Euroleague: Cibona Zagreb, Croatia

To give you the preview on Cibona Zagreb, there was only one address we could ask. Not because there is nobody else but Karlo Dzeverlija is considered as the main reference about Croatian basketball. He is the author of kosarka.hr (crobasket.com) and also the editor in chief of Basketball magazine “Croatian basketball”.

Overall record prediction: 4-6

After the complete failure in the 2007-08 campaign, Cibona made it clear that big changes are about to happen. But after the worst season in recent club history, Cibona remained standing on its old foundations (without significant changes in the club management), while it was only the roster that suffered the majority of changes. But let’s face it, renewing the bigger part of last season’s roster is something Cibona repeats every summer.

The club prolonged the contract with Marin Rozic prior to adding a trio of Croatian National Team players - Davor Kus, Nikola Prkacin and Branimir Longin. Croatian NT power forward Damir Markota also signed a deal with Cibona, but he forced the club to release him after he voluntarily failed to show up for the trip to St. Peterburg. At the same time, Cibona struggled with another runaway - American PG Earl Calloway - who returned to the US without telling anyone in the club. Calloway eventually returned to the team after a ten-day absence so Cibona managed to overcome its first, early crisis.

In the meantime, Cibona added Rawle Marshall, who’ll present a serious shooting danger from the perimeter, while Markota was replaced by Jared Homan only a week before the start of the new Euroleague season.

The biggest positive change as opposed to last season happened on the bench, where Ivan Sunara was replaced by Velimir Perasović as the new head coach. The European basketball fans know him well as once a fantastic scorer for Jugoplastika Split and Taugres or as head coach of Spanish clubs TAU Cerámica and Estudiantes more recently. “To play modern basketball you need aggressive players, guys who can play in high tempo both offensively and defensively”, Peras said back at the start of training camp, revealing his preference for aggressive defense. That should be the trademark of Cibona this season.

What does Cibona expect?

All-time highest club budget (estimation - about four million euros) has secured a quality nucleus of the team. But short bench might prevent Cibona from achieving a surprisingly good result in the Euroleague. Same as every year, the club counts on no more than advancing to Top 16, which is a realistic goal. The focus will be on the regional Adriatic League, where Cibona needs to finish in front of Zadar. That way Cibona would earn more points from the ULEB and secure another contract with the Euroleague. That is the club’s primary goal of the season. On the other hand, the fact that its budget is really big for Croatian standards (twice the budget of No.1 competitor Zadar) means that winning the Croatian championship and national cup is the ultimate goal. Basically same as every year.

Assessment?

In spite of sudden roster improvisations late in the preparation period, Cibona has the right to aim at advancing to Euroleague Top 16 in front of Air Avellino and Le Mans. Club’s history, experience in the Euroleague, hostile home court and eventually the concentration of quality players is what gives Cibona the advantage of the Italian and French representatives in Euroleague’s Group A. Four or five victories in the first group stage seem to be a reasonable ambition when you have favorites such as Olympiakos, Unicaja and Maccabi in the group as well.

Final Four participants: Panathinaikos, CSKA, Olympiakos, FC Barcelona

Euroleague winner: Panathinaikos

written by Karlo Dzeverlija

Monday’s cigarettes

Here we go again and the smokiest cigarettes from all around Europe have been looked at, selected and are presented to you right here.

• It’s mystery time in Zagreb at the moment. After the departure of American PG Earl Calloway without any obvious reason, now Damir Markota did not join the team on a preseason trip to Russia without explanations.
• But there is also good news coming from Croatia as you can see by this big smile.
• Brandon Jennings played a practice scrimmage with Virtus Roma. And got introduced to European fouls.
• One week before the start of the ACB, TAU Ceramica has already won their first title by winning the Supercopa on a 86-85 win in the final against CAI Zaragoza. The former Seattle SuperSonics/now Oklahoma City Thunder draftee Serge Ibaka won the Slam Dunk Contest.
• The German Women Basketball Bundesliga will broadcast all of their games live on Zap Internet TV.
• The German Bundesliga, in collaboration with the federation, has created a fund for youth players. This means that every Bundesliga team that gives minutes to players younger than 24 years old earns money. How much? It’s €10,000 per gameday, divided according to the minutes played. And who gets what can be seen here.
• And we still stay in Germany for the most incredible story of the weekend. During the National Streetball Championship, eight-year-old Aaron Prenszlau won the Slam Dunk competition. Having not been at the contest, I don’t know what happened there, but he is officially the youngest ever slam dunk champion.
• After his first high-flying impressions, Josh Childress is reported to have suffered a minor injury and has been sidelined for a week.

After the Olympics: What’s the future of Croatia?

Today, I am going to talk about the youngest European participant in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Croatian national team featured nine players born in 1982 or younger, something that no other team could offer. Let’s check how the next tournaments could look like for Jasmin Repesa’s guys.

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