Before BallinEurope signs off for 2011, let’s give a late Christmas gift to the dunkaholics out there, shall we? Below runs a collection compiled through the year featuring dunks by Europeans, on Europeans or perhaps simply in Continental games.
The first 20 will listed by competition, followed the top five runners-up and the champion jam of the year. Who will be no. 1? Read (and watch) on to find out…
It’s one Euroleague game remaining in 2011 for each of the regular-season entrants, and with only four teams mathematically eliminated – Asseco Prokom, SLUC Nancy, Spirou Charleroi, Union Olimpija – a great many of the 16 matches on tonight and tomorrow night’s slate remain significant. BallinEurope takes a look at the opportunities for advancement into the next round below; for reasons of complexity (you’ll see what BiE means when we get to Group A), these will be listed by group in backwards alphabetical order.
Group D. This one’s easy; the top four seeds for the Top 16 draw, in order, are FC Barcelona, Montepaschi Siena, Unics Kazan and Galatasaray Medical Park.
Group C. Real Madrid, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Anadolu Efes have clinched the nos. 1, 2, and 3 spots, respectively, in Group C. In a case of win-by-four-or-go-home, Emporio Armani Milano must beat Partizan Belgrade in Hala Pionir by two field goals or more in order to nip the Black-and-Whites for the fourth seed in the group.
Here on the Continent, we realize what NBA fanatics have been missing as they twiddled thumbs waiting for cessation to the player lockout – and continue to twiddle as they await Christmas opening day. BallinEurope’s Enrico Cellini, however, knows better; below, he lists his top three buzzer-beaters thus far into the 2011-12 Euroleague – where devotion happens – regular season.
• The regular-season round of Euroleague basketball has provided plenty of dramatic finals so far. Coincidentally – or maybe not – the top three buzzer-beaters turned in so far were made by teams on the road. First came Dimitris Diamantidis’ three-pointer that capped Panathinaikos’ comeback (after going down by four in the last 15.6 seconds!) on the court of Unicaja Malaga in the sixth week of competition.
Though Žalgiris Kaunas club director/former interim coach Vitoldas Massalski has categorically stated that no changes to the Greens’ roster will be forthcoming until the end of the Euroleague regular season, this can hardly stop the speculative future-gazing in Lithuania and beyond.
To wit: Yesterday, the Lietuvos Rytas website ran a report stating that Milovan Rakovic could be heading back from loan to his contracted club Montepaschi Siena in January. Siena would naturally like to bolster up in the middle for a deep run into the Euroleague playoffs in lieu of the injured Ksistof Lavrinovic.
Žalgiris’ prospects for advancement aren’t exactly dim, but they’re currently mired at the bottom of Group B, in a three-way tie with Brose Baskets Bamberg and KK Zagreb at 2-5. Losses vs. Panathinaikos tonight and Bamberg next week would certainly doom the Greens to elimination; even a 2-1 finish by the Lithuanian side might not be enough.
Tonight will see another edition of The Continent’s traditionally most insane of all derby matches in Athens as Panathinaikos hosts Olympiacos at 7pm local time (6pm CET; noon EST). European basketball fans have come to know what to expect from whichever side of fans packs the house for a Greens vs. Reds war, namely this just for starters…
A quickie note here, extrapolated from a brief on RIA.ru. Scroll down for the quasi-obligatory – and why not? This team is awesome to look at right now – CSKA Moscow YouTube highlight clip.
(Moscow) – Tickets for the November 16 Euroleague match between CSKA Moscow and Spain’s Unicaja Malaga had already been 70% sold, according to the Moscow club’s press service F-Sport.
“We sold almost 3,500 tickets today. Capacity is 5,000 and the match is nine days away. We are expecting a full house for the game.”
After lazily posting the BallinEurope Fearless Predictions™ for Wednesday’s Euroleague games solely on Twitter – and going four for four picking winners, naturally – BiE returns the prognostication to its proper place, namely here. Following, then, brief takes on each of tonight’s seven matches.
With two Euroleague games in the books for each team and something of an overall picture developing, BallinEurope unleashes the November edition of its ever-“popular” power rankings for the two dozen squads. For reference, edification and jollies, the preseason edition of the ‘rankings may be seen here.
Once again, advisories in effect: These ratings are formulated from once source (namely yours truly) and are based on the way teams are trending at present, i.e. Bennet Cantu is not necessarily *better* per se than Fenerbahçe Ülker, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. While play in other leagues was considered, emphasis was put on performance in each team’s pair of EL games thus far, i.e. BiE knows Union Olimpija is 5-0 in the Adriatic League.
Without further ado, then, let’s get to the rankings! (Žalgiris fans, you may want to consider before clicking “Read More.”)
As a sportswriter in 2011, it’s getting ever less bizarre to type the words “Andrei Kirilenko of CSKA Moscow” all the time; certainly this team’s fans want the NBA lockout never to end as AK-47 is leading an impressively outfitted Red Army through early Euroleague and PBL dominance.
Kirilenko was rewarded for his individual brilliance through two EL games by taking the first Player of the Month award of 2011-12. The locked-out Utah Jazzman has been good for per-game averages of 14.5 points on 62.5% shooting, 9.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 2.5 blocks. Notes the league’s official site: “The 30-year-old Kirilenko leads the 2011-12 Euroleague in performance index rating average (30), rebounding and blocks, and is also tied for fifth place in assists.”
Right, then: It’s finally time. The top professional basketball league in the world (Now that bears some thinking about now, dunnit?) tips off its 2011-12 regular season tonight as Žalgiris Kaunas hosts AK47-armed, Teodosic-toting CSKA Moscow.
Almost as anticipated as the actual Euroleague opening game is of course another round of BallinEurope’s Official Fearless Predictions™ for the season. (Yeah, surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre.) In a shameless ripping off of an homage to BiE’s favorite regular column on anything in any media, namely ESPN.com’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback – it’s true; BiE is a closet (American) football junkie – BallinEurope presents the first-ever Euroleague regular-season predictions in haiku form.
So without further ado … to the Fearless Predictions™!
