BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Another week, another “Taking the Charge” podcast. Available now through heinnews or iTunes, it’s once again lotsa talk on European basketball and other sports.

BallinEurope and heinnews this week host Jeff Taylor, Spain-based writer for Basketball World News and FIBA.com. With Spain as the main item on the chat menu this week, we analyze the revitalized and rolling Real Madrid and possibly hurting FC Barcelona’s chances going their matchup next week. We also take a brief look at Spain’s Liga Endesa, including props to recently rechristened Laboral Kutxa, and the inevitable far-out speculation about Eurobasket 2013.

Yeah, BiE laments the Los Angeles Lakers’ demise for the final time this season and wonders if there is a Plan B in place, should the Busses not re-sign Dwight Howard. (Hint: It seems doubtful.)

Finally, for the sports movie review of the week, we do up the recently broadcast 1983 NFL Draft-centric from Elway to Marino, another strong entry in “Volume II” of ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary series.

Check out the entire podcast here or to subscribe from this episode ad infinitum, enter http://heinnews.com/feed/taking-the-charge/ into iTunes or any podcast aggregator.

Thanks for listening and talk to you next week!

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On this day/evening of the 85th Academy Awards over in Hollywood, BallinEurope in turn celebrates excellence in basketball-centric films of 2012. Third of the four Oscar (Robertson) Awards to be given here is for the category of Best Television Documentary.

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In tribute/homage/ripoff to that movie-award ceremony thing going on in Los Angeles this evening PST, BallinEurope bestows its own prizes for the best in basketball movies released and/or screened during the year that was — as BiE refers to them, the Oscar (Robertson)s.

Second of the four Oscar (Robertson) Awards for 2012 is the result of a new wrinkle — and a couple of salient reminders of what certain folks have given to the game of basketball. BallinEurope’s new Oscar (Robertson) for Lifetime Achievement in Basketball Movies goes to The Harlem Globetrotters.

Known worldwide for their standing as the winningest franchise of all-time, for their status as international goodwill ambassadors, for serving as the last high-profile barnstorming team in any sport, the Globetrotters have also amassed quite the impressive CV of credits in the movie game as well … at least before the 1980s. For Globetrotters in the mass media, there’s

– Columbia Pictures’ “The Harlem Globetrotters” (1950), a fiction about a baller who drops out of college to join the squad;

– the sequel “Go, Man, Go!” released in 1954;

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Happy new year wishes go out to everyone in online basketball land this evening from BallinEurope and BiE’ll even throw in a gift as bonus: 2013’s first episode in the “Taking the Charge” podcast series hosted over at heinnews.com.

This week, host David Hein and yours truly sit for interviews with Sonny Weems in a return bid to the show. Naturally, Sonny talks lots of CSKA Moscow basketball and why not? BiE increasingly likes the Red Army’s chances at a Euroleague Final Four bid in 2012-13, if not necessarily the triple crown result apparently demanded by very high sources indeed…

(Incidentally, how much did CSKA fans dig their side’s smoking of Anadolu Efes last week. And yes, that’s an excuse to run a highlight clip…)

Chasing Weems is Steve McPherson, a guy with quite an impressive CV compiled through years of covering NBA hoops in general and Minnesota basketball specifically; most recently, he’s writing for the ESPN TrueHoop Network blogs A Wolf Among Wolves and Hardwood Paroxysm among others. McPherson nicely and concisely sums up the Wolves’ woes, assesses their chances for making the playoffs, gives us impressions of each of our Eurowolves (Andrei Kirilenko, Nikola Pekovic, Ricky Rubio) including great reasons to keep watching Alexey Shved.

Then, there’s the “Taking the Charge” weekly sports movie review; this time, the sport is lacrosse, and “Crooked Arrows” is perhaps – a bit surprisingly – the top fiction film of 2012 in the subgenre.

The banter on European and NBA basketball is kept to something of a minimum for this episode, we promise. Check out the entire podcast here. Thanks for listening and talk to you next week.

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As Los Angeles Lakers fandom giddily awaits the possible debut of Mike D’Antoni on the bench tonight and the emergence of the superteam most observers expected, the inevitable whispers are beginning: Yes, Pau Gasol appears to be on some imaginary trading blocks (and perhaps even the actual one) already.

As BallinEurope understands it, the thinking goes something like this: Pau has not performed brilliantly early on this season. He’s at his peak trade value. Literally the only tradable assets beyond Gasol are Metta World Peace and Steve Blake – unless taking a flyer on Chris Duhon or Earl Clark proves irresistible to someone. Dwight Howard should exploit a pick-and-roll game enough so that the Spaniard’s specialized skills aren’t missed too much. And hey, let’s face it, they’ve been trying to deal this guy for quite some time.

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With 13 games to play tonight in the EuroBasket 2013 qualifying round, BallinEurope takes a quick look around the blogosphere regarding a few subplots, storylines and players to watch. We’ll do this in the time-honored tradition of the ESPN TrueHoop Network, i.e. bullet-style.

● Some in the Spurs Nation were enthused with Davis Bertans’ play for Team Latvia against Romania and Adam Hanga for Hungary generally.

● Team Israel’s Yogev Ohayon is playing like he did in high school…

● …while Guy Pnini “defended his performance” in the first three games by nailing a clutch three in his side’s upset of Serbia, though the woeful shooting continued with a 1-of-5 line.

● After Jonas Jerebko, Detroit Pistons fans will also want to keep an eye out for Slava Kravtsov, described as “dominant” for Team Ukraine against Hungary – after all, team executives are.

● Speaking of Jerebko, *still* no word on whether he’ll be suiting up for tonight’s home game against Bulgaria, but Team Sweden head coach Bradley Dean asserts that “we have no excuses and we don’t want any.”

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In hopes that the Rudy Fernandez flop in the Spain vs. USA gold-medal game goes viral, here’s a soon-to-be-meme of ol’ Rudy demonstrating his skills in the video game medium courtesy Ali Traore. Brilliant stuff.

And for comparison’s sake, here’s the actual melodramatic-unto-artistic flop itself, which as Beckley Mason of ESPN TrueHoop notes “was worthwhile for Fernandez and Spain. By drawing an intentional, rather than a common foul, Fernandez converted a loose ball into two free throws and possession…” Not to mention inducing several million heart attacks among the USA faithful.

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While we’re a little ways away from actually awarding medals for 2012 Olympic basketball, the first round showed international hoops fans quite a lot. Though the fat lady hasn’t sung yet, reputations have changed over the past five games to cause some individual and/or teams losses beyond these Olympics. BallinEurope today takes a look at those whose stock has risen and those who’ve fallen in the early going of the London Games.

Rising
• Lebron James. Yeah, like this guy needs a further upward trend in his already all-time lofty-looking career. Four years ago, ESPN’s Bill Simmons proclaimed (correctly, in BiE’s opinion) that in 2008 ‘Games crunch time, “everyone deferred to Kobe, who made some monster plays to clinch it. Know that in the history of the NBA we have never had the best-player-alive argument resolved so organically.” In 2012, King James has proven himself to be the best player on the best team in this Olympic tournament.

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Though not actually about European basketball, last night’s USA 86, Argentina 80 pre-Olympic friendly result leads BallinEurope to put forth a few talking points from the notebook (and highlight clips, of course)…

• Perhaps slightly flawed as a whole, the truth is that Team USA still has the best three players in the world right now in Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and Lebron James. The opening 16-1 run was indicative of what this trio is capable. Eschewing playing any sort of serious inside game at all in the first 10 minutes, KD and Kobe teed off enough to outscore the entire Argentine side, 22-16; Lebron meanwhile controlled the D.

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2011-12: The year of Spanoulis?

1. The 2011-12 Euroleague season:
a) was one of the greatest ever
b) was the greatest ever
c) proved Jordi Bertomeu’s contention that “we don’t need NBA imports to be a top-quality competition”
d) was awesome, but man, i’m jonesing. When does the season start?

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