Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog

December 1, 2009, will go down in history as the day the Treaty of Lisbon was put into full effect, thus “complet[ing] the process started by the Treaty of Amsterdam [1997] and by the Treaty of Nice [2001] with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and to improving the coherence of its action.” Indeed, this document can even be said to complete a 52-year-old plan first formulated with the European Economic Community established in Rome in 1957.

The implications and results of the Treaty of Lisbon are certain to be far-reaching, even reaching like Moses Malone into the world of European and international basketball. Ball in Europe takes a look at past, present and future in European Union sports regulation and legislation.

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Our friend Kristian Santiago has written a very interesting piece about the current situation that basketball agents face in Europe. Enjoy the read and get some information from inside the basketball business.

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I attended the German Bundesliga All-Star Day last weekend and also followed the dunk contest of that event. This type of contest is always considered one of the highlights by most basketball fans, even if the “traditional” Euroleague fan does not care about such “NBA-like show elements.” The level of the contest was fair in my eyes, but the reaction of those in attendance was pretty limited considering the difficult dunks that presented by the participants. A dunk like this one from Robert “Hollywood” Turner, who is, by the way 2.06 meters tall, is not that easy to do, yet it was not even enough to win the contest.

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Our friend Hippo from Finland sent us this interesting story about a documentary movie on Finnish basketball. But let Hippo explain exactly what it is about. Continue Reading…

Dario from basketbalcentral.it just sent me an email on Rawle Marshall, who plays for Cibona and also in the Euroleague.

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When I read the news here, I had to check today’s date. OK … this isn’t an April Fool’s joke or bad journalism – this looks like legit news.

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Vincenzo Esposito in Italy, Delaney Rudd in France, Tony Dawson in Germany, Oded Katash in Israel: All were top scorers in their respective leagues, leading the rankings with 25 or more points per game. Brad Oleson, Steven Smith, Rashad Anderson: These are our top scorers, nowadays. How many are they scoring? Not more than 21 points per game. (And that’s going to fall…) So what has happened across Europe over the last 10-15 years? Why, in a game that has itself evolved itself into one of increasing total scores, show, and thus its level of fan interest all over the world, do the top offensive players score much less? Let’s take a look at how our basketball has changed, following this decadent scoring line. The following is a list of a few changes.

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Every year when October runs out, several players are denied a happy ending to their stories, and their NBA dream vanishes in a moment. This happens when waived by a franchise after a training camp spent sweating blood to emerge from among the “desperate ballers” hoping to make the team. So, there are two different paths to follow: Go down to the D-League or CBA, score 20 or more points per game, catch and shoot any ball you can, and try to obtain a ten-day contract (at least) from a NBA team during the season; or cross the ocean, build a new career maybe less rich, but in some cases much more satisfying than one in the US.

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Globalization – The player with the highest VAL on Zalgiris of Lithuania was US center Loren Woods. The players with the best VAL for Italian Montepaschi were Rimantas Kaukenas and Ksistof Lavrinovic from … Lithuania. In fact, the latter two combined for a VAL of 45 while all Lithuanian players on the Lithuanian team combined for a VAL of … 40. Neither Kaukenas nor Lavrinovic, by the way, ever played for Zalgiris.

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Ilya Kalyagin, our source from Russia, lives in Rostov. On Tuesday, Spartak St. Petersburg played Lokomotiv Rostov in the Russia Cup quarterfinal. Just to let you know who players are on these teams:

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