Euroleague 2007-2008 - CSKA Moscow - The Preview

Author : Julien Debove from BallinEurope

Overall Record Prediction : 12-2

First of all, many thanks to my Russian colleagues whose name I won’t mention and who never returned my emails. Fair enough, I fear nothing, not even a CSKA preview with the clock ticking as its first game is about to start in a few minutes.

The incredible thing with CSKA is that nobody raved about their roster moves. Everyone got crazy about the NBA players a couple of teams somewhere in Greece brought during the summer. So crazy that they hardly noticed Ettore Messina built a monster. The starting 5 looks terrific with Spanish nightmare JR Holden running the point, former Duke sharpshooter Trajan Langdon killing zone defenses, do-it-all small forward Ramunas Siskauskas, P.O.W.E.R. forward Matjaz Smodis and intimidating center Aleksey Savrasenko protecting the basket.

But you know what’s more scary ? The second unit ! Imagine the Mavericks bringing Nowitzki off the bench ? Well this is how it goes in Moscow. Theo Papaloukas, the 2k7 Euroleague player of the year does NOT start. And if you really thought the nightmare stopped after Papaloukas, look at those names : Nikos Zisis, Zakhar Pashutin, David Andersen and Marcus Goree. All those players would be starters, if not go-to-guys in most Euroleague teams ! The roster is so loaded that I’m not sure we’ll see much of those NBA prospects named Alexey Shved, Nikita Kurbanov, Artem Zabelin or Anatoly Kashirov.

CSKA Moscow is one of the best reasons why I spent 60 € something suscribing to Euroleague TV. And since Russians seem to play well in Spain (Don’t they ?), I put a tenner on them to win it all.

Final 4 favourites : CSKA, Panathinaikos, Efes Pilsen, Montepaschi Siena.

Winner : CSKA