BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Over in that other sport, FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is hot enough on the international level to have earned the sobriquet “greatest of all-time” from Barca manager Pep Guardiola; hype is high enough that Guardian UK readers are calling Messi better (by far) than the likes of Diego Maradona, Pele, Johan Cryuff, Zinedine Zidane and (sigh) Ferenc Puskas. A recently rolled-out advertising campaign by nutrional product supplier Herbalife suggests, however, that Messi secretly desires to excel on the basketball court.

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The best basketball video clip of the roughly half-done month? Well, about a week before James White was bagging his fourth European dunk contest crown, Zalgiris Kaunas’ Sonny Weems was earning his first in Lithuania.

Below runs not just any dunk contest highlight clip, but an amazingly edited 100-plus seconds replete with amazing angles and time-lapse special effects all backed up with the excellent “Prelude No. 11” by contemporary composer Chris Zabriskie. Gorgeous stuff.

(Note, too, that, in winning the LKL crown, Weems applied many of Cellini & White’s principles for taking such competitions – these rules work, BiE tells ya…)

LKL Žvaigždžių dienos dėjimų konkursas from Fotodiena on Vimeo.

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Speaking of Britain and basketball, BallinEurope this morning passes on a couple of Brit-centric clips…

Chicago Bulls fan/U.S. president Barack Obama yesterday displayed more of his trademark basketball diplomacy in taking his British counterpart, prime minister David Cameron, to the Mississippi Valley State-Western Kentucky NCAA tournament play-in game in Dayton, Ohio. Obama was proud to show a bit of the “great probable ‘swing state’ and thus 2012 presidential election-determining state of Ohio” to Cameron as the two enjoyed a furious rally by the Hilltoppers to upend the MVSU Delta Devils (sweet name, that), 59-58, and enter the Big Dance.

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White demonstrating emergency step 6

All accolades and trophies aside, however, BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini, notes that White has simply got this dunk contest-winning thing down to a science. Would you like to win your next dunk competition in Europe? Cellini, White and good ol’ YouTube show you how in six easy steps.

After dominating his fourth dunk contest within European all-star game weekends – previous wins include those in Turkey in 2008, Russia in 2010 and Italy last year) by displaying his trademark repertoire, James White should really work on a handy guide containing the must-do tricks for guaranteed success in any dunk contest on The Continent. It would go pretty much like this:

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Ah, now we have the defensive equivalent of Nick Young’s “alley oop to God” and this one, too, happened amid last night’s NBA action. Via the excellent Sportando, BallinEurope brings you a clip of Team Italy/Denver Nuggets’ stud Danilo Gallinari apparently getting caught quite by surprise against the Cleveland Cavaliers and ending up on the wrong end of a 2-on-1 fast break. And so The Rooster had to improvise a bit in his transition defense. Hijinks, as they say, ensued.

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Appropriate of absolutely nothing except for the basketball bit of this ‘site, BallinEurope passes on this YouTube of what in American sport commentator parlance might be described as the worst play of all-time in the NBA. On a breakaway play for his Washington Wizards against the Los Angeles Lakers, suddenly, as much-retweeted WayneWash0 pithily remarked, “Nick Young just threw an alley oop to God” … in short, awesome stuff.

But on how soon the legions of chucklers forget … who else recalls this ridiculous 360º layup against the Denver Nuggets on February 26? It was just something that had to be done; kinda like this post.

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Not only did Kevin Love put in a superstar-level 39-point, 17-rebound performance in his Minnesota Timberwolves’ 95-94 win over the Los Angeles Clippers last night, he also has BallinEurope’s informal Tweet Of The Week award locked up on Tuesday. And the 141-characters-or-less bit of pithiness is (drumroll, please) …

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BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini, passed along this delicious clip uploading to YouTube just today. As Ricky Rubio nonchalantly exits the bus and into the facilities in advance of the Rising Stars Challenge making up part of this weekend’s NBA All-Star festivities, observers may notice the, um, quite stylish backpack slung over one shoulder. Pink and purple in color, the baggage is lovingly decked with the smiling countenance of that easy joke target symbol of what’s wrong with the mass-media music industry proof that there’s no accounting for taste teen heartthrob Justin Bieber.

So what’s the deal here? Surely La Pistola hasn’t become this influenced by the cheesier side of American pop culture this rapidly. Enrico suspects – probably quite correctly – that this, let’s face it, potentially viral-going humiliation was some sort of hazing ritual. And Blake Griffin’s barely held-back smirk makes this embarrassing 37 seconds even more watchable.

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In a season when Nikola Pekovic finally seems to be coming into his own in the NBA (not too shabby that 18.2 ppg/10.7 rbg average through 20 games), the Minnesota Timberwolves PR folks are apparently having some difficulty locating the 6’11” (2.11m) big man – at least that’s what they’d like you to think.

Check out below the Wolves’ new cheeserific promo clip made in conjunction with Delta Airlines in which Pekovic in full basketball gear – all the better to see his awesome inkwork with – strolls (unconvincingly) through African jungle, China, Moscow, Paris, Egypt and outer space.

As for answering the question itself, BallinEurope’s gonna go out on a limb and guess Bijelo Polje…

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BallinEurope wishes readers a happy Valentine’s Day today with an expression from that greatest love of all, namely the love of a fan for basketball.

At left is our Valentine’s Day card to you, starring those “Latin lover” types Pau Gasol and Ricky Rubio – a match made in heaven. Or in Spain. (A suitable-for-printing-and-framing version is available here.)

BiE’ll admit that it’s a regifting from the Žalgiris Kaunas basketball club’s official Facebook page, but, hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?

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