BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

As just nine days remain until Eurobasket 2011 tips off in Lithuania, BallinEurope today takes a look back at the performances of the two dozen teams slated to compete in the big tournament and deploys some good old power rankings – and lotsa highlight clips from friendlies and tourneys played throughout The Continent.

Once again, a reminder to readers: These ratings are based only on how the teams are trending and are no indication of prognostication for Eurobasket. (The BallinEurope Fearless Predictions™ will be released soon enough…)

1. Spain – Yes, they lost to Lithuania in the grand opening of Kauno Arena, but BiE is sticking with Team Spain in the top spot. As defending Eurobasket champions, this team is chasing history and public perception has them on the rise, i.e. “El rival de España en el Eurobasket es España.” Plus, the side got back on track in tournament warmups, dispatching Slovenia on Sunday despite shooting 2-of-10 on threes and under 66% (21-of-32) from the free-throw line.

2. Greece – What controversy? Team Greece is up to their old tricks in European play – with or without Ioannis Bourousis and Sofoklis Schortsanitis – going 3-0 at the BEKO Supercup tournament over Turkey, Belgium and Germany; earning a like mark against Russia, Israel and Poland in the European Basketball Tour 2011 in Cyprus; and finishing 2-1 in the Trofeo Tassoni against Bosnia & Herzegovina, Italy and Poland. This is an interesting Greek team, with more of an emphasis on speed than in recent years, but they look just as good early on.

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Rumor has it that across the ocean, this basketball league called the NBA is about to begin its playoffs. With the 2010-11 regular season behind us, BallinEurope takes a present-and-future look at the playoff-bound Europeans in the American league series by series, together with musings, meanderings, YouTube clips and those Fearless Predictions™. Today: the Western Conference matchups.

Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Denver Nuggets
Could it be that someone in the Oklahoma City front office just lost faith in Nenad Krstic? The Serbian was dealt in a second when Kendrick Perkins arrived; now the Thunder has the huge presences of Perkins – now armed with reputation as clutch playoff performer – and Serge Ibaka plus Tibor Pleiß waiting in the wings. Meanwhile, BiE anticipates the possibility of another throwdown between Krstic and Sofoklis Schortsanitis in Eurobasket…

The real European plus for OK City in 2010-11 was Thabo Sefolosha. Averaging between 20 and 30 minutes per game depending on roster health, the pride of Switzerland enters the playoffs shooting 58.3% for April – could Sefolosha be the Goran Dragic of this year’s tournament?

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With the 2010-11 NBA season tipping off tonight, BallinEurope marks the occasion in the best way possible: By overrating the league’s Continental players and making a few offhand Fearless Predictions™ in the guise of a preview column.

Brief notes and snarky remarks on all 25 NBA teams follow. (Yes, BiE said “all 25.” Since the Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, Indiana Pacers, and Los Angeles Clippers boasts no Europeans, they can’t really be considered proper NBA teams for our Eurocentric viewpoint.

Southwest Division
Some folks are calling the 2010-11 edition of the Dallas Mavericks its strongest team ever; it’s also a pretty good Team France embryo, with Ian Mahinmi, Alexis Ajinca, and last year’s sensation Rodrigue Beaubois helping make up Dirk Nowitzki’s posse. Unfortunately, the Western Conference may be tougher than Western Europe this year…

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Parker leads 11 French NBAers

With NBA teams starting to get warmed up for the regular season tipoff, BallinEurope figured it high time to take stock of the European players prospectively set to take the court in America for 2010-11.

In considering the expanded rosters for each of the 30 NBA teams, BiE counted 50 players from The Continent plus one free agent. The asterisk here is Linas Kleiza, who carries an American passport and in fact has played organized ball in the ‘States since high school, but hey: He’s a Team Lithuania guy, so he makes this list.

A country-by-country tally produces some interesting results. France again leads all non-U.S. nations in supplying players. In fact, had Yakhouba Diawara not taken his talents out of South Beach in favor of Italia Serie A’s New Basket Brindisi, the ineffable signing of Papa Sy would have given La Republique a potential full roster of 12 NBA players.

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The Prize

Now that noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has announced God’s non-existence in our universe through mathematics, maybe he can start working on explaining the FIBA tie-breaking procedure.

No, no, don’t start on BiE; it’s as easy as dialing up Wikipedia to find the steps in determining seeding for tournament play: Placement is determined based on, in order, game results between tied teams; scoring average between games of the tied teams; scoring average for all games of tied teams; drawing of lots.

Nice and neat it may be, but empirically this definition falls short. Seriously somebody should explain to BiE how/why France ends up in the fourth seed in Group D (and with the unfortunate fate of drawing home Turkey in round one) when they clearly whupped Spain’s butts early? How/why does Team China, a team that’s seemingly won one game in all of 2010, advance over Puerto Rico who not only beat China in the preliminaries but also outscored and surrendered fewer points than either of the other two squads involved in the tiebreaker?

Ah, whatever. Here’s the way BallinEurope might have seeded the tournament, based firstly on record and thereafter on momentum – after five games, at least we’ve got that objective criteria.

1. USA, 5-0. Is there any doubt that Kevin Durant will, at some point in his career, be called The Best Player in the World? That outrageous amounts of big guys aren’t necessarily life-or-death in an international tournament? That Kevin Love, thanks to his hard work and exposure, will be the most popular Minnesota Timberwolf next season? That we should finally stop calling these guys “The B-deem Team”? Answers: No, maybe a little yet, absolutely not, and yes please.

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Scene from the Summer of Love

Who had Germany to win in a nail-biter over Serbia in the 2010 FIBA World Championship game last night? That’s right: BallinEurope, baby! As Sidney Deane once said, “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m the greatest.” (Of course, we’ll not be discussing the performance of Team France, who followed up the stunning win over Spain with an impressive 27-point immolation of … never mind.)

BiE went 21-3 over the course of days one and two; here’s to hoping the trend continues with BallinEurope’s official Fearless Predictions™for today’s six-pack of games.

We’ll dispense with three must-miss games in brief. In terms of blowout, the only question is whether the damage Argentina does in beating up on hapless Angola tonight will top Serbia’s certain smoking of Jordan. All things considered, that three-game suspension of Nenad Krstic was quite the wrist-slap indeed: Assuming a win today, the realistic worst-case scenario for Team Serbia in the first games has happened and the team sits at 2-1.

As for Tunisia-Iran and the battle for Group B impotency, BiE picks Iran. Bonus prediction: This game will set the mark for lowest attendance in this tournament.

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Right. It’s time for the final edition – pending Nenad Krstic’s prospective suspension by FIBA – of BallinEurope’s 2010 FIBA World Championship power rankings. Now that Team USA has had it out with Spain and Greece, we can see the picture a little more clearly heading into the tournament tipping off Saturday. There’s a clear upper tier of USA, Spain, Greece and Argentina who can start thinking “podium” now; Serbia might also be included, again pending the Krstic decision.

But while the cream again rises to the top, question marks, dark horses and possible upsets well remain. Who doesn’t like how Germany’s rounding into shape? Or the Whole-Greater-Than-Sum-Of-Parts aspect to Team Lithuania? Or (for those paying attention) the possibilities of Lebanon…?

Without further ado, here’s BiE’s measurement of the trends going into the weekend. Enjoy (well, except for you Canada fans)!

1. (↑) USA. U-S-A! U-S-A! But seriously, the Red-White-and-Blues’ fans have got to be loving the performance of their guys last night against Greece, dominating all facets of the game – especially in the halfcourt, where BiE reckoned they’d be especially vulnerable. Good win for the U.S. Even if Hellas was coming without Ioannis Bourousis and Sofoklis Schortsanitis. Even if Kostas Tsartsaris exposed Lamar Odom and the rest as inadequate to play underneath against the bigger teams. Even if BiE still believes Spain will give them game in the semi-finals … is there a position 1½?

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See, BiE secretly knew this would happen … you break down, make a few fearless predictions online and bam! The inconvenient fact of a loss – two losses in fact, one particularly egregious – goes down and you suddenly have to rework the whole damn post on 2010 FIBA World Championship power rankings.

In the egregious loss previously referenced, the proclamation that Team Canada would “surprise a few people” proved prophetic, but not in the way assumed. Over a squad that FIBA was forced to label a “Canadian developmental team” did Spain romp for a final score of 84-38. Those who’ve doubted the star power of Team Spain can note Felipe Reyes, Rudy Fernandez and Carlos Suarez all going for double-figures in limited team plus probably with one arm tied behind their backs.

And Team Slovenia was no doubt downloading BallinEurope’s original power rankings to use as fodder to beat up on Australia, 71-60. No depth, judged BiE? “Ha!” responded the Slovenes, who brought Sani Becirovic to put up 20 points and unleashed The Dragon for Goran Dragic to add 13. (BiE told you the Aussies would never get above no. 10 for the remainder of the tournament.)

Ah no matter … we knew these things were flexible, right? Plus, BallinEurope gets to splash a big “updated” across the post, like a real cutting-edge producer of news and opinion. BallinEurope’s official 2010 FIBA World Championship Power Rankings run below the break.

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As BallinEurope closes the book on the 2009-10 basketball season, it’s time to take stock of the year that was with the clarity of history. Without further ado, let’s retrospect on the top 10 Eurocentric basketball stories of the season.

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BallinEurope’s official YouTube of the week? Not even close: It’s easily this video paean to the immortal Sasha “The Machine” Vujacic from the mad geniuses over at Lakers-Fan.com.

Who says Laker fans hate Sasha?

Everyone know Machine is king of Slovenia!

(Click continue reading to witness 48 seconds of poetry and, um, highlights.)

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