BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Surely to no one’s surprise, Gazzetta dello Sport gave its prestigious Euroscar Player of the Year Award to Dirk Nowitzki, he of the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks. Clearly the favorite to take FIBA Europe’s equivalent award, the Mav was bestowed with the honor on the same night he collected his bling-bling title ring in Dallas.

Enrico Cellini has gathered a few choice quotes from la Gazzetta’s interview with Nowitzki, including the German’s thoughts on his favorite Italian player, meeting Angela Merkel and topping Arvydas Sabonis.

On January 27, Dirk Nowitzki did not play for the Mavericks against the Minnesota Timberwolves but still brought home two interesting souvenirs from American Air Center. As you are reading BallinEurope, you don’t probably care too much about the diamond-encrusted $40K NBA championship ring (courtesy of Mark Cuban) that Dirk received in a touching ceremony (courtesy of Rick Carlisle), do you? Instead, what’s worth reporting about that night is the fact that Wunder Dirk also received the Europlayer 2011 award, an acknowledgement assigned by Italian Gazzetta dello Sport to the best European basketball player of the season.

You may see the ceremony here.

All right, so it wasn’t quite as dramatic as the ring ceremony but still …

Gazzetta dello Sport later published in its printed version an interview with Nowitzki, in which Würzburg’s finest touched on several topics.

Said Dirk on the loss in the 2005-06 NBA Finals to the Miami Heat: “That experience actually helped me – it made me improve: Now I handle the fourth quarter with more intelligence.”

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In hopes of capitalizing on recent success in FIBA tournament play, the burgeoning women’s basketball program in Armenia may be able to add a pair of college ballers from the diaspora currently enjoying some success in the U.S. in the college ranks.

Kate Kevorken is playing her senior year with the University of Nevada, producing nicely for the Wolfpack after cracking the starting lineup in her second season with the program. The two guard bagged her first Western Athletic Conference player of the week award on December 19 thanks to a 25-point (including the game-winner), 11-rebound show against Oregon. Ten days later, “The Encyclopedia” broke her personal scoring mark with 27 points in a losing effort to Mississippi State.

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Just days ago, Peja Stojakovic appeared to be a viable free agent for an NBA team with roster holes, a still-deadly long-range assassin at the age of 34, a 19-year veteran with gas enough in the tank for late-game daggers and smart D, a prototypical European baller with an American championship pedigree. “Couldn’t he drain a few 3s for a contender?” rhetorically asked hoops sage Bill Simmons last Friday.

Alas, it was not to be. The Serbian sharpshooter will not be part of the Dallas Mavericks’ quest to repeat as NBA champions, announcing his retirement from professional basketball late Monday night. Citing injuries to his neck and back, Stojakovic decided his physical struggles were “a wakeup call” for him to leave the game at this point.

On the plus side, Peja has the privilege of going out on top, in 2011 not only topping his seeming long-time personal rivals the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA playoffs, but also finally earning the ring which had eluded him for a dozen seasons ‘Stateside.

Today BallinEurope pays tribute to the gold-medal winning, NBA title having, future FIBA Hall of Fame nod achieving legend in the traditional fashion … let’s go to the ‘Tube!

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BallinEurope just loves season- and year-ending polls, and every December FIBA Europe offers hoops devotees the opportunity to participate in the naming the Continent’s Players of The Year. And while the winner of the award for 2011 – a.k.a. the Year of Dirk – is surely a no-brainer, the FIBA ballot calls for electors to award a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place vote from among 10 nominees; BiE is finding that no. 3 spot a real mind-bender. If someone can provide a nice salient argument for the final spot, that person will have BiE’s undying admiration.

The process of elimination went the following way, in reverse order of finish, and garnishing with highlight clips.

10. Dimitris Diamantidis, Panathinaikos. Yes, Double-D was the Euroleague MVP and the Euroleague Final Four MVP for 2010-11. Yes, he thus established himself as one of the five or six greatest of the EL modern era. But Diamantidis did not play any international ball, whereas all other nine nominees participated in Eurobasket 2011 and most where instrumental to their team’s successes. Dimitris simply has the shortest CV of a very talented ten.

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Deron who?

Okay, so BallinEurope wouldn’t go that far; after all, we’re talking about a player of retired-jersey status here. Regardless, Beşiktaş Milangaz began the post-Deron Williams Era with a 77-75 win at Armia in FIBA Eurochallenge play, thanks to a David Hawkins jumper in the waning seconds…

Official FIBA writeup follows.

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Now *this* is what Beşiktaş Milangaz fans have been waiting for: In the Eagles’ third FIBA Eurochallenge game of the 2011-12 season, expensive NBA lockout signing Deron Williams emphatically displayed his NBA skills against BG Göttingen last night, going for a career high (and BiE believes all-time Eurochallenge) 50 points in his side’s 105-94 victory; by BiE’s calculations, Williams’ effort represented a 49-point player index rating.

[Update: Talk Basket is running a list of all players with point totals of 36 or more in a Eurochallenge game since the league was formed in 2003. As it turns out, the all-time high to this point was 39, a mark shared by Fernando San Emeterio, then of CB Girona, and Svendborg Rabbits' Johnell Smith. Williams has, no matter how the NBA lockout turns out, left a mark on European basketball that will remain for quite some time, it seems.]

Göttingen simply had no answers for the New Jersey Net, allowing him to go 17-of-23 from the floor, including a 7-of-10 performance on three-pointers; stated the German side’s coach Stefan Mienack in the post-game: “We played against one of the elite teams of Europe. They’re absolute contenders for the title and they have great players. It’s so hard to win agaınst a team in which Deron Wıllıams plays for.”

Check out the video below for a highlight clip stuff with Williams’ relentless attacking; the Violets’ backcourt of Dale Lewis, Kyle Bailey, Paris Horne et al will certainly be suffering nightmares for months. Official FIBA writeup follows the clip.

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BallinEurope sends out hearty congratulations to Serbian great Vlade Divac on his nomination for possible entry into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s “Class of 2012.”

While Divac may be known as a famous trivia answer (“Who was traded for Kobe Bryant?”) or by the dreaded “F-word” (i.e. “flopper” as used in – really – this Los Angeles Times blog entry detailing the story of Vlade’s honor), this nomination shows a lifetime of accomplishment on the basketball court. Heck, in the NBA alone, Divac topped 13,000 points, 9000 rebounds, 3000 assists and 1500 blocked shots over 16 seasons. And then there were those “Dream Team” years with Team Yugoslavia and the glorious early days with KK Partizan in the 1980s, highlighted by Korać Cup titles and Divac’s “Mr. Europa” trophy.

Today, BallinEurope pays tribute to a personal favorite on the occasion in the best way possible: With a YouTube-laden rundown of his long and memorable career! Check out Divac’s progress through turns with Partizan Belgrade, the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings, the “Dream Team” Yugoslavian squads, and of course KK Crvena Zvezda during the 1999 NBA player lockout…

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Denmark is one rarely associated with great basketball; indeed, the men’s national team is ranked no. 111 in the current FIBA standings, putting them well behind basketball powers such as Liberia and Togo.

Despite it all, suggests Tom Schad in the Copenhagen Post Online, “Denmark could become world beaters in basketball.” Citing the examples of Tony Parker, Dirk Nowitzki and Yao Ming, Schad argues that it only takes “one great player to give a country hope” in its national basketball program, and “For Denmark, maybe that player is about to arrive.”

That would be Anton Larsen, currently with Old Dominion University.

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All right, time for more speculation. To wit: Which European team could be most in need of a locked-out point guard itching to play some minutes?

The CV of the player in question includes turns on the gold-medal Team USA of the FIBA Americas U18 Championship in addition to performances in the Nike Hoop Summit, the McDonald’s All-American Game, and the Jordan Brand Classic – all in 2010. Beyond these, he’s got about a half-season with Duke University under his belt with a stat line including 17.4 points and 5.1 assists per game.

We’re talking about no less than Australian-American Kyrie Irving here, the no. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft currently on lockout and getting frustrated. Today, on yet another day of reckoning for labor relations in the big league, the former Blue Devil tweeted:

“if a deal doesn’t get done soon … overseas here i come”

Well, we’ll welcome you, Kyrie. And, just to get things started, BiE understands Virtus Bologna may have some money to throw around…

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Though Team FYR Macedonia eliminated hosts Lithuania from the 2011 EuroBasket tournament in mid-September, a certain amount of talk-trashing about the match continues in the blogosphere.

Yesterday, FIBA was forced to do a bizarre bit of damage control after Lithuanian media – specifically, who else but powerhouse club sponsor Lietuvos Rytas? – reported that two players competing in EuroBasket had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs; the piece quoted representatives from the Lithuanian Anti-Doping Agency stated abnormalities had been found and that further testing would have to be done by FIBA on the samples of the two players.

FIBA Europe was quick to deny any such claims, however, soon releasing the following tersely-worded statement on the subject:

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