BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

BallinEurope’s Enrico Cellini gives us some excellent highlights from a recent interview between his countryman Danilo Gallinari of the Denver Nuggets and Italy-based daily Gazzetta dello Sport. Gallinari is nicely candid in the piece on topics ranging from the comparison of the ladies in Milan, New York and Denver to el jefe himself, NBA commissioner David Stern. Read on for some Danilo, translated but uncensored…

In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, Danilo Gallinari goes through his lifestyle in Denver: “I want to live downtown – I’m looking for a house.” Regarding food, a crucial issue for every Italian abroad, he says, “I have been doing some ‘scouting’: I found a couple of pretty good restaurants. One is downtown and is managed by an Italian guy. The other one is in Cherry Creek, a neighborhood full of shops and fun places. It’s the closest thing you can get to Corso Como,” recalling a commercial street in the center of Milan, very close to where he was living during his term with Euroleague club Emporio Armani Milano.

The comparison with the more glamorous Milan and New York to Denver comes inevitably. “Yeah, I’m feeling the difference,” says Gallinari. “We are in the provinces here. I need to get used to it. They send you to bed earlier – which is positive – and there is less temptation. Women are less aggressive, you might need to fall in love,” he jokes.

Continue Reading…

No Odom in Turkey, after all. Bummer.

And just when things were starting to get interesting … D-Will going for 50 points, Lamar Odom and his reality-show entourage were set to join him in Turkey, CSKA Moscow winning without their AK-47…

About two hours ago, CBS Sports reported that a deal had been reached between the NBA Players Association and owners, with the 2011-12 season to begin with a tripleheader on Christmas Day.

Ran the reportage, in part: “After 16 hours of negotiations Friday, the two sides reached a handshake agreement a little after 3 a.m. ET in New York. Both sides must still get vote approval from owners and players to finalize the agreement, as well as negotiate a series of smaller issues like a drug testing policy.

Continue Reading…

Okay, here’s another clip – last one, BiE promises – on the NBA player lockout. Really, this is just awesome.

Continue Reading…

Every once in a while, BallinEurope receives an email from an outfit known as Next Media Animation plugging the production company’s latest basketball-themed clip. Most of these fall squarely into the “WTF” category and thus do not see publication on this website.

But NMA’s contribution to the endless swarm of posts, tweets, bleats and whining regarding the NBA player lockout is … well, it’s still pretty weird. BiE can’t say much for the animated depiction of Kobe, Lebron and David Stern, but this one is fun enough to watch in Chinese; what else are you going to do in the next 68 seconds, anyway? The English-language version is embedded below.

That’s right: It’s a Taiwanese video on an American situation. Because, you know, this is a European basketball blog.

Continue Reading…

With seemingly no end in sight to the NBA lockout situation forthcoming, BallinEurope has to admit to enjoying the schadenfreude of the situation … just a bit. Even more exciting than the day-to-day speculation as more and more players from the big league consider their Continental options are the possibilities for the future: History has shown that inclusion of one American player can change the entire course of clubs, domestic leagues and even national programs.

While living in the present, BiE takes a look at the past with a virtual all-star team of guys from the ’States who have been great for the European game in one way or another. This quintet was chosen not necessarily for their skills and greatness, but for their impact on the game itself both in Europe and America – at least until Kobe Bryant decides to hop the Atlantic, heh heh…

Continue Reading…

On NBA Draft night, surely no European player – not even the mysterious (to the American market) Enes Kanter – drew as much notice as no. 6 overall Jan Vesely. In a serious case of instant fame injection, the Czech big man leapt into the collective consciousness thanks to a post-draft smooch and the resulting publicity for a YouTube clip collection that challenges young Senor Rubio’s in terms of imagination-bending awesomeness.

As BallinEurope this morning runs down Vesely’s video record, firstly here’s the introduction of no. 6 by David Stern and *that kiss*.

Continue Reading…

The Toronto Raptors and New Jersey Nets played the first of their London twinbill last night, capturing the imaginations of observers from both sides of the Atlantic to various degrees. In advance of game two (or game 62/63, depending on how you look at it), BallinEurope brings you some bullets’ worth of highlights, factoids and reportage on last night’s show.

• The numbers say that the Nets pulled out a 116-103 victory over Toronto who, in their years-long guise as the Euroraptors, were an obvious choice to play the NBA’s first regular-season game in Europe. Representing the Continent nicely were Team Italy’s Andrea Bargnani and Team Spain’s Jose Calderon; the former went for 23 points while the latter dished 12 assists to go with six points. DeMar DeRozan led all scorers with 30.

• The Nets’ Dan Gadzuric took a DNP for the game, which ESPN noted “was a shame given that his mother Dragoslava and sister Gloria had made the journey over the English Channel from their home in Den Haag in the hope of seeing him play.”

• But now to the YouTube highlights! Here’s a clip of some nice individual efforts, including lots of snazzy work by Brook Lopez on some wicked drives … and all of it overdubbed with the interesting choice of “Black Dream” by Prosperous.

Continue Reading…

In lieu of preparing for the 2010 FIBA World Championship with Team USA (sigh), Kobe Bryant has been visiting China this week as part of a promotional tour the locals are calling “Kobe 24 Live.” (Read: Kobe’s in Asia hocking basketball shoes.)

Putting in an appearance yesterday afternoon at 4.20pm in Changchun, Kobe signed a few autographs and dutifully commented on all things basketball for an adoring public – nothing unusual there.

However, what was unusual – and o so gratifying for fans of European basketball – was Bryant’s shout-out to The Continental method of developing players. From an English-language story running this morning from China’s national press agency Xinhua, Kobe was a bit fancifully quoted through a translator and back again, but the message on several topics was quite clear.

On what other countries need to learn from NBA and American basketball system, Kobe gave a surprising answer, and he said: “I believe that the system works best right now is not the US system, I believe it is the European system. Because they develop basketball players, and they teach them the skills. I think the European system has jumped over US system.”

Continue Reading…

Stern: "Right, we'll have a game in London if things don't get too silly."

The Guardian newspaper today published a brief piece on NBA Commissioner David Stern, with a special focus on NBA games in ol’ London.

Sportswriter Paolo Bandini asked Stern if the league would be holding a regular-season game in England (Let’s face it, London. At the O2 Arena) in the near future, Stern replied: “The answer to that question is yes. I don’t know what you would call imminent, but there is certainly some chance that there will be an announcement by the beginning of next season.”

And that’s about that on the subject, really. Make of it what you will…

Continue Reading…

This should not be an iconic image.

BiE should have known better. The game was a Sunday afternoon game on a holiday: Guaranteed to draw a super-sized television audience in the U.S. alone. BiE should have known the whole thing was going to turn into the Bennett Salvatore show.

And ol’ B.S. did not disappoint. Gifted with a glitzy Las Vegas showman’s name, Salvatore has a penchant for playing an over-ambitious member of the Greek chorus who constantly upstages those we came to see.

With all the general chatter about “European basketball has caught up with American basketball” and questions about “How good is the Euroleague, really,” here’s one area where high-level European basketball (and quite frankly the NCAA) has it all over the NBA: Quality of officiating.

Continue Reading…