BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

From the Shameless Cross-Promotional Plug Department: BallinEurope’s sister site BuckBokai.com, with the assistance of the most-excellent sports simulation website WhatIfSports.com, considered part of the speculative statement made here upon the Dream Team’s admission to the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday, namely:

…the only two teams … who *might* possibly give the Dream Team a series [were] Dream Team III, with much of Dream Team I plus Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal, who probably should have been on the roster in lieu of the more politically-correctly chosen Christian Laettner in ‘92; and the Redeem Team of 2008, Generation Y’s own Dream Team.

So through the magic of number-crunching, we can kinda sorta know who wins in a battle of 1992 Team USA vs. 2008 Team USA. Who wins in a best-of-seven series? Click here to find out.

(Truth is, you can probably guess as to the final result, but BiE was a bit surprised at the specifics.)

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The news did not make big headlines throughout Europe: Serbian coach Veselin Matic was hired to take over the Iranian national team. But the announcement actually continues an ongoing, positive relationship between Serbian and Iranian basketball.

While the Iranian national basketball federation relies heavily on American players to help improve the level of play in the domestic Super League, the Iran basketball bosses decided to name a Serbian as national team coach for the second time.

Matic replaces compatriot Rajko Toroman after stops as coach with Estonian side BC Kalev, the Polish national team, Rhein Energie Cologne, Partizan and Red Star, as well as a term as assistant for the Yugoslav national team in 2001 (EuroBasket champs) and 2002 (world champions).

Matic will take over the work that Toroman started. Toroman guided Iran to the 2007 Asian Championship title, getting an automatic bid for the 2008 Olympics; this was the first time the Iranians reached the Olympics in over 50 years. And even though Iran went winless in China, the country’s game gained recognition.

Center Hamed Haddadi was signed to a contract with the Memphis Grizzlies, becoming the first Iranian to make the NBA. And forward Samad Nikkhah Bahrami played part of this season in the French league with Pau Orthez before going back to Iran.

Toroman said the Iranians were able to improve on the one hand because of the competition of playing with and against Americans in the domestic league. But it was the Serbian’s tactics which helped Iran knock off the second-biggest Asian power, Lebanon, to reach the Olympics; China had already qualified as hosts.

And now with Matic, the Iranians are looking to build themselves into an Asian powerhouse and qualify for the 2010 World Championship in Turkey.

So the Redeem Team won the gold medal in Beijing. What in the end looked like no surprise must actually be considered a deserved win by the best team of the tournament: Nothing more and nothing less. The final game showed that the gap between the USA and the rest of the world is not widening again, but that USA needs to prepare and bring their best players in order to beat a Spanish team by only 11 points.

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If Manu Ginobili is out (because of his ankle injury against Team USA), Lithuania is the favorite in this game and will once again go home with the bronze medal from the Olympics. (Broadcast starts with the 2nd half!)

The Gold Medal game will feature the current World Champion Spain and the Gasol brothers against the USA Redeem Team that wants to get back the Gold Medal they lost in 2004 against Argentina. Continue Reading…

The Olympic Basketball tournament is coming to an end with the ladies’ finals today and the men’s tomorrow. Let’s take a look at some of funny stories from the last few days.

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It is down to the final four nations and looks like the best of both worlds: Spain and Lithuania representing Europe – USA and Argentina representing America. Great, isn’t it?

BallinEurope will cover the Spain vs. Lithuania starting 2.pm central European time while the following blogs will live blog Team USA vs. Argentina:

(still to come – nobody has announced a live blog yet in the US)

Today, the four quarterfinals of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament saw only one close game. Luckily, I had the opportunity to see at least the second half of this thriller.

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The final day of the group phase has started, and here are the latest stories from and around the Wukeson Arena of Beijing.

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This might be one of the most sad games in Germany’s basketball history. Pascal Roller, Germany’s starting point guard announced that he will stop playing after the Olympics. Another German seems to follow him now: Dirk Nowitzki. Of course Nowitzki will keep playing for the Dallas Mavericks, but this might be his last appearance with the German national team ever, meaning somebody else will leave too: Chris Kaman. No Nowitzki, No Kaman – that easy. 

After the terrible loss against China, Team USA – a team that even convinced or suprised the biggest “haters” – is waiting in the last game of group play. Sportingbet’s odds for a win of Germany is 15.00 – a US win equals to … 1.00 – meaning you will not make a dime on betting on Team USA. 

At least Germany is not the only team with bad odds like that – another team is Angola .. way to go Germany!

Stiil, here is the live blog of Pascal Roller, Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman’s last game wearing the German “Adler”.

After Germany’s bitter defeat by China it is time to share some of the great pictures of this game. Of course it was not a high scoring game. It was even one of the worst games Team Germany ever had, but it was a fight and had many emotions in it. Being German I hated to see Germany loose, but I rather see a game like that than the most boring game of the Olympics so far: Team USA vs. Spain.