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Gunther: Can he or can’t he?

“Du willst Per Günther dunken sehen?” (or “Will you/we see Per Günther dunk?”) is a 68-second clip featuring Allan Ray and Pooh Jeter bringing the trash talk and the 185cm (6’1”) point guard’s strong willingness to jam.

Poor Per. And yet there’s a method to the seeming madness of this method. The club has announced that, should the Ratiopharm Ulm Facebook page receive 20,000 fans (could they mean “likes”?), Herr Günther promises to successfully dunk it through. Though perhaps he should recall what happened directly after ol’ Billy Hoyle pulled off the slam in a guaranteed victory…

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This week, a lot of bad news happened and some fantasy owners have to some major changes in the fantasy teams. Sani Becirovic was injured and as one of the major contributors, lots of managers need to go for some changes. And as one of the hottest players of the moment in the SG/SF position was also injured  (according to some internet rumors) — I’m speaking about Charles Smith here — it will be tough to go for a good move on this position.

My problem of the week is the following, though. I wanted to get rid of two of my players at the SG and SF positions and replace them by Becirovic and Smith. Now both are injured so I’m asking myself what to do. The first player I wanted to sell is Immanuel McElroy from ALBA Berlin, but with Julius Jenkins still out and no Becirovic in Rome, Imac may come up with a good game so he’ll stay on the team. The second guy to move was Emir Preldzic. He’s on the decline right now, so he’s out. With Becirovic injured, I see another player stepping up for Roma this week, and that’s Rodrigo de la Fuente. As Allan Ray may miss the game, too, the Spanish veteran should see a lot of minutes and could come up with some interesting stats.

In order to improve my team even more, I chose then to finally trade Sergio Llull away. The Spanish youngster had a great run, but now it’s time to cash in and get a real big-time guard rotation. In order to do so, I needed to get a bit more credits so Felipe Reyes left the boat. Reyes was replaced by last week’s MVP Edu Hernandez-Sonseca, who should bring solid ranking points against Olimpija and should also gain in value. So I have enough credits to bring Lynn Greer to my team. So, recapping my moves:

OUT: Emir Preldzic (Fenerbahce), Felipe Reyes (Real Madrid) and Sergio Llull (Real Madrid).

IN: Lynn Greer (Olympiacos), Rodrigo de la Fuente (Lottomatica) and Edu Hernandez-Sonseca (Joventut).

Probably the best thing would be to start with an apology for the delay, and get this out of the way. I’d like to thank the academy and blame Chris for the delay, not because it’s really his fault, but just because it’s fun to blame him on everything. Give it a try…

Week 5 of the Euroleague was full of stories and anecdotes. Some wrote new lines in the history books, others are on the way there.

After only one team won on the road in Week 4, this round of games displayed no fewer than six road wins, and three home wins by up to five points. With Olimpija and Milano taking their first Ws, and CSKA Moscow coming closer than ever to join the 23 other teams with a digit higher than 0 in the losses column, week 5 was one to remember.

Well, at least until Week 6.

Here’s the first part of the Euroleague Weekend Joints of Week 5 on Ballineurope.com.

Congratulations Jaka!

First of all, let’s congratulate Jaka Laka for becoming the 4th player in history to reach 2,000 Euroleague points this week, but that wasn’t the only mark he celebrated at Kaunas on Thursday night. It was also Lakovic’s 150th game in the Euroleague and only the fifth game ever in his eight-season Euroleague career that he didn’t miss a shot from three-point land, not counting nights he took just a single attempt. Jaka hit all five of his attempts in this game, two more threes than the entire team of Zalgiris, by the way (Zalgiris went 3-of-18 beyond the arc). Three times, Lakovic went 2-of-2, while on January 9, 2003, when he wore Pao’s green jersey and played at Tel Aviv, he had a 5-of-5 night as well.

Perfecto Greer

Not only Jaka was hot this week. Olympiacos’ Lynn Greer was also 5-of-5 from behind the arc, and for him it was the first-ever Euroleague game in which he was perfect from that range, excluding a single 1-of-1 display.

Road, bitter road

The Final Four hosts from Berlin suffered a 77-69 defeat at Olimpija, and allowed the Slovenians to celebrate their debut win of the season. After one leg in the regular season, Alba stands on a 2-3 record and it’s easy to label them. Both wins were registered in the O2 arena in front of a packed arena, and in both cases it was a close win. On the road, it’s a totally different story and there Alba lost all three games without putting up much of a fight. The eight-point difference is deceiving, as Olimpija held a double-digit lead in the closing minutes. Add the awful loss at Tau and a nine-point defeat at Fenerbache Ulker, and it’s gotten easier to place your bets from now on when it comes to Alba. In the second leg, they will play in Roma and Badalona, not the most comfortable spots to pick up a road win, so most probably in order to get some Euroleague oxygen, Alba will have to use the help of the O2 ha ha ha.

Don’t miss out…

Just in case you missed Panionios’ Aaron Miles beating the halftime buzzer with a super-cool coast-to-coast drive, check the Top 10 plays of Week 5 according to Euroleague.TV and survive the first nine to watch this beauty.

The big crisis

OK, this one has nothing to do with those red screens on your Wall Streets, but Efes Pilsen is in a big one of their own. The 95-81 defeat at home to Real Madrid marks Efes’ third loss in a row. Two were in Abdi Ipacki, and just to keep you fresh the first was to Panionios, while the third was in Moscow, where it’s more than reasonable to lose, only Efes was trashed by 22 points after a 27-9 first quarter start by the champs. Over the weekend, Efes re-signed Predrag Drobnjak to fill in at a center spot that felt kinda empty after the injury to Mario Kasun. Drobnjak was on the only two Efes teams to make it to the Final Four, back in the early days of this decade, before he moved to the NBA. Now he’s far from his prime, but let’s see if his arrival will bring good momentum to Ergin Ataman’s factory. Otherwise, Ataman himself could be next to pay for the damage. If you’re looking for a win, the last place you want to visit is Pionir and face Partizan, especially after they suffered an aching home loss, but that’s exactly what awaits Efes next week. Hopefully for Efes, Drobnjak and Milos Vujanic will feel at home enough to stop the downward spiral.

He’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

CSKA climbed to 5-0 and remained the only team with a perfect record in the Euroleague. To make things worse, on anyone who’s not a CSKA fan, this week marked the return of Matjaz Smodis. God forbid…

Heart-attack Partizan

The team to draw the most sympathy and empathy this week, beyond any doubt, is the group from Beograd. The one point loss to CSKA, and the heart-breaking finish, when Partizan missed no less than five attempts in a row in the last seconds to win the game, captured whoever enjoys an underdog win. Check out this fan-made video from the Pionir seats. The last play starts 6:40~ inside the clip. This fan won’t win the prestigious “Camera man of the year” award, but turn up the volume, hope your neighbor doesn’t have a machine-gun, and focus on the sights and especially sounds around the play. This was Partizan’s second single point defeat this season, and all of their five games were close ones, decided by no more than five points.

32 is the new 11

Drive your car around the world, and other than a difficulty to avoid food poisoning (at some point or another) you might also find it hard to locate a good Spanish player playing outside the ACB. Other than in the NBA and Jorge, who just couldn’t say no to the crazy Khimki offer, there’s only one more player to name – Lottomatica’s Rodrigo De La Fuente. This week was a special one for the out stander. In the 76-67 home win over FenerUlker, at the age of 32, after 11 seasons in the Euroleague and 172 games, he set a career high in rebounds by collecting 11.

Damn rims

Prokom’s home court is called the “Arena of 100 years” and it certainly won’t be named anytime soon “Arena of 100 points”. The rims there are anything but friendly to most visiting teams. Pao escaped with a 60-67 win but they have nothing to be ashamed of. In the last six games in front of those rims no team scored more than 68 points.

Arc range darkness

Lottomatica wrote their fourth win in a row, and would probably revenge Alba, for their only defeat so far, next week in the Palalottomatica, but something strange happened in their win this week over the Istanbul’s chocolate factory of FenerUlker. All of Roma’s hits from long range were scored by the big guys. Power-forwards Roberto Gabini and Angelo Gigli were 3/3 from the distance, while all the others combined 0/6. No outside hit was made by the guards, despite one thing Repesa doesn’t miss is guards who can hit the ball. The reason was that while on the romantic scene being passive sometimes actually works, in basketball if you don’t hit you can’t score. Sani Becirovic and Allan Ray didn’t try even once from that distance, while Ibrahim Jaaber stepped up with a single attempt. For Sani it was only the second time he finished a game without taking a long range shot in his last 18 Euroleague games, while Ray broke a streak of 21 games in which he made the effort.

Road bitter road – part II

So CSKA are 5-0 but this week was the second time in a row the Euroleague champs have trouble to score and win on the road. Their previous trip out of Moscow finished with a 54-58 win in Madrid behind a terrible shooting day. The 62-63 loss in Beograd saw CSKA connect only a duo of baskets from long range in 14 attempts. Yikes! That wasn’t the only reason Partizan came so close, but to read on the second, and more peculiar one, wait for the second part.

Off-bench Diamantidis

Some would tell you that a team must have a stable starting five for things to work, but Zeljko Obradovic will reply to that with however you say “Bullshit” in Serb. Often Obra changes his starting line-up, but in Sopot it was standing out more than the usual. Batiste, Spanoulis, Tsartsaris, Hatzivrettas and Kecman on court. On the bench waited five that can assemble one of the best line ups in the Euroleague: Jasikevicius (we’ll get back to him in part two…), Pekovic, Nicholas, Fotsis and Diamantditis. The last still managed to finish with the best index rating of the night with 26, but broke a streak of 66 games in which he was a starter for Pao. The last time Dimitris saw the jump ball from the bench was in Week 4 of the 2005/06 season, andeven then, on November 24th 2005, in OAKA he was the best player on the team and finished with an index rating of 23.

Retro Le Mans

It’s shocking enough Le Mans scored 87 points in four quarters against Olympiacos, but the fact they, once again, lost a close game is something stat experts need to look into. Just a reminder, if you missed that part here in the previous weeks, last season, under a different coach and different roster, Le Mans also lost all their first five Euroleague season games in the closing plays. This season they already lost two games in overtime, first @Maccabi and this week vs. Olympiacos. The bad news for Le Mans is that last season, in Week 6, the close losses streak was put to an end, not in the positive way, with a 91-71 defeat @Cibona. Next week they host Unicaja. We shall see….

The “Disgrace Escaping” mission

After five weeks Zalgiris stand on a 0-5 record. It’s likely for the Kaunas club to finish their season earlier than expected, and considering the off-court happening around the club this season it’s reasonable, but in the remaining five games they’ll need to work hard to escape disgrace. Up to today Zalgiris stands on a horrible 19.6 turnovers per game average. Right and far behind are SLUC Nancy with “only” 16.8. Now, being behind Nancy isn’t such a big shame, it’s the history books awaiting for Zalgiris. Unless a big improvement will arrive soon to Kaunas they’ll be known as the team that made more turnovers per game than any other team in a season. In all of the Euroleague history, under ULEB (excluding the first season which its stats isn’t available on the web), the team with the highest tpg average was the 2001/02….London Towers with 18.0 per game.