Putting in an appearance yesterday afternoon at 4.20pm in Changchun, Kobe signed a few autographs and dutifully commented on all things basketball for an adoring public – nothing unusual there.

However, what was unusual – and o so gratifying for fans of European basketball – was Bryant’s shout-out to The Continental method of developing players. From an English-language story running this morning from China’s national press agency Xinhua, Kobe was a bit fancifully quoted through a translator and back again, but the message on several topics was quite clear.

On what other countries need to learn from NBA and American basketball system, Kobe gave a surprising answer, and he said: “I believe that the system works best right now is not the US system, I believe it is the European system. Because they develop basketball players, and they teach them the skills. I think the European system has jumped over US system.”

Now one might argue that this is the viewpoint of an American baller who never played the college game in the ‘States, but might not David Stern & Co. (not to mention the NCAA) take this as a little constructive criticism…? BallinEurope has personally felt for at least a decade that the U.S. is crying out for a proper minor-league basketball system.

Xinhua went on to note that Bryant, “Before leaving his fans here [...] said ‘I Love You’ in Chinese, and this shocked all the people there.” Kobe has been called “arguably the most popular NBA star in China, rivaling even Yao Ming.”

Kobe will continue the tour by taking his multilingual talents to Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

And apologies in advance to a certain fan demographic for no. 3 on this list; y’all can console yourselves again with YouTube no. 8, if you’d like – or just skip to no. 2.

5. Cibona Zagreb vs. Partizan Belgrade, 2010 Adriatic League championship, with a finish probably even better than “0.4.” Those who saw this game or even saw this video fresh were blown away. ESPN’s Bill Simmons tweeted about it and Henry Abbott, El Hefe de ESPN TrueHoop Network, once called this clip goosebump-inducing: That’s endorsement enough for BiE.

4. Kobe Bryant 81. If you’ve never seen this one before, watch it. If you have seen this before, you need no further encouragement from me. The NBA account-hosted, cleaner and tighter version of this video may be watched by clicking here – you know, it’s got the “Embedding disabled by request.”

3. What truly happened in Eurobasket 2007. Sure, it’s a bit biased – and by “a bit,” BiE means “extremely absolutely totally” – after all, this YouTube was put together by the folks writing a blog called “Greek Hoopz.” And sure, it’s a bit dated, but whoa is this hilarious, unless of course you’re down with Team Spain.

This video’s combination is nothing but pure YouTube goodness: a Phil Jacksonesque mixing of game tape and cinematic action; a thoroughly addictive score (please help BallinEurope, anyone who knows the title and/or performer of this song); Michael Moorish levels of earnestness; tight editing; and an appropriately vicious sense of humor that keeps BiE coming back to this one at least once a month since it’s been posted to LOL every time.

All in all, a solid “10” on a scale of 1-10 for overall YouTube excellence.

(Sorry, Spain.)

2. Freestyle 150. A mind-blowing visual demonstration of skills by NBA superstars and American freestyle ballers is accompanied by a genius score put together by Afrika Bambaataa, Steven “Boogie” Brown and Jeff Elmassian composed of nothing but sounds of the game.

One of the freestylers playing in the video described the buzz in the ‘States about this ad campaign thusly: “Everyone was talking about it. From grandmothers to little kids, wherever I went people were running to the TV as soon as they heard that music.”

As one who was there, please allow BiE to confirm this sentiment to be true: From its debut during the 2001 NBA All-Star Game to the end of the playoffs, this thing was everywhere. It was on MTV, it was in the Village Voice, it instantly inspired parodies both semi-pro and professional (the latter represented by a throwaway gag in Scary Movie 2, natch). Directly in response, the footballers also had a bitchin’ production in similar fashion made.

“Freestyle 150” is still awesome nearly ten years later, having entranced over 2 million viewers – many of which might never have seen this without YouTube. Enjoy!

Tomorrow: Why, The Greatest Basketball YouTube of All-Time, of course. Guess if you like; BiE thinks you’ll be (pleasantly) surprised…

By 2002, K1X had added manufacture and design to their huge distribution network and created the “Chief Glider,” a sneaker worn by Ron Artest while playing with the Indiana Pacers. K1X has become a major player in Europe and in the world in the hiphop gear market, with the accent always on basketball shoes.

Today, online store Kickz.com serves as the shop for the K1X brand and lots, lots more: Kickz.com is simply one of the largest providers of high-quality and cheap basketball shoes on all of the internet. Kickz.com stocks some 6,700 different products across 100 different brands of shoe, with all the biggest names well-represented: Nike (including the Jordan lines), Adidas, Reebok, New Balance, And 1, Rucker Park, Vans, Converse and of course K1X line the virtual shelves alongside lesser-known brands like Carhartt, Ecko, LRG, Zoo York, Boxfresh, Creative Recreation, Stüssy, Supra … basically every brand you can think of in a basketball shoe or hip hop gear.

Just in at Kickz.com: three varieties of the Nike Kobe Zoom V, re-released in celebration of Bryant’s Lakers’ 16th NBA championship, priced at €129.95. Also new are the awesome Nike Air Max Hyperize at €149.95 plus dozens of new Adidas and LaCoste styles starting at under €85. And the biggest winner right now: Check out the flattop K1X Club Selecao on sale for just €30.

Plus take advantage of the Kickz.com special offer extended to BallinEurope readers: through the summer, get a 50% discount on all products by K1X FNCTN. Click here for details.

For cheap basketball shoes together with a truly amazing range of product, BallinEurope recommends Kickz.com for your next sneaker-shopping trip. To find out more about the Kickz.com product line, click on any of the images or the K1X FNCTN banner below. Have fun shopping and remember what they say: It’s gotta be the shoes.

A total of 10 invites were handed out to the under-17s at the camp, and Nike officials have announced that the European representatives in the Jordan Brand Classic game will be Tayfun Erulku (Efes Pilsen) and Talat Altunbey of Turkey; Serbians/FMP Belgrade players Vasilije Micic and Nikola Jankovic; Frenchmen/INSEP players Charly Maraux and Alexandre Chassang; Marius Grigonis (Sabonis Basketball School, Lithuania); Francesco Candussi (Isontina, Italy); Kyprianos Maragkos (Panathinaikos, Greece); and Malik Mueller (Urspringschule, Germany).

Six other international players will be selected to fill out rosters for the “International Game” as part of the third international ‘Classic.

The “All-American Game” rosters were announced by Nike last month.

(Interestingly, at least some Canadians are claiming ownership of two spots for their country in the All-American Game…)

Oh, Oscar!

Awesome, with a capital *AWESOME* is heinnews’ interview with Oscar Robertson, actually undertaken during the Eurobasket 2009 on the eve of the Big O’s induction into the FIBA Hall of Fame.

If Talk Basket and LRytas.lt are correct, FIBA (and notably Team Russia) are about to bring a whole new meaning to the team “wild cards.” Who has €750,000 to pay for potential glory in Turkey?

The big network, among others, makes it official: Stephon Marbury will sit out season. Of course, everyone should have known this would be the case when not even Olympiacos offered a token €1 million or two. Ah well, this’ll give the fallen Starbury a chance to, you know, really let it all hang out on UStream.TV.

Anybody remember Dream Team II? The Hoop Doctors do…

And speaking of Team USA studs, who does LeBron James want to dunk on most? The answer may surprise you. (Hint: It’s not Jordan Crawford.)

Finally, more proof that science-fiction is now the argot of the dominant paradigm: Here’s an ad from the brand spankin’ new Adidas ad campaign, “Derrick Rose gets faster.” (Although he seems pretty mellow in this commercial.) Enjoy the sneaker porn.

Congratulations go out to the Kickz.com sneakermongers on the redo and congratulations, too, on a *nice* redo indeed. The new look is very nice and clean – this writer is extremely partial to the white background and left-hand menu. The headlining picture is done in slideshow format, though the timing is enough for even the less short-attention spanned to appreciate the info presented. Generally, the pingy, blippy, scrolly stuff is kept to a minimum – a serious megaplus in these days of ubiquituous tasteless sales-and-marketing sites in the cybersphere.

And all material is available in English and French as well as default language German.

And the catalog of shoes, magazines, clothes and other things in the aptly-titled “Stuff”/”Ceci et Cela” section is envy-inducing, indeed. A good call by Kickz, then, to have put the sale items toward the top of the homepage.

Sorry, what’s that, you say? Get to the sneaker porn? Sure thing! Enjoy Kickz.com’s new design as you check out some of these beauties…

What would a sneaker shop be without an Air Jordan? Here’s the Air Jordan Fusion 13 (or, inevitably, the “AJF 13”): Perfect for Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.

For the ladies, how about the Reebok Womens Pro Legacy Mid? It’s silver and should really come with sci-fi soundtrack.

Speaking of sci-fi, you gotta love the nuclear green on these Adidas ZX 95s.

Then there’s the Puma Cabana Racer, retro-styled sneakers that actually come in more sedate colors than the previous. Or not, as in the “Octoberfest” variety.

Use the Auto Force...

But back to the outrageous colors! Here’s a sweet couple of Nike Auto Force 180s.

Finally, not quite exactly traditional sneakers at all are the designed-for-outdoors H1KE MK5s – “H1KE, get it?” Now, these are shoes even an avowed sneaker-worshipper like myself could deign to wear.

And by the way, whatever you do, don’t trip onto a “404” page. The guy who’s taken over the And 1 page is positively nightmare-inducing…

It's gotta be the shoes

No, really. Allen Iverson today touches down in Europe to play a little ball. Unfortunately, Iverson hasn’t finagled his way out of a just-signed contract with the Memphis Grizzlies and finally gotten with Olympiacos; A.I. arrives instead to promote his line of Reebok sneakers.

But he’ll be playing some basketball, too.

As the tour moves through Italy, Poland and Spain between today and September 25 – sorry for the lack of information here; Reebok has released frustratingly little information on this – a visit to Poland and Eurobasket has been confirmed. Back in August, Sport.pl reported that Iverson would take on sharpshooter Andrzej Pluta of Anwil Włocławek in a three-point shooting contest on September 19th, the day of the tournament’s semifinal games.

Local newspaper the Commercial Appeal adds that “The schedule calls for Iverson to work out with a professional team in Milan” (um, AJ Milano?) and that A.I. will be back in Memphis on September 25, as “The Grizzlies’ media day is Sept. 28, and training camp practices begin the next day in Birmingham, Alabama.”

Iverson himself is apparently getting pretty hooked to Twitter, yesterday promising on his page to “be working out” while in Europe and that “I am looking forward to working with the kids.” He also promises to “keep you all updated while I’m abroad so stay tuned. Visit my website for photo and video reports.”

Should Grizzlies fans (i know you’re out there – i can hear you breathing) need further reassurance vis-à-vis Iverson’s fitness after such a gig, Slam Online offers an illustrative story on A.I.’s last Reebok tour. “A few years ago,” writes Lang Whitaker (for the record, it was 2005, when Iverson was promotionally touring Asia), “a friend of mine had the opportunity to spend a few weeks with Allen Iverson. … It was just a few weeks before training camp was starting, yet according to my guy, Iverson never set foot in a gym, didn’t touch a basketball the entire time.”

Continues Whitaker: “my friend shared with me Iverson’s apparent lack of dedication to basketball. … [W]e agreed that with training camp right around the corner, it probably didn’t bode well for Iverson. Then the season started, and Allen Iverson led the NBA in scoring at 30.7 ppg while averaging 42.3 minutes per game.”

And so, as the monogrammed one himself tweeted, “I’m Out.”

• Igor Rakocevic – It looks like Christophe got ALL the glory for picking him, but it was ME who gave him this idea! I know that his ranking of 34 was great and it was the first time I had the top performer of the week on my team. Igor scored 27 points in a 106-65 blowout against ALBA Berlin. He shot 6/6 from the three point line – most of the guy can’t do that from the free throw line.

• Josh Childress messed up his first stats line: 3/6, 0/3, 2/5 FT! which gave him a ranking of 6 points only although he played 34 minutes. In the end Olympiacos lost their first game in the Euroleague competition.

• I wish Europe also had these cool tools the Americans used for their TV broadcast of the Election. We need something like Exit Polls. This would help us for sure to find out if American players such as Josh Childress are either loved, hated or just accepted by their club’s fans. It is hard to believe for Americans why Europeans won’t LOVE guys like Josh – but when you on a club where Papaloukas is the star on the team, people just accept guys like Josh I think.

• Brandon Jennings: First great game in Europe: 18 minutes + 14 points = ranking of 16. Nice job Brandon – also Lottomatica Roma won the game – in case that is also interesting for you.

• Henry Domercant made a little three point show in Montepaschi’s win over FC Barcelona. I saw Henry the first time play in person in Cologne a few years ago when he still was with Dynamo. Of course you think that Henry is American, but I am sure many people do not know that he holds a Bosnian passport. The 2002-03 NCAA Championship scoring leader is looking good in Siena and my faith in Siena grows from game to game.

• Euroleague Tv announcers: I did not follow any games last night, but I followed the games on Wednesday. Our man who did the Efes – Panionios game, did a good jobs, as I think he always does. He even made a funny comment as he pointed out that Miroslav Marinos-Raitsevits (what a name), is a horrible free throw shooter. Quote:” I know now that I said this I am sure I will make a total fool out of myself and he will make both.” Miroslav mad both. “Oh well – of course he makes both and I am the fool”. The Tau – Alba game was done by our friend from last week, who had no idea about anything, but looked better this week – he still has several versions how to say Ansu Sesay’s name though. Overall a better day for Euroleague announcers – unless I missed something last night – I am sure you will tell me in the comments.

• The Portland Trailblazers beat the Houston Rockets in overtime and both teams have Euroleague players in ther starting line up: Louis Scola for the Rockets and Nicolas Batum for the Trailblazers. The guy to watch although is Rudy Fernandez scoring 16 ppg off the bench! Maybe Nicolas will not be the starter that much, since he averages 2 points per game.

• JR Holden speaks about his injury.

• LeBron James got a new sneaker – which is not available in Europe yet.

• Talking about sneakers, Ronaldinho – a soccer, fubol, Fussball – whatever you want to call it – star has Hyperdunk editons. Crazy isn’t it? This guy doesn’t even play basketball! Her eis his FC Barcelona and his AC Milan edition. Call yourself lucky if you even get to see those sneakers in person.

I’m not even sure if Under Armour is sold in Europe right now. (Oh wait: It is – even a German soccer club is wearing Under Armour jerseys.)

Looking at this picture, I can’t really tell what kind of untied sneakers Brandon is wearing; all I know is that the picture was taken in the Lottomatica practice arena while the sun was shining. So we will see if Brandon releases his own pair soon and if it will be available in Europe or if Under Armour is investing in Brandon’s NBA future.

What’s interesting and more important for us is that Brandon will start his own blog soon – in October 2008:

The blog will allow fans the opportunity to follow Brandon’s experiences in Rome and his pursuit of his athletic goals.

Let’s hope Brandon does not take the Euroleague players’ blogging as an example and write one post within the whole season. Welcome to the family, Brandon!

Thanks to k1x, we have a few cool things to offer:

Win 5 brand new k1x outfits including tag tee, check shorts and the chiefglider 2′s!

What do you have to do?

• Check ballineurope.com to find the first word of the hidden password.

• Check k1x.com and look for the second part.

• Send the solution to info@k1x.com (include your sizes, address).

• Deadline is September 30.

• The five winners will receive notification by email … good luck, play hard!

• Hint: check the latest three posts…

k1x is also making their way into the US – so even in the US you might have seen their outfits at Foot Locker – for Europeans – everybody has one piece of k1x gear already …. Well, not only is the Euroleague cool, our clothes aren’t too bad, either!