Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog

It’s not that BallinEurope is obsessed with both Bill Simmons and Rubio-to-Minnesota, but … all right, i am obsessed with both Bill Simmons and Rubio-to-Minnesota. Still, when BiE finally got around to reading this week’s patented “Mailbag” column only to see no. 1 best-selling author The Sports Guy take an incorrect swipe at the poster boy for European basketball’s future on the international stage, well, BiE had to come to the defense of Rubio, especially since the sparring partner in this debate will never actually see this column, heh heh.

The topic was, as stated, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ future. A frustrated fan sought empathy from Simmons in a pleading email that dissected a bit of the infamous 50% season-ticket discount the Wolves are pitching which BiE had a look at last week.

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A few in-house items to announce to readers this morning:

• First, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Yes, there will be prizes for the winners of the BallinEurope Invitational Challenge. An honorary gold medal today – no, that’s *not* the prize; i haven’t decided what the prize is yet – goes to Radallo. Radallo’s BAZ_&_MEZ outdid Meet The Boss’ well-publicized risk-taking lineup in the last week by a score of 173.2-150.8 and thus widened his lead atop the table.

"Basketball" by John Robertson

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It wasn’t the Academy Awards, but the supporting cast sure sounds similar: Folks like Kevin Spacey, Hugh Grant, Gwyneth Paltrow, Clive Owen, Kyle MacLachlan and the distinctly un-blue Michelle Rodriguez. However, the beautiful people from Hollywood and London had in fact come together to acknowledge some of the sporting world’s greats.

The occasion in Abu Dhabi last evening was the presentation of the Laureus Awards, at which former NBA great Dikembe Mutombo bagged a prestigious Laureus Award in the special “Sport for Good” category. Mutombo won the prize in recognition of his charitable work in his native country Congo.

What? You’ve never heard of the Laureus Awards? Well, as it turns out, Laureus is a philanthropic organization made up of the Laureus World Sports Academy, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and the Laureus World Sports Awards; its mission statement promises to “promote the use of sport as a tool for social change and celebrate sporting excellence.”

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Face of Britain to be Cavalier next year?

With 22 NBA teams going at it last night across the ‘States, the official website has a serious compendium of clips collected this morning. Several favorites from The Continent are featured and BiE has compiled this run of videos with which you can kill a good ten minutes of your morning this morning, easily.

• Below is Hakim Warrick on the peripheral-vision bounce pass to Luol Deng, he of the much-anticipated Team Great Britain.

There’s more and more murmuring about Lebron-to-Chicago during the upcoming free agency period these days, it seems, and two key questions arise for BiE in conjunction with such rumors: 1. How much is Deng praying he doesn’t end up with the Cleveland Shell-Of-The-Former-Cavaliers on the wrong end of a sign-and-trade? 2. Can King James and prospective teammate Yannick Noah find a way to, you know, just get along?

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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.

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Amidst the NBA All-Star weekend festivities starting up tonight in Dallas, the independently-produced film Streetballers continues its distribution through America with a VIP celebrity/NBA charity screening and fundraiser. Set to host festivities is the Los Angeles Lakers’ Josh Powell, certainly the movie’s biggest fan (that’s his “best basketball film ever made” remark on promo material); P. Diddy will be hosting the post-screening bash.

Streetballers premiered in 2009 and stars Jimmy McKinney, the former University of Missouri/current Deutsche Bank Skyliners guard.

The film will be going on to local premieres in Miami, Washington D.C., and New York City – so how about bringing it to The Continent, Mr. Krentz? – but is available now in a special DVD edition (including lotsa extras) along with the soundtrack via NeoFlix. Click here for the official Streetballers movie website.

Review and official trailer follow.

It’s absurd if you think about it. Basketball itself, i mean. Seriously, what are we spending so much time doing, watching, obsessing over? An amusement involving humans displaying very specialized skills with the ultimate goal of inducing a ball to complete passage through a metal ring. That’s it.

Yet, to those who play the game, to those seek to make the game a life’s calling, to those who live and die with the games, it transcends. Strong individual personalities aside, team play in basketball requires a dissolution of the ego, a submission of self to greater altruistic good, to work best. Basketball can make one a better person, can bridge gaps in communication across fear and history, can bring pride to a nation.

Why? Call it the power of love of the game. And love, as we know, is its own reward.

Streetballers is a product of love of the game, and the first feature film from independent film quadruple threat director/producer/writer/lead actor Matthew Scott Krentz. It’s a deft exploration of true-to-life characters in a visual essay on how basketball links us all. (It’s no coincidence that the PR blurb on the film’s IMDB.com page leads with “Streetballers is for basketball what Field of Dreams was for baseball,” i.e. “Defining street basketball as America’s new favorite pastime” or, as an updated Terence Mann might say, “basketball has marked the time.”)

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One more announcement from the FIBA folks today and this one’s surely no surprise: For an unprecedented third straight year, the honor of FIBA Europe Young Men’s Player of the Year goes to Spanish wunderkind Ricky Rubio.

Rubio’s win makes Spain two-for-two on FIBA Europe accolades this year and, with Pau Gasol expected to bookend his 2008 Men’s Player of the Year with one for 2009 by dint of his country’s win at Eurobasket 2009 and his club’s win in the 2009 NBA Championship, one can’t help but wonder if Spain (and Ana Montañana) pulls off the sweep. We’ll find out on Friday…

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"C'mon! Don't trade me!"

With only three NBA games going last night, the most surprising story of the American evening needn’t have been too mind-blowing, but Sasha Vujacic’s performance in the Los Angeles’ Lakers surprisingly easy 101-89 win over the San Antonio Spurs was among the more remarkable at least.

Vujacic ended up with eight points on 3-of-3 shooting in the win and played 14 minutes. Sasha started the second quarter with a lineup full of showroom models just waiting to be taken away before the NBA trade deadline later this month: Along with Pau Gasol, Vujacic hit the floor with Jordan Farmar, Josh Powell and Luke Walton – all subjects of trade rumors in the past two weeks.

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In case you haven’t heard, Partizan Belgrade pulled off a wicked 67-66 upset of FC Barcelona this week to end another notable winning streak while creating an instant classic. In other news, the NBA All-Star Game is bearing down full steam ahead and the hype machine appears to be set for full blast come Monday. So guess what this week’s “Best of the (Basketball) Net” is about? Read on!

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Noah's arc has yet to peak

As one of the popular highlights of the NBA season, everything about the annual All-Star Game is loaded with pomp, hype and (hopefully) fun. No exception was that moment many a basketball fan awaits with gusto and prepares to heartily attack in argument as the naming of the rosters for the teams that will be squaring off in a Harlem Globetrotters-looking exhibition game next month.

Without further ado, then, the presentation of those long-awaited all-star rosters! (We’re talking the Official BallinEurope European NBA All-Star Team; what’d you think was meant?)

The following is a roster based on performance in the US’ big league in 2009-10 to this point. An attempt at building a normal-seeming roster was made, though this team has a definite accent on the big man. Let the arguments begin!

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