BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

An exciting FIBA Europe Under 20 men’s championship came to a conclusion on Sunday with Turkey taking the the title. Check out the highlights of their 65-57 win over Spain below.

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This is a great find by the crew over at Project Spurs, a 14 minute video of Ettore Messina explaining his philosophy on coaching basketball

Yeah, when he opens with comparisons to an orchestra you just know this is going to be good. Then when he gets on to discipline a clearly rights free version of The Godfather theme starts playing. Within four minutes it gets unnerving because anyone familiar with Messina gets shocked by just how chilled he is…this was filmed during his CSKA days and he seems content, how does that happen?

Week by week, day by day, we try to forecast the ‘must-watch’ games in the Euroleague Regular season for 2014/15. If you are feeling particularly evil, feel free to bookmark this and come back to mock us after Week 10.

The rules here are pretty simple. I get to pick one game for each night of Euroleague play this year except for Round 10 where I pick one for each group as the dates aren’t decided yet. Priority on how it will affect qualification placing trumps clash of big clubs, and I need to avoid reverse fixtures wherever possible. Let’s do this.

Round 1
16 October – Valencia vs Olympiacos
I was tempted to herald the return of Limoges here seeing as they are taking on the reigning champs but this is a game between an established power in Olympiacos and a team that won EuroCup last season and is trying to establish itself as a legitimate third force in Spain.

17 October – Fenerbahce vs Olimpia Milano
On the one hand we have a team that enters every year with a heap of expectation and tends to under-perform. On the other a team that exceeded expectations, fell away in spring, and just about managed to take its domestic title. Fener have reloaded, as per usual, Milano appear to have done the opposite. This game could set an early tone.

Round 2
23 October – CSKA Moscow vs Maccabi Elektra Tel Aviv
Because, well, duh.

24 October – Limoges vs Cedevita Zagreb
Eugh this was a tough day to call and not because of an abundance of hot match-ups. Limoges make their home return to EL action, Cedevita should prove interesting and a road win would be big for them here.
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The FIFA World Cup is over, the FIBA World Cup is seven weeks away. Whereas the former near guaranteed shocks and surprises, Basketball fans can only hope we avoid a predictable tournament in Spain.

The FIBA World Cup of Basketball has tremendous potential but it’s hard not to be a little worried. Player drop outs keep leaking out as the off-season staggers along. Save for Spain and Lithuania, because it’s Lithuania, and a handful of others it’s hard to guarantee teams will bring their strongest possible rosters. International hoops, while adored by fans, simply doesn’t get the commitment of its soccer counterpart.

Team USA’s provisional roster is a good indicator of how much of an opt-in event this is for stars. Kevin Durant, the reigning NBA MVP, is there, so too are Derrick Rose and James Harden but after that the top names have opted out without much consternation. A NBA contract, the NBA season, is just that much further ahead in the order of priorities. Part of Rose’s motivation for playing indeed is to get some real game-time to get his career back on track next season. This is far from a NBA problem. It’s not the NBA’s fault that it is, by a considerable distance, the top priority for players. That’s on FIBA and the national federations.
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Ángela Salvadores couldn’t carry Spain all the way to the FIBA Women’s World Under 17 title but she still stole the show. Check out all 40 points from Salvadores in the video below.

Lee Jenkins broke the story of LeBron’s return but what happens now? The madness might just be starting.

David Blatt’s been on one hell of a run. A triple crown with Maccabi, he lands a NBA job (seriously good hustle once again), the team he lands with wins the lottery and lands Andrew Wiggins, wins a bunch of coach of the year awards for work with his old team, and now…now he’s got the best player in the game on his new team.

Yeah, yeah it’s really good to be David Blatt right now.

The East is so open that it’s hardly implausible, even with a team that was pure factory of sadness last year, that Blatt takes the conference in his first season. Outside of the Pacers, is there any team in that conference you feel truly confident about taking Cleveland (and I almost wrote Miami there) in a series with a healthy LeBron James plus friends? There are plenty of options in the West, the Spurs, Warriors, Clippers, Thunder, and Rockets are teams I’d flat out favour against them right now. That’s ignoring a handful of other teams who are better than any other opponent out East, bar Indiana, that could take down the Cavs roster over seven games. You don’t need me to tell you that only one of these teams from the West could potentially end LeBron’s season.
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With the 2014 NBA Draft taking place on Thursday, we’re providing quick refreshers on each of the European players hoping to hear their names called. Next up is Alessandro Gentile.

Alessandro Gentile
Position: SG/SF
Draft Express Rank: 61
Draft Express Projection: Undrafted
Nationality: Italy
Club: Olimpia Milano
Season: Quarter finals of Euroleague, currently in Italian league finals with Milano.
Notable personal honours: 2011 Italian league best player under 22

Bear in mind: Gentile logged heavy minutes in Euroleague this year for a Milano team that over-achieved. Psychologically he’s ready for the NBA, whether his game is up to it is another question.

So how good is he? Well he was plenty impressive at EuroBasket:

With the 2014 NBA Draft taking place on Thursday we’re giving you a quick refresher on each of the Europeans hoping to hear their names called. Next up, Ioannis Papapetrou.

Ioannis Papapetrou
Position:SF
Draft Express Rank: 56
Draft Express Projection: 57 to Indiana Pacers.
Nationality: Greece
Club: Olympiacos Piraues
Season: Runners up in Greek league and Cup, went out of Euroleague at the quarter final stage, won the FIBA Intercontinental Cup.
Notable personal honours: N/A

Bear in mind: Papapetrou isn’t going anywhere for at least the next two seasons and that’s probably best for his development. At Olympiacos he’ll get plenty of experience against top class opposition. Essentially he could enter the NBA around the same time as if he had stayed the full four years at Texas only with three seasons against a higher class of opponent.

So how good is he? Here’s his highlights from Adidas EuroCamp:

With the 2014 NBA Draft taking place on Thursday, we’re providing quick refreshers on each of the European players hoping to hear their names called. Next up Nemanja Dangubic.

Nemanja Dangubic
Position: SG
Draft Express Rank: 75
Draft Express Projection: 53 to Minnesota Timberwolves.
Nationality: Serbia
Club: Mega Vizura (their third prospect for those keeping count)
Season: Finished 8th in ABA Liga with Mega Vizura,, reached the final of the Serbian Cup, lost in Serbian League semi finals to Crvena Zvezda.
Notable personal honours: Top scorer at Adidas EuroCamp game.

Bear in mind: The last of four Serbians hoping to get drafted, this could be the largest class of Serbs ever drafted. Dangubic trails his countrymen significantly in prospects but will be working with one of the more multinational franchises in the NBA if he goes as projected to the Wolves.

So how good is he? Here’s his highlights from Adidas EuroCamp:

With the 2014 NBA Draft taking place on Thursday we’re providing you with quick refreshers on all of the Europeans hoping to hear their names called on draft day. Next up, Nikola Jokic.

Nikola Jokic
Position: C
Draft Express Rank: 43
Draft Express Projection: 43 to Atlanta Hawks.
Nationality: Serbia
Club: Mega Vizura
Season: Finished 8th in ABA Liga with Mega Vizura,, reached the final of the Serbian Cup, lost in Serbian League semi finals to Crvena Zvezda.
Notable personal honours: Belgrade NIJT All-Tournament team 2013.

Bear in mind: If everything goes to Jonathan Givony’s projections the Hawks will be loaded with European centres on their books, with Nurkic tipped to be called in the first round and Pero Antic already in town. There’s a more than likely chance this scenario doesn’t present itself but either way, don’t be surprised if Jokic stays in Europe for the next while.

So how good is he? Here are his highlights from the 2014 Nike Hoop Summit: