Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog

Lalić to the rescue!

Ball in Europe doesn’t know if the smoke is clearing for beleaguered Union Olimpija, but at least yesterday’s announcement of the Jure Lalić signing provides some seed for optimism. The 24-year-old Croatian had been playing for EuroCup team Spirou Charleroi.

Much more than a single youth player, proverbial tremendous upside or no, will be required to pull this plunging club out of the tailspin, though. Off the court, the distractions are plentiful, with European and American players quitting the team while alleging non-payment by the club. Essentially, all of Olimpija’s remaining name players – Sašo Ožbolt, Vlado Ilievski, Edin Bavčić, Gašper Vidmar and Nemanja Aleksandrov – charged exactly the same thing last week, holding a player strike. When finally coerced back into action, these five were among seven players who saw action in Sunday’s 85-59 thumping of Cibona Zagreb.

(Now if that ain’t a message to management, BiE doesn’t know what is. What was it that M.J. said? “I didn’t see organizations playing with the flu in Utah“?)

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Coach Ivanovic may now exhale

Better late than never (totally BiE’s fault, let me tell you) comes Ball in Europe’s dispatch from Francesco Cappelletti rounding up the week that was in Euroleague basketball. For your amusement and edification, Francesco discusses, among other topics, the Terrell McIntyre Backup Curse, which teams should sweep into the Final Four, why Maccabi Tel Aviv is so good in 2009-10 and why Cibona Zagreb should be awesome in 2010-11.

Thrilling night
When a Bojan Bogdanovic-less Cibona Zagreb was up 72-58 with three minutes to go, Caja Laboral’s nightmare was very close to become reality. Then, a 17-2 run handled by Marcelinho Huertas turned the lights out for an overtime everyone knew would not be balanced at all. Baskonia scored 24 points in five minutes to ensure a gap BC Khimki couldn’t fill. With radio and voices running, the 22 point-margin BC Khimki had over Olympiacos to begin the fourth quarter, eventually becoming a 96-83 final score, was insufficient to reach second place in Group H.

Dusko Ivanovic can breathe again now, as his team qualified for the playoffs. But we have to thank Cibona, which was able to play their game even after elimination, just for the love of the game.

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Nice of the Euroleague to stack up nearly every game in the last round of the Top 16 on one night, eh? Sheesh, this is worse (or better, depending on viewpoint) than the weekend following the All-Star Game in the NBA. Of the seven games on the slate, six will still help shape the final eight field; the sole “pride game” tonight will be the Montepaschi Siena-Efes Pilsen match in Italy. Officially-derived possibilities for the final eight may be found at the Euroleague website.

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Sofoklis!

This week’s three minutes of fun features Jamont Gordon totally giving up the body, an emphatic rejection from D’Or Fischer, Juan Carlos Navarro looking a little like Steve Nash without the pass, Bo McCalebb going up about 200 feet for the jam, but most of all BallinEurope’s main man Sofoklis Schortsanitis passing like a guard in what was the big guy’s most dominant show since Greece took care of Team USA’s mostly nonexistent inside game back in the 2006 FIBA Worlds…

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Teletovic rocked for the Boss last week

Hello everybody, this is once again Javier Gancedo of Euroleague.net, ready for yet another SportingBet Euroleague Fantasy Challenge week. There are two more weeks in the Top 16. The good news is that it is being extraordinary. Nobody would have predicted that no teams would be 100% qualified after four weeks and that the only one eliminated from the playoff race would be defending champion Panathinaikos.

More good news … of course, the Quarterfinal Playoff will be fantastic and we are heading to a great, great Final Four. Once again, the perfect combination exists: a great, universally loved city, a first-class basketball event and four very good teams fighting for the ultimate title. The bad news, however, is that we only have two more weeks in the Fantasy Challenge. What will we fantasy players all do in the meantime? It’s a long wait until next October, after all…

Anyway, as for my team, Meet the Boss, I had a so-so week with 144.8 points. Just when I could have reached first place in the BallinEurope Invitational Challenge, I ranked 21st in the private league this week. The private league leader is samwong, who has 53.1 points more than me … but I rank 4th, so it’s going to be tough. Still, of course, I will do my best.

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Not this year

The critical week four of Euroleague Top 16 action is in the books, but Ball in Europe’s man in Italy, Francesco Cappelletti, is still musing on the shifts ‘n’ events thanks to these eight games. This week’s frank roundup wishes Panathinaikos bye-bye, gives mucho deserved props to Pini Gershon, and bestows an “accolade” upon Zabian Dowdell. Read on!

Goodbye Panathinaikos
Before this week, it seemed nearly impossible that Panathinaikos would put itself again on the road to the playoffs. The evidence for the Greens’ struggle weren’t in the numbers which still didn’t damn the defending champions, but somehow it was all in the body language, the play expressed by a group which showed complacency and an unwillingness to fight, to get their hands dirty.

Maybe Zelimir Obradovic thought his men would have woken up when it counted; instead, even against Regal FC Barcelona, into an in-and-out game whose content must recall for Mike Batiste and his teammates remember not-so-faraway times, PAO looked like the same squad devoid of motivation, tactical themes, and unselfishness that appeared during the first phase. FC Barcelona simply had to stay close to the Greens until the final moments, when it was cleared which was the real united group and which was a jumble of overpaid men – though not overrated, be careful – unable to unify.

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Just in case you haven’t seen this yet, the Euroleague “Top 10 plays of the week” for week four of the Top 16 round follows the break.

Surprisingly no magic from Ricky Rubio or his FC Barcelona ‘mates this week (perhaps the team’s too weary from ACB play but not so tired as to be incapable of handling Panathinaikos). We do get some slick work by Asseco Prokom, about the closest the big league’ll get to a Cinderella story in 2009-10; some insane ball-“handling” in the lane by Bo McCalebb; Theo Papaloukas’ should-have-been-a-four-pointer; and Josh Childress taking over to contribute to the no. 3 and 1 plays on this reel.

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While not interested in passing definitive judgment, we think it would be useful and fair to take a look at the European basketball panorama. There will be no ratings or rankings here, just a snapshot of what the most important ballin’ countries offer us.

Ten years into the third millennium, it’s common to hear repeated concepts about European community and a sense of brotherhood, but the idea of “European basketball” elicits language only indicating something is wrong. Disunity: That’s the main word for the variety of ways to develop basketball in Europe. European basketball was well on its way until five to six years ago, when internal division began to decrease European ball’s opportunity to become a serious alternative to a NBA bereft of stories and talent to sell – yes, that was before Lebron James’ era.

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T-Mc: What can we say?

With a scene-shifting week three of Euroleague Top 16 play in the books, BallinEurope’s Francesco Cappelletti defines his surprise, from Montepaschi’s masterful play to Sasha Kaun’s success to the curse of a Panathinaikos title defense, and more. Read on!

Pianigiani’s lesson to Messina
“I think it was a masterpiece from my players. One of the most difficult games since I started coaching. We were tired, consumed, without an important player against a team that could exploit our problems. We’ll enjoy this night to the fullest”: With these words and a smiling face, coach Simone Pianigiani commented on the game between Montepaschi and Real Madrid.

Honestly, he was right; Siena got the expected reaction after a disastrous exhibition in Istanbul, but the win was huge, much more than the fans and staff were waiting for. Even more so because the victory came despite the absence of Ksistof Lavrinovic, a player as key as only Terrell McIntyre is. Real wanted Montepaschi to play a slow game, to defend strongly and to deny the top facets of the Italians’ game: fastbreaks and transition play.

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After last week’s slate of Euroleague upsets, is anyone else searching for the upset bid tonight? Three games tip off and, if the oddsmakers make up for their definitive lack of correctitude in Euroleague Top 16 Week 2 play, all three home teams are looking to double-figure wins.

The closest game on the schedule, according to Ball in Europe sponsor Bet 365, will feature Asseco Prokom trying to make up 10 points in Moscow against the heating-up CSKA side. While pundits were inspecting the likes of Orleans and Asvel Basket to act as Euroleague Cinderella for 2009-10, most were sleeping on Asseco and Maroussi, two teams suddenly looking great for surprise tournament bids. Figure upstart Asseco covers that 10 and that The Euroleague Fantasy Boss makes the correct decision on Qyntel Woods again.

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