Jose Calderon responds to Spanish controversy

If you read BallinEurope on a daily basis, you probably read this article about the Spanish national team. For some reason, people are more interested in discussing topics like this, than talking about basketball (Is the US team THAT dominant that we have to talk about things like that?).

My friend Jaime from one of the biggest Spanish basketball sites, solobasket.com, just sent me an email, letting me know that Jose Calderon himself responded to the article published in The Guardian.

I would like to share a story with you about something that happened with the Spanish National Team that someone interpreted incorrectly. It happened in the photo session where the Spanish National Team was introduced; one of our sponsors asked us to pose with a “wink” to our participation in Beijing, we made an oriental expression with our eyes. We thought it was something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as somewhat loving. Never the less some of the European media did not see it this way.

I was sure from the beginning, that nobody on the Spanish national team or the Spanish basketball federation had another intention, but with today’s media, you just have to know what something like this can start, especially to a team that seems to be one of the only teams to give Team USA a little bit of a competition.

After reading all the comments made, one of our readers (Maku) and also Alvaro posted a link to this picture, where you can see the Lithuanian national team dressed up like Spanish bull fighters. Once again, you should be judging this one.

Controversy around the Spanish national team

I am not really sure what to do with this. This is why I let you to discuss this one on your own. As one of our readers points out, the Spanish national team took this picture:

 

 

 

As The Guardian, one of England’s leading newspaper,s points out, this is nothing special since Spain is well know for their racist actions.

Wow.

Of course this picture does not make any sense - I have been thinking about the reason for this one for two days now. I still don’t know, but it never came to my mind this is out of racism at all. 

You can pick people doing racist things in any country, but this does not reflect the majority of a whole nation such as Spain.

Robin Benzing ineligible for NCAA basketball

The name of Robin Benzing may not be a familiar one to all readers of BallinEurope, but he is now a new chapter of the problems young facing Europeans who wish to play in the NCAA.

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Brandon Jennings signs with European club Virtus Roma

Here we go: Brandon Jennings makes history for officially signing with a Euroleague team straight out of high school. His team: Virtus Roma. Since I spent the last year in Rome, I’m not sure this city is a good environment for Brandon; basketball-wise, it could be a good fit, though. From Roma’s official statement, it seems Brandon is bringing over his entire family!

Roma will play against Spanish top club Tau Ceramica, Fenerbahce Ulker from Turkey, Olympia Ljubljana (Slovenia), DKV Joventut (Spain), and Alba Berlin (Germany) during the group stage of the Euroleague season.

Why is Roma interested in Jennings? Well, they just lost Roko Ukic to the NBA, but still has Ibrahim Jaaber at the point guard. It is more than obvious that Brandon wants to prove himself in Europe and then leave the club for the NBA.

Personally, I am excited … well, curious. I know that most Americans don’t think the Euroleague is competition for ANY American player, but this year’s Euroleague will be on a whole other level. What if Brandon doesn’t succeed - don’t forget this guy is still “only” a high school star - as Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Kevin Garnett have…?

(Thanks to “name” who provided us with the link within our comments.)

What will happen to Goran Dragic this summer?

The Goran Dragic case has caused a lot of discussion in recent years. Some even considered his signing by TAU Ceramica as theft. The whole transaction went to court, and now there has been a decision. I spoke with our Slovenian friend Matej Bergant, who send us his insight into this case.

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Turkish player earns team’s marketing in court case

Our most fervent reader from Turkey, Kerem Oktemus, sent us a story today that is close to unbelievable. At least I’ve never heard anything like this before.

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BallinEurope lands in America

As we told you, BallinEurope has split up, going separate ways to both have a look at the NBA finals and to cover the Reebok Eurocamp in Treviso, Italy. Normally, it’s not that interesting to tell you about the trip to these places: You want to know what’s actually going on there, but this time I think I want to let you know about the trip.

US Airways is this year’s chosen carrier to bring me from Munich, Germany to Philadelphia, USA. I think I have done this flight over 20 times now, so I know how it feels to sit in coach/economy seats as a 1.96 meter (6”4′) guy for nine hours - not so much fun. I decided to go envoy/first class this time to be relaxed and rested for the next flight on Tuesday to Los Angeles for the NBA finals. Let me tell you, if you ever go to Europe and you care about being relaxed, do the same thing - the nine hours of flight felt like a 45-minute joyride!

As you can imagine, it would have been way too nice if everything had gone that smoothly. What could still happen? The plane was almost on time - OK, I waited about 30 minutes for my bags, but wait, I just entered the United States as somebody from this “country,” Germany.

I promise I did not look like your logo - I was shaved and dressed normal, and explained to the nice officer why I was coming and what I was doing here.  He did not ask any further or more detailed questions as they normally do, so I was surprised and waited to get my passport back. This never happened.

“Sir, please come with me for further verification!”

I won’t go into details, but after one hour of waiting and three minutes of talking to another officer, I finally got my passport.

Well, I’m here in Philadelphia now, watched the first half of game two of the NBA finals, where Boston took a 2-0 lead now and will fly to Los Angeles tomorrow morning.

Here I am, America!

Joakim Noah goes to jail

The AFP reports that Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls center, French national team player and son of former tennis star Jannick Noah, got caught “carrying a plastic cup.” Sounds funny, right? Oh well, sometimes it’s fun to rip things out of context.

Let’s be serious. In most places in the United States, carrying around alcohol in public is illegal. You can’t even have a closed bottle in your car, where other people might see it: It must be covered or in the trunk.

Unfourtunately, this is not the only thing Joakim did:

After Noah was taken to the police station, police found a marijuana cigarette in his pocket.

Sumner Hallett, public information officer for the Gainesville Police Department, said Noah cooperated with police and “bonded himself out” of jail by being fingerprinted and accepting a court date in June.

Noah, 23, could face up to six months in jail and a 500-dollar fine on the misdemeanor charges.

One year in the NBA and already doing weird things: Recall the incident in which Noah’s teammates wanted him to sit out one game for yelling at an assistant coach.

Basketball headbutt loses Austrian game

Ivanhoe from Austria emails:

…as I live in Austria, I follow the Austrian League very closely. Last week, game 5 took place between Basket Swans Gmunden (the ULEB Cup Team who lost against Juventut, as you know) and Fürstenfeld.

In a crucial game 5, something strange happened. Fürstenfeld had posession up 1 and about 3-1/2 minutes to play in the fourth quarter. They lost the ball. Peter Hütter of Gmunden came up with the ball and headed for a fastbreak, no one near him for an uncontested dunk, but as he dunked the ball hard, the ball went through the hoop, bounced off his head and went out again. The ball never went through the net completly. Fürstenfeld gained control and hit a 3 pointer. Ball game. That’s not something that happens everyday.

Here is the video:

Let’s look up the FIBA definition for a made basket: A player scores when he manages to put the ball into the basket from above. To me, it looks like the player did exactly that. Now Ivanhoe says that the ball has to go through the net? All we know is that Furstenfeld went to the next round of the playoffs and Gmunden is out.

NBA Players Association meets Europe

As the German player association tells us, the situation in Europe regarding contracts may be preventing NBA agents sending some of their players to Europe.

A presentation from the UBE [European Basketball Players Association] was solicited during a meeting last September in order to provide information on the situation in Europe to NBA agents, many of whom also represent players in Europe.

The presentation included an overview of players associations in Europe and a listing of common types of problems in some countries. For example, in Germany after a serious injury a player’s full salary is only guaranteed for six weeks if a special provision is not included in the contract; in France, contracts are never “net” of income taxes; in Italy, the only “guaranteed contract” is the standard contract in the CBA; in Spain, there is a strong effort by the union to eliminate the participation of naturalized Spainards; and in Greece, teams are allowed not to pay players for up to three months.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Yes, these players still make a nice chunk of money, but would you go to work every day if you didn’t get paid for three months?

A large number of agents indicated that they were suffering from these types of problems in Europe and welcomed at least the beginning of an effort to organize players collectively in order to help professionalize the business.

Players must also be defended, and if Players’ Associations are not taken seriously, clubs will do whatever they want.

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