BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Thinking it over...

From the What A Difference A Year Makes Department, word is spreading that a European team is courting the still-unemployed Allen Iverson – except with a significant comedown in both prestige and pay from last year’s ballyhooed offer from Olympiacos.

The suitor this year would be Beşiktaş Cola Turka, a Eurocup contender, at a rate of $2 million for one season: all in all, quite a far cry from playing in Greece at the rumored Josh Childress-level wages.

Both Yahoo Sports and ESPN are reporting that a contract was sent to Iverson on Monday and that A.I. agent Gary Moore is “in very serious negotiations with [Beşiktaş].”

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Since BallinEurope’s Official Power Rankings were so, um, popular during the FIBA World Championships, today we’re kicking off the same schtick for the upcoming Euroleague campaign.

The rules, again: These rankings are basically purely subjective (at this point; once the games are played, actual wins and losses will be figured in) but are based loosely on last season’s performance, Euroleague seedings before the draw, transactions made in the offseason, and performances in preseason games. (Olympiacos fans, you might want to look away right now.)

Today, the EL according to BiE looks something like the following.

1. FC Barcelona – Early on, it looks like business as usual for the side that dominated European club basketball in 2009-10 (well, until that gnarly showing in the ACB Finals, that is). In the off-season, Barça mostly stood pat while adding “only” Kosta Perovic; this weekend, the Blaugrana pummeled Euroleague contenders Real Madrid and Power Electronics Valencia by 172-118 to cruise to the Spanish Super Cup. Perhaps *this* will be the year Barcelona takes a quadruple cup, eh?

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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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Fernandez brings more intrigue...

For readers of Greek out there, Sport.gr is running an interesting piece on the subject of available big-name free agents, comparing the ACB to the EΣAKE and Team Spain to Team Greece while taking a hard look at the possibility of top names playing with Panathinaikos or Olympiacos for 2010-11.

Beginning with the premise that in the last 10 years, no Spanish international has ever played Greece’s top league, Sport.gr first blames the relative paucity of the Greek economy in recent years (those Angelopoulos boys notwithstanding). However, as BiE once postulated, entering contract discussions at this time of year is the incipient violence at certain matches – particularly Reds vs. Greens.

Josh Childress recently gave his thorough take on the incident in the Greek League finals to Arizona media, culminating in the punchline “One of my buddies got hit by a bottle full of urine and [feces], basically.”

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Crazy, but amazingly perfect. ESPN.com, among others, is reporting that not only have the Phoenix Suns acquired Hedo Turkoglu via trade with the Toronto Raptors, but that a sign-and-trade with the Atlanta Hawks has been worked out for Olympiacos’ Josh Childress.

Leandro Barbosa would be sent to the Raptors in pretty much a straight-up trade, while Childress’ Hawks-cum-Suns contract is good for $30 million over five years.

The interesting subplot here, as Ric Bucher pointed out, is that of Lon Babby. Babby is Turkoglu’s current agent, Childress’ former representative and currently considered to be the top candidate for the Suns’ open president position.

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To where will Childress fly?

In wake of the exodus from Olympiacos – we’re talking the incipient departures (of relative likelihood) Linas Kleiza, Josh Childress, and Sofoklis Schortsanitis – the Reds are looking to fill some roster holes with lots of cash still in the Angelopouloses’ pockets able to be paid.

According to Greek media, the names Olympiacos are currently pursuing right now include Team Australia’s David Andersen (who played for the Houston Rockets last season) and Matt Nielsen (Valencia); Omar Cook (Unicaja Malaga); Mirza Teletovic (Caja Laboral Baskonia); and Minnesota Timberwolves Draft Day acquisition Nemanja Bjelica (Red Star Belgrade).

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Déjà vu in 2010-11?

Oh boy, it’s the first big Eurocentric rumor of the 2010-11 season! According to TalkBasket.net and a few other sources, Olympiacos has informed Josh Childress that the club would like him not be to re-up with the Reds in his option year. One wonders if this information was passed on before or after Tuesday’s announcement that Childress had been named to the EΣAKE all-league team.

On Thursday, the Atlanta Hawks put in their qualifying order to Childress, thereby giving him the status of restricted free agent and allowing the Hawks to match any offer made to their one-time forward.

So what will Childress do? The rumors say he’ll be going to the Washington Wizards, actually, who are hot to make an offer for the man. Unless they’re not. But maybe they are.

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Congratulations go out from BallinEurope this morning to Panathinaikos, who overcame a crowd which redefined the word “hostile” to beat rival Olympiacos, 76-69, and take the EΣAKE championship series for the eighth consecutive season.

Still incensed by numerous controversial calls going the Greens’ way in game three of the championship series, Olympiacos fans were at near riot pitch from the opening tip.

Said near-riot broke out halfway through the third quarter when the Reds called a timeout at 50-42. Various incendiary devices were thrown in the area of the Panathinaikos bench, some with amazing accuracy. See right around 2.55 of the following video for the insanity.

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More than a shocker and well into slap-in-the-face territory was game one of the EΣAKE championship series, where hometown Panathinaikos took care of all business in dispatching Olympiacos, 73-54.

Though BallinEurope did not see the match and knows empirically that games should never be judged on the stat line, one number still stands out like Gheorghe Muresan at a “Tiny Town” cast reunion (even in Greek): Check out Olympiacos going 0-for-23 from beyond the arc.

Indeed, after watching these guys’ act in the Euroleague tournament and a bit from the Greek league playoffs, the numbers seem inconceivable. There’s Josh Childress, so deadly quick to the hole throughout 2009-10 it’s like he *gained* a step went 3-for-5 on two-pointers. And jacked up four misses from outside plus went just 1-for-4 on free throws.

Big award winners Milos Teodosic and Linas Kleiza managed just nine shots between them on the inside. At least Kleiza gave up the body properly, getting 11 shots from the free-throw line to compensate for his overall 2-of-9 on field goals. So many questions … like, how did Scoonie Penn get 31 minutes of playing time while shooting 1-of-7? (Garbage time? After all, no one on Olympiacos accumulated more than three fouls.) What happened to the Reds’ Mr. Clutch, Theo Papaloukas?

The Greens’ side of the box score doesn’t give too much hardcore information, either, other than they brought a seriously well-balanced attack: Mike Batiste and Antonis Fotsis each scored 13 points plus contributed eight and five rebounds, respectively. Kostas Tsartsaris and Nikola Pekovic added 10 apiece.

So how did it happen? For answers, BiE went to the ‘Tube.

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The Invisible Man

They say that no one has ever bought a ticket to a sports event in order to see an executive but with two weeks of American and European basketball club owners hogging sports page headlines, BallinEurope got to thinking about these moneyed celebrity types who run the teams we watch … and the often disturbing lure of the public eye that can bring out the worst in a showboating billionaire.

To define categorize ‘em all from Cuban to Romanov – and with Larry Ellison, would-be owner of the Golden State Warriors, firmly in mind – BiE presents the Six Types of Team Owner.

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