Scene from 2008

Nevertheless, just as certain is the fact that entering the American media environment is the communication equivalent of diving into a tub of alligators. A common fear is of speaking in public? Imagine doing it in another language. Spontaneously. Scrutinized, analyzed and tittered about by tens of millions of rabid fans milliseconds after a tough loss. And all of it done under the glare of those tens of millions’ high expectations – which, essentially, every European basketballer in the NBA faces.

(Yes, BallinEurope knows that some readers must do this kinda stuff all the time – particularly those first two bits. But still. It does boggle this expatriate American’s mind, even after 15 years on The Continent.)

So guess what: The Human YouTube Highlight Clip has produced another moment for the virtual archives, showing good game in the intensely difficult off-court field of trash-talking – against no less an opponent than Kobe Bryant, a pretty fair verbal wrangler himself.

While Kobe has peppered swipes regarding a Team USA-Team Spain showdown in the 2012 Olympic Games to his teammate Pau Gasol, he was recently able to conversate with Rubio briefly when the two teams met last Sunday. Things went down as follows.

The transcript (warning: R-rated language included) runs thusly.

Bryant: (to Rubio) Good job, brother. You talking about London?
Gasol: Oh yeah.
Rubio: You’re gonna be there?
Bryant: Fuck yeah, I’m gonna be there.
Rubio: You know you’re getting the silver medal, right?
Bryant: Shiiiiiiit!
Rubio: You know that.
Bryant: I’m taking bets. I’m taking bets.
Rubio: I’ll bet what you want.
Bryant: If I win, I get the keys to Barcelona.
Rubio: I’ll bet what you want.
Bryant: I’ll take it! I’ll take it!

God, BiE loves how the table is being set for The Games already – and as of this writing, opening ceremonies are still 177½ days away … they can’t come soon enough, says BiE.

First and foremost, BallinEurope feels for Pau Gasol. While the Lakers’ game right now might best (and most charitably) be described as “disorganized,” particularly in the offensive sets where The Triangle is no more, it *feels* like Kobe is subtly, slowing freezing out Gasol.

Though Pau fed Kobe three times in the Indiana game, Gasol got rare touches from Bryant who apparently was instead looking to exploit a size advantage underneath and got three assists to Andrew Bynum. Against the Pacers, Kobe notched two assists to Pau, both within 90 seconds of one another in the third quarter.

But BiE digresses and is probably just paranoid.

Nevertheless.

Let’s talk trade.

A couple of other big-name disgruntled/outgoing players await, ostensibly on the trading block. There’s Dwight Howard, who reportedly will allow a trade to the Dallas Mavericks, New Jersey Nets or Los Angeles Lakers. There’s Deron Williams “enjoying” another excellent season at the peak of his skills while mired with a disappointing New Jersey Nets time and probably considering requesting a trade to Beşiktaş.

In short, why wouldn’t this work?

Okay, so the Lakers aren’t addressing the paucity of the bench and Howard’d probably not appreciate going to a Nets side sans D-Will, believed to be a main motivation for Superman II to move to New Jersey. And Orlando Magic management would lose lots of face for bagging “only” Pau for the dominant Dwight; any theoretical trade involving Howard must factor in the desperation to get something for the departing star – and if in fact said star wants to, you know, leave at all.

Right, so BiE’ll be the bad guy in L.A. Gussy things up just a bit and imagine a draft choice or two also changing hands and you get this; hey, the ESPN Trade Machine likes it. No, BiE isn’t particularly enamored with Matt Barnes; why do you ask?

And can you feel the frustration and fear? Interesting time to be a Lakers fan.

In December, Armani Jeans Milano denied Partizan Belgrade from playing in its sixth consecutive Top 16 phase of the Euroleague. And yet again, in what is now considered a trademark display of affection, fans continued singing to their players and the team they love after the buzzer. They were grateful for what they considered a memorable season in which their team again defeated the likes of Maccabi Tel Aviv and Real Madrid.

This stood in sharp contrast with results of KK Zagreb and Union Olimpija, representing what is left of the Yugoslav basketball school. Only Partizan came close (in fact, a mere two points close) to a second-phase berth. Perhaps this was expected from the league’s powerhouse, recognized for being “a system” by many, including current Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Ettore Messina. Yet, how do they do it? What makes them competitive year after year?

Partizan plays tough on both sides of the court. Points are earned through hard work, constant screens, ferocious offensive rebounding. High-low ball movement gets repeated on and on, tiring the opponent’s defense, while agile forwards lie in wait for the scoring opportunity. Defensive intensity, trapping and pressing is equally impressive, and fast-forwards into crowd-pleasing slam dunks – This is why conditioning is everything.

Goran Grbovic, who back in 1988 took part in Partizan’s first EL Final Four appearance, affirmed this by saying “we are not artists [anymore], we are hard workers.” And he should know, since Vlade Divac, Žarko Paspalj, and Alexander Djordjevic – all basketball magicians in their time – were his teammates.

No one can explain “the system” better than the man who created it. Dusko “Dule” Vujosevic, Partizan’s legendary coach who now presides over Partizan’s entire sports association, presented some of its underpinnings in several of the “year’s wrap up” interviews. For Vujosevic, an avid reader and collector of fine arts, training one player can equal to transforming his personality: His role was to detach every individual from his own, egoistic self and subdue him to a greater, collective good. And one true personality is best discovered in a game. “You can easily discern if somebody is selfish, vain or prone to manipulation,” Vujosevic argues. What he gets in return is the ultimate reward: his players improving, not only on the court.

Every year, this system Dule helped set up gives birth to at least one outstanding young player. This season it was Vladimir Lucic’s turn to shine. Before Lucic, there was Jan Vesely in 2010; before Vesely, there were Novica Velickovic, Milenko Tepic, and many more. The sad truth behind this is that in order to survive financially, Partizan must sell its best players, most likely to the same teams they have helped beat in the first place (Pekovic and Tepic, for instance, were both sold to Panathinaikos).

Yet with the system in place, this is not an issue. Players overlooked by scouts, rejected for either being untalented or prone to injuries, forgotten as they reach their mid-20s, used to come to Partizan not knowing what to expect. Today, after Milt Palacio, Stephane Lasme, Alex Maric, Lawrence Roberts, Bo McCalebb and many others jumpstarted their careers after spending only one year with the club, Belgrade has become a desired destination. As Vujosevic puts it, “these foreigners were not nearly that good when they arrived. We place them in the system and they improve, too.” The same goes for homegrown talent: After leaving Hemofarm for Maccabi, Milan Macvan was determined to find his playing time in Partizan.

In effect, Partizan has transformed the way basketball is being played in the Adriatic. They not only have changed the pace of the game, introducing their distinctive style of physical basketball: What this club has achieved is more – a bond of love and respect between players, coaching staff and the fans – to last for years to come.

Marko Savkovic fell in love with basketball because: a) his older brother used to play, so it must have been a cool thing to do; and b) he witnessed Vlade Divac, Dino Radja and Toni Kukoc play an exhibition match back in 1988. After learning the fundamentals with Partizan Belgrade, Marko spent four years in FMP Zeleznik’s youth system and another three playing lower-division ball. Years later, as a political science graduate, he found a different career for himself, yet remained devoted to hoops. For BallinEurope, he will be closely following developments in the Adriatic league. You may write him at markosavkovic@gmail.com.

Gasol’s FC Barcelona, which also included the just-about 20-year-old Juan Carlos Navarro, ultimately fell to Aleksandar Đorđević and Alberto Angulo’s Real Madrid in five games.

(Has it really been that long…?)

According to Il ‘Blog, the Raptors have advanced an offer of Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon to the Lakers for Pau Gasol and Derek Fisher. Supposedly, the San Antonio Spurs are also interested in making a deal for Gasol, which would be quite the bizarre transaction, indeed. (Who comes to L.A.? Tony Parker?)

The story quotes no less than John Hollinger of ESPN.com as having confirmed this rumor, but without linkage.

Update: BiE wishes a big “thank you” to Mr. Hollinger, who dropped us an email this morning (CET time) on this subject. Not surprisingly, Hollinger had nothing to do with the unsubstantiated rumor, explaining that “I have no connection at all to this Toronto-Pau stuff. There was a commenter fraudulently posting with my name and [another website] decided this made it valid. Please stop attributing this nonsense to me.”

Guess Pau ain’t going anywhere. For the time being.

The first 20 will listed by competition, followed the top five runners-up and the champion jam of the year. Who will be no. 1? Read (and watch) on to find out…

Euroleague
• The Dunking Ninja. Of course, you knew Jan Vesely was making this list, so we’ll dispense with the formalities quickly. Here’s a nice, wide-open alley oop that earned him dunk of the in February during the Euroleague’s Top 16 round. Vesely started the 2011-12 as a first-round draft pick with the Washington Wizards, thereby immediately entering into the conversation of coolest NBA nicknames – though one wonders just how many ninja there are in the Czech Republic…

• Pargo-go-go! Another must-have representative of Euroleague jammery, Jeremy Pargo turned in this YouTube-able masterpiece was only number three from an EL Top 16 round game against Virtus Roma. Like Vesely, we’ll see this guy in this list again.

• EL, meet AK-47. European basketball in 2011 will be remembered for the impact of locked-out NBA stars in the early going of the season. Andrei Kirilenko was particularly useful to CSKA Moscow’s fortunes in Euroleague round one, beginning on opening night in Lithuania. (And what’s this? He’s coming back for another tour of duty with the Red Army? Look out, Europe…)

• Sonny Weems for Žalgiris Kaunas, episode one. One NBAer who couldn’t/didn’t reemigrate to North America once the lockout was lifted was the former Toronto Raptor. As a free agent, Weems was one of the first such to sign in Europe for 2011-12, and boy are Žalgiris backers happy. Here’s Weems going to work against Unicaja Malaga…

• Sonny Weems for Žalgiris Kaunas, episode two. … against Brose Baskets Bamberg …

• Sonny Weems for Žalgiris Kaunas, episode three. … and finally in the win-or-go-home Euroleague game 10 against KK Zagreb. The man’s 17.5 points and 5.9 rebounds per EL game ain’t too shabby, either.

NBA
• Pau, when the Lakers looked invincible. Remember the days when these no-look pass from Lamar Odom to Pau Gasol was so routine? Seems like a long time ago, dunnit?

• Jolly good, Mr. DeRozan! The big league came to play in London in March, and whoo boy, did fans get bang for their pounds sterling: The Saturday night game ended up a triple-overtime thriller between the Toronto Raptors and New Jersey Nets. Though the Nets ended up with the W, Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan contributed a worth-the-admission-price dunk late.

European domestic leagues
• Bryce Taylor’s “Monsterdunk” in Bundesliga championship game five. Slamming home perhaps the jam of the season from Germany, the former University of Oregon contributed this two for Alba Berlin in the decisive championship game while utterly posterizing Predrag Suput. Nevertheless, Suput’s Brose Baskets Bamberg took the game, the title and Germany’s Euroleague spot for 2011-12.

• “Le poster absolut”. Speaking of posters, check out what Diabate Souleyman did to Cliff Hammonds back in early January for Chorale Roanne. As the man says, < >

• Kerusch crushes. And one more. This time the victim was Olympiacos’ Kyle Hines, beaten badly by current rookie Sergio Kerusch of Aris Thessaloniki.

• Kevin Harley: King of the skies, pain. Playing with the Poitiers Basket junior team, Harley got YouTube junkies (ahem) sitting up and taking notice with this insane liftoff … and splashdown. The youngster was “more frightened than hurt” and was able to finish the game.

• Hendrix kisses the sky. In October, while seemingly every other European player was still finding the rhythms, Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Richard Hendrix blasted off in a Chance Cup game against Barak Netanya. With the Euroleague side already well into a laugher and up 81-41 in the third quarter (final score 117-66), Hendrix goes…

Dunk contests
• Dar Tucker takes two dunk contests in one year. Yesterday in the slam-dunk festivities in France, Tucker reportedly smoked his competition, easily notching top scores in all three rounds to take the title. This trophy will look nice on his shelf set next to the D-League slam dunk championship he bagged in January. After the contest, Tucker said, “I was very surprised at the level of the competition. There are very good dunkers in France. Max [Kouguere] was particularly good!” (BiE thinks he was just being polite.)

• Two from Poland. Yeah, yeah, the car and the choir were great, yadda yadda. But let’s see Blake Griffin try to reproduce either the visual tribute to His Airness Himself executed by Cameron Bennerman of Energa Czarni or the six-cheerleader leap by winner Łukasz Biedny.

• Europe’s unlikeliest dunk champion. In Germany’s All-Star weekend festivities earlier this year, it was an against-all-odds storyline as Salu Benjamin Tadi took the crown. Why such a longshot? Well, in the unique format of the BBL’s dunk contest, a qualifier is held among second-division amateur players prior to the main event; the winner gets to compete against the Bundesliga pros in the final. You can catch a few rough drafts of the winning jam by clicking here, but the hangtime achieved in the contest ender by the 6’0” Tadi is truly Jordanesque.

Eurobasket 2011
• Yi gods! While August was mostly devoted to national teams participating in friendlies leading up to Eurobasket and other continental tournaments, there wasn’t a lack of highlight clips. Here’s Yi Jianlian contributing one of Team China’s sole happy moments in the London Invitational Tournament against Croatia. That’s mostly Stanko Barac on the receiving end.

• Enes Kanter learns Bill Walton’s dictum. One of the great pleasures of Eurobasket 2011 was studying the performances of exciting up-and-comers such as Team Turkey’s Kanter going up against concentrations of the world’s best talent. While Kanter was hot-and-cold in the tournament, the sidelining of Pau Gasol for the Spain-Turkey match allowed the young Turk to do some damage against brother Marc. And his team stayed alive in the tourney with the win. Throw it down, big man!

• Boom, goes Batum. Nicolas Batum against Russia – damn, has he always been that quick?

• Hometown lad makes good. Things ended disappointingly for Team Lithuania, but the youngest player on the squad, prospective Toronto Raptors Jonas Valanciunas was inspirational. Inspirational enough, in fact, to inspire a song.

Five runners-up
• Beaver brazenly breaks backboard. During the summertime lull, the Oregon State University basketball time visited some teams in FYR Macedonia and thereabouts for exhibition games and general goodwill. And then Roberto “Maybe I’m Strong” Nelson took it to the hole … one wonders in OSU Athletics picked up the tab on the destruction – not to mention the 20 stitches Nelson’s face required.

• The return of the Dunking Ninja. Jan Vesely. Euroleague Top 16 round. Game four. What else do you need to know?

• Air Pocius strikes for Team Lithuania. BiE just loves Martynas. Does this guy actually have invisible wings?

• Dirk dunks a dagger. It’s tough not to give Nowitzki top honors in this “Year of Dirk,” but the big (and now beringed) guy can rest easy with the memories of blowing past Lebron James and The Evil Empire on the baseline in game five of the NBA championship; this one came in the fourth quarter, naturally.

The dunk of the year
• Jeremy Pargo in the Euroleague Final Four. Just look at the way Pargo has to work his way through Real Madrid’s half-court defense. Just look at where he takes off. Just admire the landing. This one would get a 10 from any judge – maybe even Charles Barkley. All things considered, this was the dunk of 2011.

*Los Angeles Lakers fans, over whom a huge cloud of doom hangs to start this season, excluded (sigh).

As in the Eastern Conference preview, BiE seeks to keep an eye on those players who contributed a stint in Continental ball this summer during the lockout period and even, to some, extent participants in Eurobasket 2011. BiE believes that the running start from real game-time situations plus the suddenly intensive NBA season will give the Euroballers an advantage in the short-term against more laggardly opponents not in “basketball shape.” And with the shortened regular season, a jump start will provide lasting effects.

To BiE, it looks something like this.

Northwest Division
It’s another case of ecstasy in being proven wrong: Since at least, what, the beginning of the 2009-10 Euroleague season, BiE has brazenly (though not Fearlessly™) told anyone who’d listen that Ricky Rubio would never play ball for the Minnesota Timberwolves, we’re just a day away from that very occurrence. The Human Highlight Clip went to work a couple times in the preseason and could start all 66 games this year.

But could Ricky even lead what GM David “Noonien Singh” Kahn likes to think may be a “steady rise to the top”? Wellllllllllllllllllllll, BiE wouldn’t necessarily go that far, though this is a scintillating, exciting lineup suddenly, with Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Derrick Williams and J.J. Barea aboard.

But wait! From Europe are ‘Wolves Nikola Pekovic and – o, yeah – Darko Milicic. Does any realize that Minnesota is 19-90 (.174) since acquiring Darko? These two things can’t be related, can they? This dude is as good a passer as Vlade Divac, after all…

We’ll see early on as the Timberwolves get to play tomorrow night against the mighty scary-looking…

…Oklahoma City Thunder. European basketball fans can’t help but to have noticed Serge Ibaka in the past half-year, with the naturalized Spaniard going from the NBA playoffs to Eurobasket to Liga Endesa/Euroleague play with Real Madrid. And he’s looked mostly real good throughout.

As essentially the sole new member on Team Spain for the European championship, Ibaka typically got 15-20 minutes per game for Los Rojos. A couple of key performances came against Lithuania (15 points on 7-of-9 shooting with quite a few dunks and putbacks, nine rebounds, two blocks) and France (10 points and seven rebounds in 24 minutes of play) in early rounds, but the real badass came to play in the championship game. While scoring just four points, Ibaka controlled the middle whenever on the floor and totaled five blocks in denying Les Bleus access to the paint.

Chasing this, Ibaka merely contributing single-digit scoring with a block or 1.5 per game in Spain and in the EL for weeks, until suddenly unleashed and blowing up just as the lockout ended for back-to-back games of five blocks and 12 points against Spirou Charleroi, then a monster 15-point, five-dunk, nine-rebound, six-block tour de force against CAI Zaragoza.

BiE can’t wait to see this guy in a starting role playing a lot of minutes – any question he’ll win the block title this season? And, o yeah, the rest of the Thunder’s pretty good, too. Real good. Championship-level good.

The Denver Nuggets have an interesting roster happening, including lockout Euroballers Danilo Gallinari (with Emporio Armani Milano), Rudy Fernandez (Real Madrid), Ty Lawson (Žalgiris Kaunas) and Timofey Mozgov (BC Khimki Moscow Region). Gallinari is certainly getting the thumbs up from top-level pundits, with ESPN’s fantasy basketball machine proclaiming him “[maybe] the best player on the Nuggets this season,” while touting his “game-high 23 points in a game-high 34 minutes in the Nuggets’ preseason finale victory Thursday night. Gallinari’s shot was off (6-for-17 FG), but he was able to get to the line (9-for-9 FT) and knock down a couple of treys while also producing six boards, three assists and two steals.”

Indeed, Gallinari’s shooting percentage has been in a steady decline in the NBA since entering the league, a trend that keeps him away from all-star (or at least near all-star) status. Who knows? Maybe the lack of distraction will help.

BiE believes Lawson will be worth watching. Established as point guard with a swell stat line of 11.7 points on 50.3% shooting plus 4.7 assists per game, Ty will serve as the poster boy for BiE’s “ready to play” ideology. Plus, maybe he’ll tweet something interesting…

Then there’s Fernandez. Probably the last NBAer out of Europe, this guy has been pining to get out of American ball for some time. As the lockout ended, Real Madrid talked about attempting to keep Rudy aboard … then he had troublesome visa problems … let’s just hope the new team means a new start for the Madridista.

Finally! Enes Kanter suits up for the Utah Jazz! And with Mehmet Okur now dealt, Kanter should be seeing lots of quality time behind Al Jefferson – after seeing some nice continued development on Kanter’s part during Eurobasket, BiE anticipates the Turk’s season highly; with more confidence and work on ball-handling skills, this guy is bound to leave up to his ample promise. (Doing it in Utah, do you think anyone will notice…?)

Who can tell what the Portland Trail Blazers will do? And how much Nicolas Batum (SLUC Nancy) will be a factor? BiE loved what he did in Euroleague after another up year in the NBA…

Southwest Division
First up here: The champs, Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks. It would be so easy to choose the Mavs to repeat – after all, this is the NBA, where dynasties and mini-dynasties happen. All the time – but wasn’t there something of a lightning-in-a-bottle effect last season? A perfect storm of events that included an imploding defending champion and an arrogant up-and-coming contender? Remarkably free of injury late for a squad bringing so many key veterans (Jason Kidd, Peja Stojakovic, etc.), the Mavericks weren’t exactly lucky per se but as with championship teams, the breaks went their way.

None of this is to detract from Nowitzki’s remarkable 2010-11 season, however. Nowitzki entered discussions of “top 20 NBA players of all-time” and “top European players ever” last year, and justifiably so as everyone discovered that he’d been doing this for years. And years and years in Dallas. Imagine the talk triggered by a repeat…

So can they repeat? Well, the best deal of the offseason may ultimately go down as the Lamar Odom-for-soda crackers trade – what a great shot in the arm for this roster, and one that will allow Dirk’s range to be further extended with Odom inside. Scary.

In the European interest is the current development of Rodrigue Beaubois, now ready to garner more minutes (last season marked his career high of 17.6 per game) with the departure of J.J. Barea. Much more than expected, say, three months ago, of the onus to repeat will be on Beaubois in 2011-12.

Despite his 10 years in the uniform, it will be strange to see Tony Parker donning San Antonio Spurs gear again. After a half-year’s worth of status as undisputed team leader and center of hype for Eurobasket’s silver-medaling Team France followed by Eurocuppers Asvel Villeurbanne, Parker becomes yet another piece in the puzzle with the perpetual playoff team. Again, though, BiE thinks the European warmup will do Parker and thus San Antonio much good in the early going. If he’s looking like an all-star point guard by late February, will management be so willing to trade him as has been so often rumored?

Then there’s Tiago Splitter, the former Euroleague force with Caja Laboral Baskonia. Splitter got in late to the European game this autumn, thereby playing just a handful of games with Valencia BC, though he looked impressive in his element of endless waves of the pick-and-roll. BiE found Splitter quite frustrating in NBA play in 2010-11, however, as he looked far too often to contentedly plant in the high post and set the occasional pick. Splitter could help form the nucleus for this team’s future with a modicum of constructive aggression.

What should have been could have been Pau Gasol’s new team before the whole Chris Paul-to-the Lakers deal was cruelly and pathetically subverted voided, the Houston Rockets, still have some Europeans to look for. Luis Scola is still around, fighting for minutes with three other power forwards on the current roster, while BiE fears Goran “The Dragon” Dragic may starve for minutes behind Kyle Lowery.

The best re-signing of the offseason: It’s gotta be the Memphis Grizzlies reupping Marc Gasol, doesn’t it? And in terms of the preseason workout ethic, Marc and brother Pau may have made the best decision of the lot in merely training with FC Barcelona: With little chance of injury and mostly basketball-skills conditioning going on, aren’t the Gasols primed to play?

As for Jeremy Pargo, formerly memorably of Maccabi Tel Aviv, his two-year extension signed in December is a good sign he’ll stick around despite a crowd at point guard in Memphis.

In the short term, perhaps the best that can be said for the New Orleans Hornets in 2011-12 is that Chris Kaman is in a contract year. (What? He’s German, right?) And we’re cheering for Marco Belinelli, too. On those one or two occasions we watch the Hornets.

Pacific Division
All the hype going into the season is on the newly christened “Lob City,” a.k.a. Los Angeles, Clippers. And why not? What’s more exciting sounding that YouTube fodder feeder of Chris Paul to Blake Griffin. On the other hand, can BiE throw a little sobriety into the party? Look, after these two and Chauncey Billups, the roster gets pretty damn sparse. Do they really have no natural centers to back up DeAndre Jordan? After Griffin at power forward, they’re going to Ryan Gomes and Brian Cook? And don’t the Clippers have a history of bizarre knee ailments? BiE’d be holding his breath between gasp-worthy dunks if he were a Clips fan. Otherwise, enjoy the party.

For the Phoenix Suns, the battle at center: Robin Lopez vs. Marcin Gortat!

Message from Sacramento Kings: Come back, Omri Casspi! All is forgiven!

Golden State Warriors’ starting center Andris Biedrins is looking to bounce back from a couple injury-riddled seasons with the club. He’ll definitely be depended on from among a very slim frontcourt … And who’s this? Jeremy Tyler? And listed on the depth chart behind Kwame Brown … how utterly appropriate.

Then there are the Los Angeles Lakers. As a Lakers fan, BiE can tell you that two years removed from a title already seems like decades … and the season hasn’t even begun yet. What is this existential angst hanging over this team going into 2011-12? Of course, it’s all about The Trade That Was Never Made. It’s impossible to determine what exactly was the worst bit about that disaster – even if you keep it Laker-related. Maybe it was losing Odom for nothing to the team that smoked ‘em in the playoffs last year. Maybe it was having a vision of a clear future of excellence nastily snatched away in hours. Or maybe, as BiE fears, it was the effect on Pau Gasol’s psyche.

As the Lakers crumbled steadily in the playoffs before collapsing in Dallas, Gasol was the epicenter of rumor and implied blame; many stories revolved around a nasty breakup with a girlfriend. Whatever the cause, it didn’t take B.F. Skinner to see that Gasol was in shape but distracted, blessed with stamina but not willpower.

After the non-trade was announced, he reportedly felt “devastated,” probably, reasons the suddenly suicide-level pessimistic L.A. backers (you’d be too if your fourth-best player was Josh McRoberts), erasing any good an all-tournament team showing in Eurobasket and proper training with Barcelona. And, as a Laker fan, BiE will just stop before the keyboard gets too soggy with tears.

The Official BallinEurope Fearless Predictions™ for the Western Conference playoffs, in order of seeding: Oklahoma City Thunder, Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves. Your Western Conference champions will be Oklahoma City, but they’ll lose to the Chicago Bulls in the finals.

To the games!

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!

• Stojakovic broke into the professional ranks with Crvena Zvedzda Beograd (a.k.a. Red Star Belgrade) at the age of 15 (!) and soon this once-dominant side enjoyed back-to-back Yugoslavian championships in taking out Partizan Belgrade in the finals both years.

• After three seasons of development (and plenty of bench time), Peja was ready to take on a more decisive role with a club. That club turned out to be PAOK; for his newly-prized Greek citizenship, Stojakovic would eventually bag the Greek League MVP nod in 1998.

Unfortunately for club and player, the sole hardware Peja’s PAOK teams could collect was the 1994-95 Greek Cup. On the other hand, in these four years PAOK did manage a second-place Europe finish in ’96 and in Greece in ’98 (losing to former Laker Byron Scott and Panathinaikos; see second video directly below) plus two Euroleague Top 16 runs: The team hasn’t come close to this sort of success since.

• And then the NBA came calling. Having been drafted at no. 14 in the 1996 NBA Draft, by 1998 Stojakovic felt ready to cross the Atlantic. He’d join up with the Sacramento Kings – the team with which he’ll always be associated worldwide – at a most fortuitous time, as the pieces to build a perpetual playoff contender were falling into place … and perhaps personally key for Peja was the acquisition of his Yugoslavian teammate Vlade Divac for 1999-2000.

• Speaking of Yugoslavia, Peja was happily able to enjoy success on perhaps the greatest national team of the ‘00s. Playing alongside the likes of Divac, Dejan Bodiroga, Marko Jaric, Dejan Milojevic and Vladimir Radmanovic, the side took the 2001 Eurobasket tournament and the 2002 FIBA World Championship.

On his part, Stojakovic was second-highest scorer in the 2001 competition (behind Team Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki) at 23 points per game, good for tournament MVP honors.

And in Indianapolis’ FIBA Worlds of 2002, Peja was again his team’s high scorer, still managing to help Yugoslavia over Argentina in the final match with 26 points despite uncharacteristic 2-of-12 shooting on threes. Stojakovic snagged an all-tournament nod for his efforts.

• Meanwhile, back with the Kings, Stojakovic worked his way into the starting lineup for 2000-01. Over the next five years, Peja would contribute lines 19.2-24.2 points and 4.3-6.3 rebounds per game while hitting enough three points to eventually place him at no. 4 on the all-time list in the statistical category.

• Though team-wise Sacramento had limited success from 2000 to 2005 in being forced to compete with Shaq ‘n’ Kobe’s Los Angeles monsters, the accolades for Stojakovic kept followed. He won back-to-back “Mister Europa” awards as Continental player of the year in 2001 and 2002 while receiving invites to three NBA All-Star games.

In fact, it was at the all-star games that perhaps Stojakovic earned the greatest amount of appreciation throughout the U.S., as he consistently became a Larry Bird-like force in the annual 3-point shootout competition. In 2001, Peja took current all-time threes leader Ray “He Got Game” Allen down to the wire, but ultimately had to settle for second place.

No matter, Peja came back in 2002 to take care of Steve Nash and outlast his personal foil in the contest, Wesley Person, to win the title…

…and again in 2003…

…ultimately falling short of the threepeat in 2004, but defying Charles Barkley’s prediction along the way, at least.

• One more highlight reel from the Sacramento days came in 2004, when Stojakovic set his then career-high mark in scoring with 37 points against the Lakers.

• But the Kings’ golden era was ending and in 2005, Peja was dealt to the Indiana Pacers for Ron Artest; he lasted 40 games there before a sign-and-trade agreement the following preseason had him shipped to the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets for the rights to Andrew Betts (really).

Around this time, Peja’s well-chronicled back problems began. Due to injury, Stojakovic appeared in just 13 games in 2006-07; unfortunate, indeed, as Peja had given the Hornets a most masterful performance early on, scoring the team’s first 20 points in a November game against the Charlotte Bobcats. This was the first time in NBA history such a feat had been accomplished and Stojakovic’s 42 in the game became his personal high in scoring.

• Things really got percolating between Peja and Chris Paul over the next few years, as the Hornets made the playoffs in ’08 and ’09 (and just two years later, the league wants to contract this franchise – go figure). A representative example? Check out this team record-setting show in which Stojakovic sinks 10 three pointers against those dread Lakers in a game that saw Paul dish 21 assists.

• Another move would come for Peja after the Hornets’ poor 2009-10 and the Serb was shipped to the Toronto Raptors, thereby filling the apparent obligation for every European NBA player to do a shift in Canada. At the time, Stojakovic called the trade “a new chapter in [his] career, [his] life,” it wasn’t much of a read. Peja played just two games as a Raptor before landing in Dallas.

• We all recall what happened next. In a more limited role with the Mavericks, Stojakovic shot right at his career three-point success rate at 40% with a statistical line of 8.6 points and 2.6 rebounds per in 25 games there. Best of all, Peja was able to punish the Lakers along the way to his first NBA title with 15 and 21 points in games three and four, respectively, of the Western Conference semifinals – a nice capper to a legendary career.

BallinEurope wishes best of luck to Peja in the future and, as BiE always says upon retirement of an all-time great, thanks for the memories!

In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, Danilo Gallinari goes through his lifestyle in Denver: “I want to live downtown – I’m looking for a house.” Regarding food, a crucial issue for every Italian abroad, he says, “I have been doing some ‘scouting’: I found a couple of pretty good restaurants. One is downtown and is managed by an Italian guy. The other one is in Cherry Creek, a neighborhood full of shops and fun places. It’s the closest thing you can get to Corso Como,” recalling a commercial street in the center of Milan, very close to where he was living during his term with Euroleague club Emporio Armani Milano.

The comparison with the more glamorous Milan and New York to Denver comes inevitably. “Yeah, I’m feeling the difference,” says Gallinari. “We are in the provinces here. I need to get used to it. They send you to bed earlier – which is positive – and there is less temptation. Women are less aggressive, you might need to fall in love,” he jokes.

Talking about basketball, Gallinari comments the intensive calendar of the post-lockout NBA season: “A Nuggets fan asked me the other day, ‘How are we supposed to watch one game after another?’ He’s right. We’re one those teams that will play three games in three days: on December 31st in L.A. against the Lakers, January 1st at home against the Lakers again and January 2nd in Milwaukee. It’s crazy!”

On the end of the lockout, Gallinari says, “I’m happy to start playing again but not happy about other things. We the players have made some mistakes during the lockout and lost a lot of money. It’s not the best deal for us” and he reckons that “David Stern has never missed a trick since when he’s been the head of the NBA.”

Gallinari is resolute to become a leader of the new Nuggets, stating that “Coach [George] Karl believes in me, he wants me to become a fundamental player for the team. We lost some key players, and our GM will need to work at night to build a credible team. But I’m not worried, the Nuggets have made it to the playoffs each of the past eight years. The project is good, and the important thing for me is playing.”

Enrico Cellini is lifelong basketball fanatic and a long-time sportswriter with a focus on Italy and Spain. He was born among European hoops, was raised watching the NBA, and thinks choosing between American and European basketball is like choosing between one’s mother and father. You can follow him on Twitter or check out his Italian-language blog Hoop Addicted.

The process of elimination went the following way, in reverse order of finish, and garnishing with highlight clips.

10. Dimitris Diamantidis, Panathinaikos. Yes, Double-D was the Euroleague MVP and the Euroleague Final Four MVP for 2010-11. Yes, he thus established himself as one of the five or six greatest of the EL modern era. But Diamantidis did not play any international ball, whereas all other nine nominees participated in Eurobasket 2011 and most where instrumental to their team’s successes. Dimitris simply has the shortest CV of a very talented ten.

9. Dusko Savanovic, Power Electronics Valencia/Anadolu Efes/Team Serbia. Savanovic may not have even been the best player on an ultimately disappointing Serbian side that lost six of its last seven games to finish eighth in the Eurobasket tournament. (Nenad Krstic? Milos Teodosic, anyone…?) Savanovic seemed to get swamped with the tide as Serbia sank late, only managed to top 4-of-9 shooting twice in that seven-game stretch.

This is not to say that Savanovic can’t be clutch. After all, he live on forever in Valencia BC annals for the game-winning shot that put the Spanish side into the Euroleague Top 16…

8. Nicolas Batum, SLUC Nancy/Portland Trail Blazers/Team France. How old is this guy? What? He’ll be 23 on Wednesday? BiE guess we’ll have to call his 2010-11 NBA season (of 12.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists per regular-season game) as his coming of age on the international stage, with the 2011 Eurobasket tournament and subsequent play with SLUC Nancy during the lockout the icing of that reputation. But even before his two Euroleague Player of the Week awards, Batum turned in one of the great clutch performances of 2011 for Les Bleus against Team Russia in the Eurobasket semifinal with his “all-action line of 19 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks.” BiE can’t believe we’re only up to number eight…

7. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies/Team Spain. Like Batum, Gasol The Younger will have a few more chances at winning this award – how about in, say, 2012, after a deep run by the surprising Memphis Grizzlies chased by a silver- (or gold-!) medal win by Los Rojos at the Olympics …? Marc did have one heck of a 2010-11, though, enjoying an all-star level performance in the regular season; a playoffs in which he averaged a 15.0/11.2 double-double while generally performing at a level diametrically opposed to that of his older sibling; and a nearly turbulent-free cruise through Eurobasket as he and brother Pau formed a twin-tower combination built for schooling young ‘uns like Enes Kanter. To paraphrase the governator, “he’ll be back.”

6. Pau Gasol, Los Angeles Lakers/Team Spain. You’d think that after starting at center in the NBA All-Star Game and leading one of the best national teams ever assembled in points and rebounds in Eurobasket would get Pau ranked higher, but the truth is that, fair, fortunate or not, for the 2010 FIBA Europe Player of the Year, 2011 will be remembered as the year in which he, ahem, “led” the Lakers’ ignominious collapse in the NBA playoffs. No way can he make this ballot, particularly with the suddenly reborn possibility that he could enter “disgruntled” status after landing with the Houston Rockets. And this has nothing to do with the fact that BiE is a Lakers fan. Well, not much.

5. Tony Parker, San Antonio Spurs/Asvel Basket/Team France. Tough elimination here … the last name to be definitively crossed off the list nevertheless had a year for the ages, turning in his usual solid season for the Spurs at 17.5 points, 6.6 assists and 3.1 rebounds per game. While Western Conference-winning San Antonio was bounced early, Parker contributed the second-most points (19.7 per game) and dished the most assists (5.2) for his team in six games of the first-round series.

All Parker did to “redeem” himself was write his and Team France’s way into the history books at Eurobasket 2011, leading the tournament in scoring, FG attempts, and FGs made. Given more weapons on a national team than ever before, Parker was nevertheless an indispensable force in getting Les Bleus to their first-ever Eurobasket final.

Parker capped the calendar year by becoming one of the first NBA players to announce a jump overseas; while proving utterly crucial to Asvel’s success in French League and Eurocup play, Parker may be creating something of a financial model for European basketball stars, particularly in times of labor troubles: That of the team executive/player.

Four names remain … now we come to the hard bit, so let’s dispense a couple of easy formalities first.

1. Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks/Team Germany. Nowitzki last won this award in 2005, the first year of the award. Compared to that year, Dirk is down statistically in all major statistical categories from games played to free throw attempts to assists. But come on! Proving unstoppable in the 2011 NBA playoffs while simultaneously shrugging a big monkey off his back, entering “all-time greatest” conversations and dispatching the EEEEvil Miami Heat? Yep, Nowitzki wins.

2. Juan Carlos Navarro, FC Barcelona/Team Spain. Navarro is to European basketball as Nowitzki is to the NBA: Ever-reliable, always there to consistently produce for consistently winning teams. Though Barça suffered an early exit out of the Euroleague playoffs, the Blaugrana nevertheless took the ACB title – with Navarro named tournament MVP. Team Spain of course took gold at Eurobasket 2011 … with Navarro named tournament MVP. Just for good measure, La Bomba helped Barca to the Spanish Cup … and was named tournament MVP, has led his team to a 17-1 overall run to start 2010-11, and just became the modern-era Euroleague career scoring leader. A pretty good year.

And so they meet yet again to decide the final spot on the BallinEurope ballot: It’s down to Andrei Kirilenko and Bo McCalebb.

Regarding Kirilenko, forget his season with the Utah Jazz (even though his stat line was a respectable 11.7 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists in a turbulent year for the team); if we’re talking *European* Player of the Year, just consider what the AK-47 did on The Continent in 2011. As the oldest player on a decidedly more up-tempo Team Russia than he’s used to, Kirilenko was nevertheless a monster at Eurobasket 2011, leading the third-place finishers in scoring, offensive rebounds and total rebounds; plus, his 29 steals was best of the tournament.

But it was with CSKA Moscow that Kirilenko really demonstrated his brilliance and abilities as a model European player. After arriving about 14 minutes before the season began, Kirilenko was thrice named Player of the Week in six weeks of Euroleague play, sometimes killing with shooting, sometimes crashing the boards, sometimes doing it through intangibles. From a purely selfish perspective, one of the worst outcomes of the NBA lockout settlement is the departure of the most dominant performer we’ve recently seen in Europe’s biggest league.

Finally, what about Bo? BallinEurope can feel the shudders all across The Continent in reaction to this nomination. Seriously, a New Orleanian who’d barely stepped foot in FYR Macedonia suddenly becoming a citizen of that country and subsequently gaining eligibility to awards like such as this? McCalebb’s new passport was quite the subject of debate among the Eurobasket press corps, let BiE tell ya.

Put the micro-geopolitics aside momentarily, though, and consider the kind of ball Bo brought to Europe in 2010-11. After a Euroleague season in which McCalebb led a youthful Partizan Belgrade to a shocking Final Four finish, Bo moved to Italy and, despite a knee injury, returned to the tournament to help Montepaschi Siena land a third-place finish. He’s already adding to his personal highlight clip this year as well with a 23-point show against Unics Kazan a couple weeks ago.

And then there was the biggest surprise and perhaps even the single biggest story (competing only with Spain’s dominance and France’s first-ever finals appearance) of Eurobasket 2011: Team FYR Macedonia. McCalebb fearlessly and meticulously led his equally fearless and meticulous national team to mouse-that-roared status at the European tournament. With the point guard position given such exaggerated importance at tourneys of this ilk, McCalebb added an exciting cutting-and-slashing dimension throughout Eurobasket, consistently drawing attention while contributing to the best side in terms of ball protection and turnover differential in the competition.

As awesome as Navarro and Pau Gasol were, as brilliant a field general as Parker was, no Eurobasket team – and perhaps no European team on any level in 2010-11 – so depended on a single player as did the 2012 Olympic qualifiers FYR Macedonia.

So, how about it? Who gets the no. 3 spot on BallinEurope’s ballot? Good thing that BiE has until January to figure this out…