Monday cigarettes

• Theo Papaloukas STARTED the game of the Russian Superleague this weekend against Unics Kazan. Maybe he finally was doing well in practice that his coach gave him the starting job or it was only because of the absence of Ramunas Siskauskas.
• Harun “Pegasus” Erdenay is back on the courts
• Jon Stefansson, one of my favorite Euroleague Fantasy players, was pretty active this week on the Internet with a FIBA Europe interview and a presence in the Top 10 moves of the Lega.
• One of the top Greek talents is leading his NCAA team to the Finals of the Season Opening NIT. Kosta Koufos, who dominated during the U18 Championships this summer in Spain is already considered as the newest Greek God by Dick Weiss.
• If Earl Boykins is really going to sign with Lietuvos Rytas, he should check this interview with Terrell McIntyre who is another little big man in the Euroleague.
• The Euroleague website is once again fooling around. Just check what happens when you want to look at a team’s specific page.
• The Eurobasket.com Top 100 Ranking is back, for men and for women. Some surprises to me are the third place for Khimky, a 10th place for Panellinios and also the fact of Türk Telekom being the best Turkish team at place number 21 way ahead of Efes who is only at 42.
• R&R? Rock and Roll? No! Rudy (Fernandez) and Ricky (Rubio) combined for 50pts this weekend in a huge win against Marc (Gasol)’s Akasvayu Girona.
• Jamal Sampson, the nephew of Ralph Sampson is trying out with Frankfurt who signed also Ayinde Ubaka
• The Lithuanian forward Martynas Pocius is impressing some American bloggers. By the way Martynas, your dunks look way better than your suit

EDIT: After just two months of BallinEurope.com we already got our first award! The German NBA Magazine BASKET elected us to the “web site of the month”! - Well, we knew it was just a matter of  time, right? So keep these awards coming!