BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Olympiacos shrugged off both history and the Dimitris Diamantidis-Mike Batiste duo last night in taking game three of the Greek League championship series over rivals Panathinaikos, 84-72. With a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series, the Reds are poised to take its first domestic league title since 1997; historians will of course note that ’97 marked Olympiacos’ last Euroleague championship until 2012 – and a string of six consecutive runner-up finishes could be broken.

The Reds got out to a 7-0 lead which expanded to 20-8 within the first quarter and ballooned to a 78-55 advantage in the fourth quarter before Olympiacos took feet off the pedal. Individually speaking, several Oly players contributed memorable performances: Euroleague heroes Vassilis Spanoulis and Giorgios Printezis were good for 31 points together while Marko Keselj added 10. Joey Dorsey grabbed eight offensive rebounds in snagging a game-high nine boards overall.

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Sonny Weems: Lithuania's top import in 2011-12

Below, then, runs four all-star squads based on play in this season’s edition of the big league; for convenience and competition’s (rather than geopolitics’) sake, players from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and FYR Macedonia will be virtually suiting up for the “former Yugoslavia” team.

Right, so who wins this tournament…?

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Printezis: Hero of the day

This is how things have worked throughout history: From crises emerge heroes. And heroes create the losers. Sometimes underdogs have more advantages simply because they have nothing to lose. It’s not unusual that we see situations like a 10-man football team winning against a stronger side. Sometimes having options confuses minds, creates problems in concentration and ambiguity in methodology. Those who have no real options perhaps have just one way and they become focused on the goal, which brings about greater optimization and efficiency.

I was thinking like this before the match: “If CSKA wins, there will be not many stories but in case of Olympiacos winning, there will be a variety of options in exposing the classical underdog story with many different perspectives. I hope Olympiacos wins.”

The day before the Euroleague final, I was at Abdi İpekci Hall to see some action in the Nike International Junior Tournament. There I saw Stevislav Pesic, also one of the greatest coaches in European basketball, the man who famously brought a European title to both Germany and Alba Berlin, who were real underdogs. I thought that it would be a great idea to take some predictions from him. Said Pesic: “I was not suprised when Olympiakos won against Barcelona, because Barcelona changed its game this year and were somewhat inconsistent throughout the season, whereas Olympiakos improved much compared to the beginning of the season.”

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You gotta admit, the quote makes a good headline; 2009-10 Euroleague MVP and starting CSKA Moscow playmaker Milos Teodosic is actually showing a bit of modesty to go along with the well of confidence The Red Army squad must be feeling.

In reference to CSKA’s upcoming Euroleague Final Four match with Panathinaikos, Teodosic told media that his counterpart Dimitris Diamantidis will be the focus of the Moscow defense, but the side needn’t become obsessed with stopping DD.

“We can’t put him on a pedestal ahead of Panathinaikos’ other players, like [Mike] Batiste or [Sarunas] Jasikevicius.”

Teodosic knows: In CSKA’s two regular-season matchups with PAO in the Euroleague regular season, keeping Batiste and Jasikevicius at bay proved the difference in both games. In the week four OT match, Saras was limited to just six points while harassed into five turnovers, and Andrei Kirilenko’s block of Batiste when the scoreboard read 75-75 in overtime was the hidden key play of the game.

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Yes, but *should* they be celebrating?

Well, Uygar Karaca may convince believers otherwise. In the first of a two-part series for BallinEurope.com, Karaca flips through the pages of recent EuroChallenge history to reveal the success – or lack thereof – championship clubs have experienced directly following a title bid. Hint: It’s pretty bleak stuff after 2004. Sorry, Beşiktaş…

Winning a competition, especially on the Continental level, is a great achievement. However, titles come with a price. When success exposes players to the market, for example, clubs with better offers take the stars away. Alternatively, in order to get a trophy, clubs sometimes spend more than they can afford, which triggers the process of eventual financial collapse.

In this article, I tried to see whether winning the FIBA EuroChallenge tournament signals brighter days for the club or rather indicates a peak with the way forward pointing downward. Continue Reading…

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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Right, so here’s a dunk of the week candidate for you. Former Western Kentucky Hilltopper and current rookie Sergio Kerusch got, like, 20 feet of air while posterizing Kyle Hines badly for his Aris Thessaloniki against Olympiacos on Sunday night.

Though Kerusch’s jam gave the underdog visitors a 44-43 lead going into halftime, the Euroleague side eked out the 71-70 victory to put the Reds at 6-1 atop the EƩAKE table. With the loss, Aris is just 1½ games above last-place Maroussi BC at 1-5.

Moment of gravity-defying glory runs below.

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Tonight will see another edition of The Continent’s traditionally most insane of all derby matches in Athens as Panathinaikos hosts Olympiacos at 7pm local time (6pm CET; noon EST). European basketball fans have come to know what to expect from whichever side of fans packs the house for a Greens vs. Reds war, namely this just for starters…

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Mark another player down as, shall we say, somewhat disillusioned with the European basketball experience … and this one’s coming from the ladies’ side.

Joanna Barnes, currently playing with the PAOK Women’s team, blew off some steam in that favorite 21st-century virtual venting arena, Twitter. Tweeted Barnes this morning:

A part of me wants to say F bball, b/c of the under payment & the b/s the put you through for it. #frustrated

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In a ceremony to mark the opening of the 2011-12 professional basketball season in Greece, Olympiacos GM Christos Stavropoulos rather bit the hand that feeds him a bit in making some rather harsh allegations – okay, implications – about official favoritism given his club’s chief rivals Panathinaikos.

“These days, our country is passing through difficult times, but basketball could be an exception. We can all offer a nice show and decent product to our fans,” stated Stavropoulos, adding the proviso that such can only be accomplished “if the rules are applied to all.”

Without actually naming the target of his allegations, Stavropoulos publicly mused, “I wonder how an entire year passes [for a team] without a league drug test. I wonder how they spent an entire season without the decisions of sports bodies announced. And I hope this year is different.”

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