BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Zach Hillesland has an announcement to make: “After spending five years and six summers in South Bend under the watchful gaze of the hypocritically expensive Golden Dome, I’m ready to leave.

“And where I’m going is Germany. To play basketball.

“For 8½ months.”

On July 20, German second-division club Paderborn Baskets announced the signing of Hillesland, the former Fighting Irish baller who missed out on the 2009-10 season due to injury. “So?” BallinEurope can hear you saying. “Another obscure American player goes to another obscure European team … why should i care?”

Well, because Hill has started up a blog entitled “Z Over There” to record his experiences in the (to him) exotic land where he’s relating his Pulp Fiction-esque takes on the little differences in Europe and the measurement of body fat by German doctors.

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(image courtesy SITV.com)

Who wants more Gilbert Arenas? Hey, who doesn’t? But after Agent Zero shut down his Washington Post-hosted “Gilbert’s Blog” last year, internet missives from probably the greatest jock-blogger ever have been non-existent and Arenas himself has kept a low public profile.

Yesterday, however, Zero’s fellow Washington Wizard JaVale McGee went on Twitter to state that Arenas will again indulge in tweeting – if he reaches 1,000,000 followers (a mark which should heretofore forever be known as “The Ashton Kuchter Line”) *first*.

Right, then, Ball in Europe readers: Your mission is clear. Go here, follow the Wizard and hope that magic Kuchner line is approached. (As of this writing, the dude has only 2,171 followers – time to break out the European support, eh?

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Today, we take another look at the blogs written by those ballers playing in or coming from Europe. Nicolas Batum, currently playing his first season in the NBA, is sharing his thoughts with his French fans and made quite a nice statement in his blog on Basketsession:

In fact, the thing about the guys I have to guard, Wade, Hamilton, T-Mac, is that I can anticipate what they do as I have seen them play so often. This has helped me very much when I took Wade down to 12 points only. I don’t fear them at all. I feared defending Ricardo Greer of Nancy more than taking on Dwyane Wade.

I saw that I put him in trouble when he voluntarily hit me with his elbow in my face. That made me laugh: I was happy because this meant that I was doing well.

It seems like Nicolas has really entered the NBA right now, but there is one guy that can put him in big trouble though.

By the way, the day when I really struggled, when I had to fight but I could not do anything, it was against Peja Stojakovic. Believe me: he is unstoppable, he shoots too quick.

Here we go again with our roundup of what our favorite player-bloggers are telling us. Once again, it was Adam Hess that came up with some shocking news. Before the game in the brand new O2 World in Berlin, which will also host the Euroleague Final Four, the following dramatic scenes happened:

[I] was impressed that the visiting locker room of the O2 arena was three times the size of my apartment, had a spa that could fit ten people, twelve bikes so every player could warm up at once (I guess that is important??), a plasma TV, and some other things alluding to the obscene amount of money put into the building.

I will also mention that 160 million dollar arenas do not come equipped with strong toilet seats. One of the guys broke it during its inaugural use. Who knows, maybe it will be good luck, like when people smash a champagne bottle against a ship before its first trip. And no, I will not divulge who. He is a sensitive one and might be offended!

So of course, the question remains: Who was the delinquent? To give you some hints, the following are the “official” weights of some of Adam’s teammates: Darren Fenn, 112kg; Dirk Mädrich, 116kg; Darius Hall, 120kg. I have some doubts about the figure listing Hall at only 120kg, because when you check out his highlight clips on YouTube, he really looks like the possible toilet seat breaker.

Euroleague.net has also presented its new Euroleague blogger, Ricardo Greer. Well his first post could have been used as one of our upcoming Euroleague Team previews and doesn’t have that much funny to report, except maybe this:

…we’re all going to have fun, but I know one guy who might have more fun than anyone in the league: our new center Rod Benson. He’s already famous for his blogs back in the States, and we’re all running round here saying “Boom Tho” all the time, to get with his movement. Maybe I can’t blog head-to-head with Rod, who’s got an incredible imagination, but I’ll do my best.

Well said, Mister Greer, so let’s check what the founder of the Boom Tho movement has to say … Well, nothing special, indeed, except a nice road trip video with a very important croissant story.

But not only do Euroleague players blog. Hundreds of US-born players are active as professionals in Europe and those active in the lower European divisions particularly face problems that some top stars could not imagine. Brandon Adair is one of these players; he’s currently with the Schwenningen Panthers in the fourth German league and he talks about the current problems that his team is up against.

Tuesday was another scheduled practice. Everyone showed up, everything seemed to be OK. Next thing you know, the coach calls a meeting for the players, and he starts talking to them (I do not know German) I do not understand a word he is saying, but it seems to me that he is not happy. Well, after my teammate translated it for me, it comes to find out that he is NOT under contract. The organization has come to a verbal agreement with him, but he has not been able to sign anything because they have not come up with the papers. THEN, another shocking moment, only 3 players have signed a contract for this year. Me and two other players. Everyone else is under “verbal agreement” which does not suit well with the coach. He wants to coach this team, but he wants to coach the team with no off the court issues such as contract problems. …

We had a team/club meeting on Thursday about the problems both the players and coaches have. I had the joy of sitting there in the room for about an hour listening to a language that I did not understand. I enjoyed sitting there looking at everybody’s faces to see if they were getting disgusted or having a good time. The actual meeting room was business-like. Also, it was in the shower room with chairs.

If you want to know how the situation develops, I would recommend you read Brandon’s blog, as it is quite interesting and his writing style is pretty funny, too.

With the new Euroleague season approaching and the number of player-bloggers in Europe increasing, I will give you a (more or less) regular roundup about interesting stories these writers have to share with us.

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We did it! After what seemed like the longest season of my life, we capped it off by winning the ‘ship!!

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Before I begin, I just want to again thank my basketball coaches at TCU. Their contracts were not renewed for next season, and they will no longer be coaching at TCU. Continue Reading…

Sorry it’s taken me a little bit to get back to you guys, but I had busy week. I got a chance to go home for Easter, and had a great time I also found Continue Reading…

Webster’s defines hump day as- “The middle of a work week (Wednesday); used in the context of climbing a proverbial hill to get through a tough week” Continue Reading…

BallinEurope.com, what a great name for a website, and I’m honored to be one of the first players to blog for you guys. Big up to my boy Tobi! I’m sure many of you, well all of you are wondering who I am, but pretty soon you will get used to seeing this handsome face… Unless they decide I’m not worthy of this great site, and I fade back into obscurity worse than Nikoloz Tskitishvili. And Skita, if you’re reading this, I’m just kiddin dog… kinda! My intro can be found on another site, so I’ll spare you guys my life story… So here we go!!!

February was a great month! First, my girlfriend came for Valentines Day and stayed for about 8 days, which I might add was the fastest damn 8 days in history. Then the day after she left, my team, Benetton Fribourg Olympic, won the Swiss League Cup!! It was my first championship since my AAU days, and it felt really good to hold those trophies at the end of the game! We celebrated like we won game 7 of the NBA finals. And you have to understand, my teams have always been pretty good, but never championship material!! You know the saying, “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride…” Well I I’ve never even been invited to the wedding!

So it was a big moment in my young career to say the least. And I held on to the trophy all night. I even took a shower with it after the game in the locker-room. I felt like I was cheating on my girlfriend, cuz I kissed the thing all night and even slept with it. Sorry babe! But for what it’s worth, you’re a much better kisser. Now, I know it isn’t the Copa del Ray in Spain, but it’s still important and I’m proud to be apart of a championship team. So I have to give a big shout out to my teammates, D Kamp, PPD, H, E Bing, Doug, Big O, TQ, and my young bucks!Last month the NBA and held its annual All Star weekend in New Orleans. I saw some of the highlights from the game, Lebron did his thing, but Ray Ray really shoulda won the MVP. And Dwight Howard… All I can say is YUUUUUUUUUUULL… Way to Superman that Hooooo! I also saw some highlights of the D league all star game as well, and my boy Keith Langford continues to do his thing. And because Keith did his thing so well this year, he got a nice offer from Angelico Biella, an A1 team in Italy. And that got me to thinking…. And it made me think about the great debate… No, not Obama vs. Clinton, but D League vs. Europe! To some guys the dream of the NBA keeps them going, and so they feel the D League is the best option. But other guys know that the dream of the NBA may keep them going, but it won’t keep the lights on, or pay many bills back home! So here’s my opinion on how the D League maybe could close the gap on Europe.

There are only 14 D League teams, and 10 players on each team, who all make salaries ranging from 13k-24k, depending on playing experience. Ok how about this… What if the D League raised the salaries to 50k for the C level contract, 60k for the B level contract, and 70k for the A contract. The NBA makes BILLIONS of dollars from TV deals, licensing deals, ticket sales, etc, to the point where they could invest some of that money into the D League. But the point I’m making is they have the money to invest in the D League, and just imagine the affect of the increased salaries would have on the league as a whole.

First off the talent of the D league would increase by leaps and bounds. And that’s sayin a lot because the talent is great now. But if the borderline NBA guys (guys who almost get drafted, or had some workouts before and after the draft, high level overseas free agents, etc.) had a chance to make between 50-70k to stay home and play in front of NBA scouts every game, I think at least 65% of the guys would opt to play in the D league. It makes a big difference if you’re averaging 15 and 10 in the D league in front of NBA scouts, or 15 and 10 in Germany or France… it’s a big difference I think! It’s kind of like the reality show Flavor of Love, yeah he’s not the most attractive guy in the world, and he kinda resembles a porch monkey, but if you put in a little work, then you can get your own reality show. i.e. New York. Of course there are always gonna be guys who get offered 100k or more to go play in Europe… those guys are gonna go regardless. But for younger players who don’t really want to go overseas and play, this would be the best alternative. Because guys who just coming out of college, really have no idea about living or playing in Europe, and it’s not as glamorous as people make it seem.(see next blog) And by better players staying and playing in the D League, it will also increase tickets sales. Think about it, if fans recognize players they know or have seen on ESPN, they will be more likely to buy tickets to see those players, as opposed to players they’ve never heard of. And what do ticket sales mean… more revenue for the D league, which is always a plus.

And again, I’m not here to bash the D league, I love the D league and everything it stands for, I think the leadership is great, and the league will get better and better every year. I recently read Dan Reed’s(D League president) blog, who is a really good guy by the way, and he talked about how the call ups are at an all time high(11), average attendance is up 25%, and franchise values have quadrupled in the last 3 years! All these facts are great, and just show how much the NBA is behind its product. But those numbers would be even greater if they ever decide to “C.T.C”! At the end of the day it’s always about money, so guys have to ask themselves what they value more.. The money or the dream??!!

Next up… How playing in Switzerland is like living in a postcard!

Editors’ note: I hope Marcus won’t get sued for “being like Mike”. I never saw a basketball picture with the guy being that close to the Jumpman logo like that!