![Super Timberwolves: Peks, AK-47, Shved, Rubio as manga-style heroes [Update, translation]](http://www.ballineurope.com/wp-content/themes/urbanelements/images/postimage.png)
Big shout out this morning to heinnews, who’s provided BallinEurope with a translation of the Minnesota Timberwolves manga-type comic strip that recently appeared in the Japan-based Dunk Shot sports paper. Read along, panel by panel, below the break — hilarious stuff, really … and who knew Nikola Pekovic had such problems with the ladies?
Feb
Feb
3
Super Timberwolves: Peks, AK-47, Shved, Rubio as manga-style heroes
BallinEurope would really appreciate it if a native speaker of Japanese could translate the below piece on Nikola Pekovic and the Minnesota Timberwolves which recently ran in the periodical Dunk Shot – but it’s already a great big hunk of awesome. Check out the manga versions of Peks, sharp-angled Andrei Kirilenko, Alexey “Tiny” Shved and the doe-eyed Ricky Rubio (What? No Mickael Gelabale?) doing some kind of super task forcey thing and … is that Bill Walton there in panel four?
On second thought, maybe a translation *is* necessary…
Nov
15
Minnesota Timberwolves bullets: How good are these guys?
Nice choice, BallinEurope readers. The Minnesota Timberwolves, selected as BiE’s NBA home team for the 2012-13 season, are early darlings in the big league, managing to get off to a respectable 4-2 start (“Their best start in 11 years!” went the hype after the Wolves’ win over the Indiana Pacers) while Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and at present J.J. Barea are down to injury.
BallinEurope checks in this morning with those fantastic Eurowolves, bullet-style with video and an Official Fearless Prediction™ or two below.
Nov
87
The votes are in: Minnesota Timberwolves named BallinEurope home team (also torched on court by runner-up Raptors)
Before US-based news about that other election going down tomorrow swamps the entire blogosphere, BiE wants to get in news of our own polling results. With voting closed on Sunday, it has been decided by readers that the Minnesota Timberwolves of Andrei Kirilenko, Alexey Shved, Nikola Pekovic and hopefully-someday-soon Ricky Rubio will serve as the official NBA home team of BallinEurope for the 2012-13 season.
Oct
8
The BallinEurope Eurocentric NBA preview: 25 storylines to watch
Storyline #15
We’re doing something slightly different for 2012-13; rather than a team-by-team breakdown of the NBA and its 50-plus Europeans in the rolls, BiE instead presents the 25 storylines this website will attempt to keep tabs on as the 2012-13 edition of the NBA enfolds. Enjoy the season (unless you’re in the Twitter Airlines NBA fantasy league, in which case BiE’ll attempt to seek misplaced vengeance for his general incompetence in the Euroleague game…)!
Oct
36
Taking stock of European players in the NBA, 2012-13
Koufos one of four Euronuggets
Taking a look at this year’s roundup, we note that 53 Europeans have been named to NBA clubs’ 15-man roster, just beating the pace of the 52 listed in 2010-11. (BiE didn’t take the tally for last season because, you know, things were kinda confusing during the lockout and all…)
And quite a few teams have seriously European-tinted rosters: Five teams go into the 2012-13 NBA season with four Continental players – and of these 20 players, perhaps only Sasha Pavlovic and Evan Fournier are marginalized at the lower end of the 15-man rosters. If one includes Ty Lawson as an honorary Lithuanian (for at least one more season), the Denver Nuggets could put an all-Euro squad on the floor with Lawson heading up an admittedly odd lineup of Fournier, Danilo Gallinari, Kosta Koufos and Timofey Mozgov.
The team-by-team breakdown goes as follows.
Sep
1
Kirilenko, Mozgov, Marciulionis headline all-star team at Basketball Without Borders Russia
For the first time ever, the NBA/FIBA collaboration known as Basketball Without Borders heads to Russia. This month, some 50 European youth basketball players will get schooled – that is to say, be educated by – quite the roster of international talent.
Headling the program are Team Russia’s own Andrei Kirilenko, Alexey Shved (Minnesota Timberwolves) and Timofey Mozgov (Denver Nuggets); this troika will be joined by the likes of retired legends Sarunas Marciulionis and Alexander Volkov as well as Americans Danny Green (San Antonio Spurs, briefly of Union Olimpija), MarShon Brooks (Brooklyn Nets) and Brian Cardinal (Dallas Mavericks). Not too shabby a roster there, particularly if you could time-travel Marciulionis and Volkov back a couple of decades.
And … Continue Reading…
Aug
1
Russia 81, Argentina 77: Alexey Shved leads way to team’s best Olympics finish of modern era
Though Team Russia didn’t quite reach the lofty heights BiE had forecast, a hearty congratulations go out to the team today for its 81-77 win over Argentina to take the 2012 Olympics bronze medal in its best showing of the post-Soviet Union era. Wire report runs below.
Continue Reading…
Aug
41
Fearless Predictions™ by BallinEurope readers, contributors: USA, Russia, Argentina will medal
Right, things will be tipping off shortly in London with eight teams remaining in bids for a podium spot. And with the votes in and brackets fashioned, let’s see what BallinEurope contributors (including David Hein, Enrico Cellini and Sam Chadwick) and readers find in their own crystal balls…
Gold medal: USA (with 86% of votes)
So probably the only surprise here is that it wasn’t unanimous. Dissenting votes were logged for Spain and Russia, though the latter may carry a bit of an asterisk. The sole voice liking the Reds to take it all was commentator El Diablo from Australia (!) who took his home side to win the gold, then backed down, explaining “I still reckon that Russia will beat the US, assuming Shevd doesn’t lose his shit again…”
Aug
5
2012 Olympic basketball: Rising and falling stock after the first round
While we’re a little ways away from actually awarding medals for 2012 Olympic basketball, the first round showed international hoops fans quite a lot. Though the fat lady hasn’t sung yet, reputations have changed over the past five games to cause some individual and/or teams losses beyond these Olympics. BallinEurope today takes a look at those whose stock has risen and those who’ve fallen in the early going of the London Games.
Rising
• Lebron James. Yeah, like this guy needs a further upward trend in his already all-time lofty-looking career. Four years ago, ESPN’s Bill Simmons proclaimed (correctly, in BiE’s opinion) that in 2008 ‘Games crunch time, “everyone deferred to Kobe, who made some monster plays to clinch it. Know that in the history of the NBA we have never had the best-player-alive argument resolved so organically.” In 2012, King James has proven himself to be the best player on the best team in this Olympic tournament.
