The 2010-11 Euroleague season tips off tomorrow? Right, then. Presenting the last preseason – and thus last totally subjective, because we’ll be able to base these things on, you know, wins and losses beginning next week – BallinEurope Official Euroleague Power Rankings™. (Plus lots of video clips.) Enjoy!
1. (↔) FC Barcelona – Yeah, as though we didn’t know how good Barça was going to be this season, they went and bored down behind mighty Pete Mickael to take out the Los Angeles Lakers at home. In addition, they’re 3-0 in ACB play thus far while outscoring opponents by an average of 82-68, the Human YouTube Clip has added a couple more highlights to the infinite reel, Juan Carlos Navarro has been “¡espectacular,” et cetera.
From the Gotta Love A Recap Department, BallinEurope brings a handful of YouTubes from last night’s AJ Milano-New York Knicks NBA Europe Live Tour matchup in Italy.
Knickerbocker backers were certainly pleased as punch with new co-captain Amare Stoudamire who unstoppably racked up 32 points and hometown boy Danilo Gallinari looking better than ever to add 24 – and clearly neither is nowhere near proper “basketball shape” yet.
The NBA Live Europe tour begins tonight when the New York Knicks visit AJ Milano; tomorrow sees the Los Angeles Lakers take on the Minnesota Timberwolves in London and Maccabi Haifa visiting the New Jersey Nets. All in all, 
With Thursday’s Euroleague draw, 
It happens every time there’s a group draw in international competition. Begun by some twit sports journalist during the 1990 World Cup (if BiE recalls correctly), it has become requisite to label one bunch the “Group of Death,” as though advancement to subsequent rounds is any more difficult for the, say, no. 5 seed in a Euroleague group.
Lebron who? Over here on The Continent, the biggest basketball news today is all about the pingpong balls which determined the groups for the 2010-11 Euroleague season. The 22 teams that have qualified for Euroleague play have been divvied up into the four groups who will duke it out in the regular season.
During the 2009-10 Euroleague season, one of the most watched statistics was totally off-court; with financial stress pervasive throughout The Continent, most European basketball franchises prepared for the worst and tightened belts in expectation of lower turnouts.
