Sofoklis!
This week’s three minutes of fun features Jamont Gordon totally giving up the body, an emphatic rejection from D’Or Fischer, Juan Carlos Navarro looking a little like Steve Nash without the pass, Bo McCalebb going up about 200 feet for the jam, but most of all BallinEurope’s main man Sofoklis Schortsanitis passing like a guard in what was the big guy’s most dominant show since Greece took care of Team USA’s mostly nonexistent inside game back in the 2006 FIBA Worlds…
BiE supposes the only suspense with this award this year was how close things would get and who placed second. So, after the ho-hum announcement that Pau Gasol was chosen FIBA Europe Men’s Player of the Year for a second consecutive time, we today know the answers. In order, then: Not very close at all, and Dirk Nowitzki.
Nowitzki finished second in the final tabulation with a 0.078 rating against Gasol’s mark of 0.335; Milos Teodosic was third at 0.050. The public saw things a little differently than the experts, however, with Nowitzki just fourth in the popular vote, with The Dastardly One topped by Marcin Gortat (who finished 12th overall) and Erazem Lorbek (5th overall). Meanwhile, fourth-place overall finisher Vassilis Spanoulis got no respect from the voters, earning just enough ballots to place 14th with the crowd. (And you thought NBA All-Star Game voting was weird!)
Check out the final standings as per FIBA’s calculations, with the players’ finish in the popular vote for the award in parentheses following.
Archibald: The Boss pins hopes on mate
Hello, everybody, and greetings from Euroleague headquarters! This is Javier Gancedo of Euroleague.net, ready to give you all some thoughts about our very own Sporting Bet Euroleague Fantasy Challenge – with just four rounds to go in the competition.
First and foremost, what an exciting Top 16 this is! If anyone had thought that CSKA Moscow, Olympiacos, Partizan and Asseco Prokom would be the four undefeated teams after two rounds, nobody would have believed him. The Top 16 has provided surprises, excitement, incredible action and outstanding drama. The NBA would *kill* to have all this in mid-February: that which makes us strong. Euroleague – and also Eurocup – competitions are as exciting as they can be, and everything will get better from now on. Every single game counts. From now on, every single basket will be decisive in most games…
As for fantasy basketball … well, I had an OK week, I guess. My team Meet the Boss ranks 508th overall, is in fourth place in the BallinEurope Invitational Challenge, but I can only finish second overall because our good man Eurofootball is unstoppable. I have been second in the previous two editions of this Ball in Europe private league.
BiE's Holden a spot on the ballot for J.R.
The waffling is over! After a couple of weeks of mulling over the field of 50 candidates for ten spots on the Euroleague All-Decade Team, the final decision has been made (and whoo, was that painful) and the ballot submitted. The following, then, is how the official BallinEurope ballot for the 2010s all-stars, along with some of the thought process a la Euroleague Fantasy Boss Javier Gancedo, ended up.
Four choices were obvious:
• Sarunas Jasikevicius,
• Juan Carlos Navarro,
• Dejan Bodiroga, and
• Theo Papaloukas. BiE reckons that membership on Dream Team Europe (first inclusion or no) and/or the official BallinEurope All-Decade All-European Team gets you onto the Euroleague All-Decade squad.
Vujosevic: Among the best. Really.
It’s time for the look back at the wacky Euroleague week that was with Francesco Cappelletti. This week, BallinEurope’s man in Italy examines messing with rotations in Olympiacos and Unicaja; praises Partizan for the potential blueprint win over FC Barcelona; and chides the narcissistic defending champions for their shameful general laziness.
No instant replay, Partizan wins
The rule says that, when the buzzer sounds, the ball is no longer playable. This was the reason for the theatrical scene in Belgrade, wherein instant replay helped coaches and referees solve a risky situation. Pete Mickeal went with the hook shot over Slavko Vranes at the end of the overtime, and Lawrence Roberts swept the ball away from the rim. If the ball was over the rim, referees must make a goaltending call and Regal FC Barcelona credit for the (unmade) basket and the away win. But the ball was considered not fully over the rim, so Roberts’ action was legal.
Luckily, Partizan won. They deserved it. One week after having beaten Panathinaikos in Athens, the Serbian boys stopped the best team in Europe and made them play like no other had before. Dule Vujosevic can really aspire to stand on the podium of European coaches alongside Ettore Messina and Zelimir Obradovic, not only for his ability to develop young prospects in a hurry but also for his tactical knowledge: This week’s game was an example of how a coach can influence a game closed in the forecasts.
Pekovic: The Boss' buddy
Hello everybody, this is once again Javier Gancedo, as always from Euroleague Basketball. Well, it was not a bad fantasy week for my team, Meet The Boss. I scored 166.2 points, moved up into the Top 600 overall, was the best team this week in the BallinEurope Invitational Challenge private league and now rank fifth in the global standings. Things could be worse, after all.
This will be an outstanding Top 16 week. First of all, we have Maccabi hosting Madrid, which is a hell of a game by all means; this marks the 40th showdown between both teams in European club competitions (all in the Euroleague, unless I’m mistaken). Then we have Zalgiris-CSKA and Partizan-Regal FCB with strong basketball atmospheres: Big games all over the continent! In other words, if you are a Euroleague fan, it’s time to sit back and enjoy an outstanding basketball week. Of course, if you are a diehard fan of any of the 16 teams alive in the competition, you won’t sit back and relax. It’s all part of what’s known around here as DEVOTION.
Navarro: Gran Canaria's nightmare
Guess FC Barcelona does have that “killer instinct” after all.
Just three days after head coach Xavi Pascual called out his team a bit for lacking “el instinto asesino” following a “mere” ten-point win over Maroussi BC and a week after Valencia brought Barça’s 26-game winning streak to a halt with a three-point dagger, the Spanish juggernaut showed no mercy in dispatching Gran Canaria 2014 by a score of 105-55 on Sunday.
Gran Canaria (now 9-11 and tied for ninth place on the ACB table) was the team that precipitated that win streak, when in October, the team defended its home court against Barcelona and held on for a 67-65 win. That would be the last loss for Barça until late January.
Qyntel: Did he make Meet The Boss...?
Due to an unfortunate series of tragic events, the deadline for this week’s fantasy tips column was missed. However, in the interests of satisfying The Euroleague Boss’ fans, were running this column with half the Final 16 week one games in the books; it’s valuable to see what Meet The Boss did, even if you were wavering on his word regarding Qyntel Woods…
Hello everyone, this is Javier Gancedo as always – and even more these busy days – from the Euroleague headquarters. And here comes the Top 16, ladies and gentlemen! If the first round is halfway as exciting as Eurocup’s, we are set for a classic start.
FCB as 2009/10 Euroleague champions: An easy lay-up?
Tonight FC Barcelona looks to build on its red-hot run in 2009/10 by closing out a perfect 10-0 run through the Euroleague regular season. Assuming Barca does shut down Montepaschi Siena yet again, what can recent history tell us about an undefeated team’s chances the rest of the way?
Since the 2009/10 represented a switch to just ten regular-season games, a winning Barcelona would make that team literally the first Euroleague squad of the post-2001 merger era to finish the regular season 10-0. Also of note is that Barcelona is currently riding a Euroleague regular-season winning streak of 16 consecutive games, last having lost in November 2008 in week three against who else but Montepaschi?
The last squad to pull off 10 consecutive wins in a Euroleague regular season came in 2006/07, when a pair of Euroleague powers went for double-digit winning streaks in the 14-game regular season: Panathinaikos went 11-0 to start group play; CSKA Moscow won its final 11 in the first phase, added six consecutive victories in the Top 16 stage and tacked on one more in the quarterfinal round against decade-long Red Army foes Maccabi Tel Aviv. This 18-game run set the post-merger Euroleague record for consecutive wins.
Huge in 2006: Sofoklis and Team Greece
After taking a look at the European players of the decade and top professional teams of the decade, BallinEurope today turns attention to the national level. Which teams from the 2000s will we still recall fondly in years to come? Below are listed eight key national squads from the passing ten-year span, the unforgettable basketball teams that made their marks in sports history.
• 2001-02 Yugoslavia. Sure, Team USA had taken hits to its perceived invulnerability in international competition between meeting Oscar Schmidt in 1987 and Y2K, but on one day in 2002, the Yugoslavian team slammed the door on American preeminence in basketball forever. And this was after breezing through Eurobasket 2001, winning five of six games by double-digit margins. Yugoslavia was the only country to take golds at Eurobasket and FIBA World competitions with (basically) the same team; the 2002 roster included Dejan Bodiroga, Peja Stojakovic, Marko Jaric, Dejan Milojevic, Vlade Divac and Vladimir Radmanovic, a roster good enough to merit mention among a discussion of greatest basketball teams ever assembled, period.
Copyright 2010 BallinEurope - All Rights Reserved
