Another week, another podcast. The latest episode of the “Taking the Charge” podcast series is now live over at heinnews; this time, Germany-based sportswriter David Hein and BallinEurope run the following gamut.
• A quasi-obligatory nod to the recent W notched by Barack Obama, significantly the US’ first unabashed basketball fanatic in the Oval Office;
• The typical rundown/running on about past and upcoming Euroleague matches, plus how ready Os-as-Los-Angeles-Lakers-fan is to hit the panic button;
• An interview with Jonathan Givony of Draft Express, certainly one of the – if not *the* – authority website on basketball prospects throughout the world. Definitely stay tuned to this portion of the ‘cast to find out who the youth guru identifies as the second coming of Lynn Greer(!);
• An interview with Dre “All Day” Baldwin, who’s currently promoting himself as “The Best Unsigned Basketball Player Alive Today”; and
• A review of the criminally underrated Ron Shelton-penned boxing movie, “The Great White Hype.” (Incidentally, for little good reason aside from basic awesomeness, the trailer for said flick runs under the page break.)
Enjoy the show and, as always, talk to you next week!
Love him or hate him after nearly four years in office, one thing is for certain: Barack Obama is the first basketball president – a fact that could curry lots of favor with Generation X and Y voters in a celebrity-charged election. 
” for Hunter S. Thompson’s interview with Tricky Dick, an interview which Thompson was told could only be about NFL football). And the Kennedys surely won popularity points for 
It’s never too late for the ‘Hangover (or so BiE’s telling himself). Excuses aside, following are a few Eurocentric impressions, notes, highlight clips – and the no. 1 reason why Barack Obama is thrilled the Los Angeles Lakers went down in the playoffs last season…
Right, with the weekend over and many an hour spent viewing the roundball, BallinEurope rounds up some news items – and video clips! – from the week that was. 
What’s that? You haven’t been watching the quarterfinal round of the Italian League’s playoffs? No problem: BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini has – and he posts today about just what you’ve been missing, namely two cliffhanging, nail-biting finishes that finished off Virtus Bologna. (Ironically and mournfully, BiE notes Bologna’s elimination as dated the same as Kobe Bryant’s 2011-12 Los Angeles Lakers.) Cellini promises that the videos are the centerpiece and so those looking for classic buzzer-beaters need search no further than below the break.
Hosting dignitaries and politicos from Italy this week, U.S. president/basketball devotee Barack Obama recently gave an interview to the visiting media as well, naturally taking time to praise Italia’s representatives in the NBA. As self-proclaimed scholar of basketball diplomacy – perhaps the only one on the planet – Enrico Cellini has noticed that Obama’s effusive acclaim for Danilo Gallinari and Marco Belinelli is in fact quite similar to the prez’s gushy quotes on Hedo Turkoglu and Mehmet Okur back in 2009… 
