place.

No matter, Peja came back in 2002 to take care of Steve Nash and outlast his personal foil in the contest, Wesley Person, to win the title…

…and again in 2003…

…ultimately falling short of the threepeat in 2004, but defying Charles Barkley’s prediction along the way, at least.

• One more highlight reel from the Sacramento days came in 2004, when Stojakovic set his then career-high mark in scoring with 37 points against the Lakers.

• But the Kings’ golden era was ending and in 2005, Peja was dealt to the Indiana Pacers for Ron Artest; he lasted 40 games there before a sign-and-trade agreement the following preseason had him shipped to the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets for the rights to Andrew Betts (really).

Around this time, Peja’s well-chronicled back problems began. Due to injury, Stojakovic appeared in just 13 games in 2006-07; unfortunate, indeed, as Peja had given the Hornets a most masterful performance early on, scoring the team’s first 20 points in a November game against the Charlotte Bobcats. This was the first time in NBA history such a feat had been accomplished and Stojakovic’s 42 in the game became his personal high in scoring.

• Things really got percolating between Peja and Chris Paul over the next few years, as the Hornets made the playoffs in ’08 and ’09 (and just two years later, the league wants to contract this franchise – go figure). A representative example? Check out this team record-setting show in which Stojakovic sinks 10 three pointers against those dread Lakers in a game that saw Paul dish 21 assists.

• Another move would come for Peja after the Hornets’ poor 2009-10 and the Serb was shipped to the Toronto Raptors, thereby filling the apparent obligation for every European NBA player to do a shift in Canada. At the time, Stojakovic called the trade “a new chapter in [his] career, [his] life,” it wasn’t much of a read. Peja played just two games as a Raptor before landing in Dallas.

• We all recall what happened next. In a more limited role with the Mavericks, Stojakovic shot right at his career three-point success rate at 40% with a statistical line of 8.6 points and 2.6 rebounds per in 25 games there. Best of all, Peja was able to punish the Lakers along the way to his first NBA title with 15 and 21 points in games three and four, respectively, of the Western Conference semifinals – a nice capper to a legendary career.

BallinEurope wishes best of luck to Peja in the future and, as BiE always says upon retirement of an all-time great, thanks for the memories!

Twitter tremors on the acquisitions – and let’s just call them acquisitions, shall we? It’s just business, after all – are still occurring, but the overriding sentiment only with an interesting bit of information was perhaps best summed up by Sportando’s tweet:

Jaycee Carroll has the same agent as Nik Caner-Medley who got as well passport from Azerbaijan. Europe, where fake passports happen.

As for BallinEurope, yes, we’re addressing the topic. Enrico Cellini weighs in on the subject below.

Suppose you are the head of a basketball federation in a tiny state with little tradition in the sport and must prepare for the Eurobasket 2013 qualification round. You would:

A) Hire a foreign coach with long European Basketball resume;

B) Invest in young players that could turn out to be good in the future; or

C) Just do like everyone else and grant national passports to American players so they can play in your national team.

The Azerbaijan federation opted for the third way and went shopping in the Spanish ACB. According to Eurobasket.com, Real Madrid shooter Jaycee Carroll and Valencia BC forward Nik Caner-Medley “have agreed to start the process of joining the Azerbaijan national team.”

Carrol and Caner-Medley would join the vast group of American players that have acquired “exotic” citizenships for basketball purposes, mostly from Balkan states and Eastern Europe. Probably the most clear-cut case starting the trend was when CSKA point guard J.R. Holden was declared a Russian citizen by decree of then-president Vladimir Putin (!) in 2003. The Pittsburgh native subsequently became a leader of the national team and even got to bring Russia back to the throne of European basketball by scoring a decisive buzzer-beater in the 2007 Eurobasket final.

Since then, countless players followed the same path. Just looking back at the last Eurobasket 2011 you could spot many “suspicious” citizens: Montepaschi Siena’s point guard Bo McCalebb was FYR Macedonia’s leader, Henry Domercant played for Bosnia & Herzegovina, Omar Cook for Montenegro, Earl Rowland for Bulgaria. Unlike Holden, none of them had ever played in the domestic league of the countries they represent.

Azerbaijanis-to-be Carroll and Caner-Medley should be next, but it is fair to expect they will not be the last.

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.

The process of elimination went the following way, in reverse order of finish, and garnishing with highlight clips.

10. Dimitris Diamantidis, Panathinaikos. Yes, Double-D was the Euroleague MVP and the Euroleague Final Four MVP for 2010-11. Yes, he thus established himself as one of the five or six greatest of the EL modern era. But Diamantidis did not play any international ball, whereas all other nine nominees participated in Eurobasket 2011 and most where instrumental to their team’s successes. Dimitris simply has the shortest CV of a very talented ten.

9. Dusko Savanovic, Power Electronics Valencia/Anadolu Efes/Team Serbia. Savanovic may not have even been the best player on an ultimately disappointing Serbian side that lost six of its last seven games to finish eighth in the Eurobasket tournament. (Nenad Krstic? Milos Teodosic, anyone…?) Savanovic seemed to get swamped with the tide as Serbia sank late, only managed to top 4-of-9 shooting twice in that seven-game stretch.

This is not to say that Savanovic can’t be clutch. After all, he live on forever in Valencia BC annals for the game-winning shot that put the Spanish side into the Euroleague Top 16…

8. Nicolas Batum, SLUC Nancy/Portland Trail Blazers/Team France. How old is this guy? What? He’ll be 23 on Wednesday? BiE guess we’ll have to call his 2010-11 NBA season (of 12.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists per regular-season game) as his coming of age on the international stage, with the 2011 Eurobasket tournament and subsequent play with SLUC Nancy during the lockout the icing of that reputation. But even before his two Euroleague Player of the Week awards, Batum turned in one of the great clutch performances of 2011 for Les Bleus against Team Russia in the Eurobasket semifinal with his “all-action line of 19 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks.” BiE can’t believe we’re only up to number eight…

7. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies/Team Spain. Like Batum, Gasol The Younger will have a few more chances at winning this award – how about in, say, 2012, after a deep run by the surprising Memphis Grizzlies chased by a silver- (or gold-!) medal win by Los Rojos at the Olympics …? Marc did have one heck of a 2010-11, though, enjoying an all-star level performance in the regular season; a playoffs in which he averaged a 15.0/11.2 double-double while generally performing at a level diametrically opposed to that of his older sibling; and a nearly turbulent-free cruise through Eurobasket as he and brother Pau formed a twin-tower combination built for schooling young ‘uns like Enes Kanter. To paraphrase the governator, “he’ll be back.”

6. Pau Gasol, Los Angeles Lakers/Team Spain. You’d think that after starting at center in the NBA All-Star Game and leading one of the best national teams ever assembled in points and rebounds in Eurobasket would get Pau ranked higher, but the truth is that, fair, fortunate or not, for the 2010 FIBA Europe Player of the Year, 2011 will be remembered as the year in which he, ahem, “led” the Lakers’ ignominious collapse in the NBA playoffs. No way can he make this ballot, particularly with the suddenly reborn possibility that he could enter “disgruntled” status after landing with the Houston Rockets. And this has nothing to do with the fact that BiE is a Lakers fan. Well, not much.

5. Tony Parker, San Antonio Spurs/Asvel Basket/Team France. Tough elimination here … the last name to be definitively crossed off the list nevertheless had a year for the ages, turning in his usual solid season for the Spurs at 17.5 points, 6.6 assists and 3.1 rebounds per game. While Western Conference-winning San Antonio was bounced early, Parker contributed the second-most points (19.7 per game) and dished the most assists (5.2) for his team in six games of the first-round series.

All Parker did to “redeem” himself was write his and Team France’s way into the history books at Eurobasket 2011, leading the tournament in scoring, FG attempts, and FGs made. Given more weapons on a national team than ever before, Parker was nevertheless an indispensable force in getting Les Bleus to their first-ever Eurobasket final.

Parker capped the calendar year by becoming one of the first NBA players to announce a jump overseas; while proving utterly crucial to Asvel’s success in French League and Eurocup play, Parker may be creating something of a financial model for European basketball stars, particularly in times of labor troubles: That of the team executive/player.

Four names remain … now we come to the hard bit, so let’s dispense a couple of easy formalities first.

1. Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks/Team Germany. Nowitzki last won this award in 2005, the first year of the award. Compared to that year, Dirk is down statistically in all major statistical categories from games played to free throw attempts to assists. But come on! Proving unstoppable in the 2011 NBA playoffs while simultaneously shrugging a big monkey off his back, entering “all-time greatest” conversations and dispatching the EEEEvil Miami Heat? Yep, Nowitzki wins.

2. Juan Carlos Navarro, FC Barcelona/Team Spain. Navarro is to European basketball as Nowitzki is to the NBA: Ever-reliable, always there to consistently produce for consistently winning teams. Though Barça suffered an early exit out of the Euroleague playoffs, the Blaugrana nevertheless took the ACB title – with Navarro named tournament MVP. Team Spain of course took gold at Eurobasket 2011 … with Navarro named tournament MVP. Just for good measure, La Bomba helped Barca to the Spanish Cup … and was named tournament MVP, has led his team to a 17-1 overall run to start 2010-11, and just became the modern-era Euroleague career scoring leader. A pretty good year.

And so they meet yet again to decide the final spot on the BallinEurope ballot: It’s down to Andrei Kirilenko and Bo McCalebb.

Regarding Kirilenko, forget his season with the Utah Jazz (even though his stat line was a respectable 11.7 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists in a turbulent year for the team); if we’re talking *European* Player of the Year, just consider what the AK-47 did on The Continent in 2011. As the oldest player on a decidedly more up-tempo Team Russia than he’s used to, Kirilenko was nevertheless a monster at Eurobasket 2011, leading the third-place finishers in scoring, offensive rebounds and total rebounds; plus, his 29 steals was best of the tournament.

But it was with CSKA Moscow that Kirilenko really demonstrated his brilliance and abilities as a model European player. After arriving about 14 minutes before the season began, Kirilenko was thrice named Player of the Week in six weeks of Euroleague play, sometimes killing with shooting, sometimes crashing the boards, sometimes doing it through intangibles. From a purely selfish perspective, one of the worst outcomes of the NBA lockout settlement is the departure of the most dominant performer we’ve recently seen in Europe’s biggest league.

Finally, what about Bo? BallinEurope can feel the shudders all across The Continent in reaction to this nomination. Seriously, a New Orleanian who’d barely stepped foot in FYR Macedonia suddenly becoming a citizen of that country and subsequently gaining eligibility to awards like such as this? McCalebb’s new passport was quite the subject of debate among the Eurobasket press corps, let BiE tell ya.

Put the micro-geopolitics aside momentarily, though, and consider the kind of ball Bo brought to Europe in 2010-11. After a Euroleague season in which McCalebb led a youthful Partizan Belgrade to a shocking Final Four finish, Bo moved to Italy and, despite a knee injury, returned to the tournament to help Montepaschi Siena land a third-place finish. He’s already adding to his personal highlight clip this year as well with a 23-point show against Unics Kazan a couple weeks ago.

And then there was the biggest surprise and perhaps even the single biggest story (competing only with Spain’s dominance and France’s first-ever finals appearance) of Eurobasket 2011: Team FYR Macedonia. McCalebb fearlessly and meticulously led his equally fearless and meticulous national team to mouse-that-roared status at the European tournament. With the point guard position given such exaggerated importance at tourneys of this ilk, McCalebb added an exciting cutting-and-slashing dimension throughout Eurobasket, consistently drawing attention while contributing to the best side in terms of ball protection and turnover differential in the competition.

As awesome as Navarro and Pau Gasol were, as brilliant a field general as Parker was, no Eurobasket team – and perhaps no European team on any level in 2010-11 – so depended on a single player as did the 2012 Olympic qualifiers FYR Macedonia.

So, how about it? Who gets the no. 3 spot on BallinEurope’s ballot? Good thing that BiE has until January to figure this out…

Okay, so BallinEurope wouldn’t go that far; after all, we’re talking about a player of retired-jersey status here. Regardless, Beşiktaş Milangaz began the post-Deron Williams Era with a 77-75 win at Armia in FIBA Eurochallenge play, thanks to a David Hawkins jumper in the waning seconds…

Official FIBA writeup follows.

(FIBA Europe) – Beşiktaş Milangaz completed a two-game sweep of Armia on Tuesday to clinch first place in EuroChallenge Group B, as David Hawkins hit a jump shot one second before the end to lift Beşiktaş to a 77-75 win in Tbilisi.

Armia were able to get the ball to recent signing Matthew Freije before time expired but his three-pointer was off target.

Jeremy Richardson nearly lifted Armia to victory. After Hawkins’ two free throws with 1:16 remaining, Richardson caught a pass from new Armia guard Ben Woodside and drilled a jump shot to knot the game at 73-73.

Hawkins dunked with 40 seconds to go to put the visitors back in front, only for Richardson, after an Armia timeout, to reply with a jumper. Beşiktaş ran the clock down to 10 seconds and then called a timeout. When play resumed, Hawkins got the ball in his hands and hit the game-winning shot.

Beşiktaş outscored Armia 27-19 in the last quarter.

The EuroChallenge Player of the Week in the last round, Erwin Dudley (a.k.a. Ersin Dagli), will contend for that honor again as he had 18 points and 13 rebounds for Beşiktaş. Hawkins finished with 17 points and Serhat Cetin contributed 16.

Zoran Erceg also had a strong game with 12 points, six rebounds and three assists for Beşiktaş; his biggest shot came with 1:45 to go, a three-ball that tied the contest at 71-71.

Joakim Kjellbom scored 17 points and corralled 13 rebounds for Armia, and Will Thomas had 15 points and eight boards. Richardson also had 15 points and Woodside 13, along with seven assists.

With the win, the Turkish club improved to 5-0 and Armia fell to 3-2. Should ZZ Leiden prevail in their game against BG Göttingen Wednesday, the Dutch side will host a decisive clash with Armia next week to determine the second-place team in Group B. Armia won their encounter on November 22, 74-71, so Leiden would be aiming for a win of four points or more to claim the second spot.

A number of reports in recent days had the Beşiktaş search linked with names like Kevin Love, Luol Deng, Lamar Odom, Nene and Marcin Gortat, but Lopez made for reportedly a somewhat less expensive option than Odom or Gortat, for example.

Lopez went for 20.4 points and 6.0 rebounds per game with the New Jersey Nets last season.

And if you’re keeping score at home, the refugees from Nets land playing in Europe increases: After Williams and (prospectively) Lopez, there are Jordan Farmar (with Maccabi Tel Aviv), Sasha Vujacic (Anadolu Efes), Mario West (Scaligera Basket Verona), Sundiata Gaines (BC Armia) and Bojan Bogdanovic (Fenerbahçe Ülker; and okay, BiE realizes Bogdanovic isn’t technically a refugee, but he may be a Net someday).