BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Shades of Vince Carter were shown by Maccabi Rishon’s Willie Warren, who pulled off one of this season’s most incredible dunks anywhere in his team’s 88-82 defeat of Bnei HaSharon on Sunday. Check out the closest approximation to Carter’s infamous “Dunk of Death” we’ve seen since originally pulled off at the 2000 Olympics. Fulfilling the Fred Weis role is Jumaine Jones.

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On Monday, European basketball great Ramunas Šiškauskas announced his retirement from the game: A story that was noteworthy enough for even North Korean sports fans to be notified. In his official statement, Šiškauskas said that he’d “made my choice in the middle of the season. It was not connected with anything specific – I just feel I should stop. I can only be excited about my career” and that “I am glad I was able to quit as a significant player, playing for such a great team and organization as CSKA Moscow.”

At 33 years of age, Šiškauskas put together a 16-season career with BC Sakalai Vilnius, Lietuvos Rytas, Benetton Treviso, Panathinaikos and CSKA Moscow plus seven years with Team Lithuania in FIBA and Olympic play – good for a gold and two bronzes.

And in that decade and a half, Šiškauskas amassed just under 1,500 points in seven Euroleague seasons on 49.8% shooting including 42.3% on threes. His back-to-back EL titles earned in 2007 and ’08 are among his many individual-career and team highlights … aw, hell. Let’s dispense with further formalities and get to the Ramunas Šiškauskas career tribute in traditional BallinEurope fashion, i.e. with lots of YouTube clips! We’ll miss ya, Ramunas…

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Call him a “Warrior,” call him SLUC Nancy’s former savior, call him one of the best French players of the past 10 years never to play in the NBA … but now you can call Cyril Julian a degreed oenologist – and a guy with the enviable chance to live out two of his dream careers.

While winemaking may seem like a bit of a strange choice for one who, shall we say, “enjoyed the perks of his lifestyle” as a Harley Davidson motorcycle-driving, heavy metal-loving dude during his on-court heyday, it seems the calling to become a vintner was never far away.

According to the bio on his brand-new vinocentric website (opened for business on October 1), Julian’s “passion for working the land and the vine was born in me.” Julian claims to have first been won over by the grape consciously upon his summer visits to his paternal grandparents’ farm, where young Cyril helped out in the vineyards since age five.

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With the informal Turkish national fight song “Oniki Dev Adam” getting lots of media play thanks to the stirring renditions performed by hometown crowds at the 2010 FIBA World Championship, BallinEurope thought it would be a good time to give props to Lithuania’s own popular sports anthem.

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