Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog

It’s official: 18-year-old American phenom Jeremy Tyler has washed out with Israeli club Maccabi Haifa but will stay in Europe next season to further his career and heighten his currently well-low standing on 2011 NBA Draft boards.

Tyler, as you may recall (funny how the early hype machine mysteriously went really silent for a long time there), was the prospective senior-year high school student in San Diego forewent his final year of schooling to pay professional ball in Europe. With some assistance from Sonny Vaccaro, he who helped orchestrate Brandon Jennings’ stint with Lottomatica Roma, Tyler managed to score a one-year, $140,000 deal from BSL team Maccabi Haifa.

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While not interested in passing definitive judgment, we think it would be useful and fair to take a look at the European basketball panorama. There will be no ratings or rankings here, just a snapshot of what the most important ballin’ countries offer us.

Ten years into the third millennium, it’s common to hear repeated concepts about European community and a sense of brotherhood, but the idea of “European basketball” elicits language only indicating something is wrong. Disunity: That’s the main word for the variety of ways to develop basketball in Europe. European basketball was well on its way until five to six years ago, when internal division began to decrease European ball’s opportunity to become a serious alternative to a NBA bereft of stories and talent to sell – yes, that was before Lebron James’ era.

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Whilst watching the Efes Pilsen-Montepaschi Siena game with horror fascination last night – probably somewhere around the Ferdinando Minucci ejection – BiE couldn’t help but wonder what Francesco Cappelletti, this website’s man in Italy, thought of it all.

Seriously. Montepaschi came into the game having looked strong in Euroleague competition this season thus far; with a good-enough win over Maccabi Tel Aviv to open the Euroleague Final 16 round and coming off a near-100 point win over Napoli in Serie A play, the visiting Italians entered the game a 3.5-point favorite.

So, to put it in a nutshell, what happened? Whither the outclassed play? And what does this say about Serie A ball, over which the suddenly visibly flawed MPS currently rules at 16-0. Managing to corner the busy Cappelletti for five minutes on chat, BiE asked a few simple questions.

BallinEurope: Okay, so basically, the question is this: What the fuck happened to MPS last night? i.e. What were the keys to their defeat, especially after that huge win the other day?

Francesco Cappelletti: So many reasons.

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Ataman on the hot seat?

With just one more week to go in first-round play, Francesco Cappelletti touches on some issues regarding those teams positioning themselves for the Euroleague Top 16. Also examined frankly: Ergin Ataman’s tenuous position in Turkey, Zoran Planinic and Nikos Zisis embracing their positions on potential Final Four clubs; and bucking for position on Real Madrid.

Extreme situations
Only a week remains to this Euroleague first stage, but the situations in many groups are still complicated. In Group A, Regal FC Barcelona lies in waits for Montepaschi with a +19 taken in Siena, testifying to the shape of Xavi Pascual’s players. This should be an interesting game, maybe balanced for nearly 40 minutes, but hardly vincible for the Italians. About the same men that last year started the game with a 25-3 first-quarter run for David Andersen and teammates … the final two positions have no owner.

Next week, a devastated Fenerbahce Ulker (unified against Bogdan Tanjevic: that’s the problem) hosts Zalgiris Kaunas, apparently better under new coach Ramunas Butautas; Asvel meanwhile goes to Zagreb to play a high-pressure game in which defenses are going to take control. Fenerbahce and Asvel (3-6) have one more win than Zalgiris and Cibona, but the feeling is they are not favourites to reach the Top 16.

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What’s at stake in Euroleague play tonight? A couple of Top 16 spots at least with one win-and-in scenario. Plus, there’s a bit of history as Union Olimpija hosts CSKA Moscow in a game the official Euroleague press calls “what is likely [Olimpija’s] last Euroleague game ever at Tivoli Arena.”

According to Ball in Europe sponsor Bet 365, the game to watch may be Olympiacos at Efes Pilsen, with the home team a 1.5-point underdog; Efes is attempting to prevent a three-Euroleague game losing streak and crawl its way into fourth place, keeping alive its Top 16 hopes for another season.

Meanwhile, the beneficiary of the Panathinaikos victory over Asseco Prokom last night may well be today’s win-and-in team, AJ Milano. To say that Milano’s porous defense – they’ve managed to hold a Euroleague opponent to under 68 points just once this season – has been disappointing would be an understatement but makes for great high-scoring viewing if you’re not a fan. The Italians will be looking to salvage their hopes for advancement while avenging their week three loss to Khimki: Surely this team is too talented not to cover that pointspread of nine against a team that’s already clinched a Top 16 spot. Plus, that 146.5 line at the bookmakers will be toast. Go over.

Tonight’s pointspreads and over/under lines, as provided byBall in Europe sponsor Bet 365, are as follows.

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A great slate of games on tap tonight as Euroleague week seven wraps up. Unicaja, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Montepaschi Siena look to clinch a Top 16 spot, while Cibona Zagreb hopes to stave off elimination and things in Group B are destined to get knottier. The bookmakers’ lines on the games forecast at least two nail-biters, plus a third that should be included, in BallinEurope’s opinion.

The pointspreads and over/under lines for tonight’s games, as provided by Euroleague/Ball in Europe sponsor Sporting Bet, follow below the break.

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Key player

Wrapping up and putting a bow on week six of Euroleague basketball is BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Francesco Cappelletti, who today writes of Kleiza & Papaloukas, the Partizan player-making machine, and the league’s three biggest flops thus far in 2009-10.

Dear old Theo
Linas Kleiza has made us witnesses to what a former NBA sixth man is able to do: namely, score 19 points in 10 minutes, with all of his production coming in the last period, when Olympiacos seemed very close to its third consecutive loss outside of Athens. Kleiza scored from outside, going to the rim, penetrating, and in the final 24 seconds was simply unstoppable.

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Euroleague presents the slightly shorter slate of games for the week tonight, with two matches to be played. Judging from the sportsbook litmus test, i.e. oddsmakers tend to know what’s going on because they stand to lose the most on a given proposition, it’s five decisive wins we’ll be watching tonight. (Despite the interesting contention that Baskonia-Roma has recently become a full-fledged rivalry; tell you what: If Roma pulls off the upset tonight, *then* it’s a rivalry.)

The pointspreads and over/under lines on tonight’s games, as provided by Ball in Europe sponsor Bet 365, are as follows.

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Morning news time and for today’s edition, the datelines are set in Spain, Rome, the new FIBA Europe headquarters and the WNBA. And videos! Enjoy the day that is…

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It's all good in Barcelona

Once again, BallinEurope.com contributor Francesco Cappelletti weighs in on all the happenings in Europe’s top basketball league in week five of play in ruminating on just how good FC Barcelona is; on CSKA Moscow’s resurrection due to coach Pashutin and possibly the “heart of a champion”; and on a flashback to one year ago.

The perfect game
Regal FC Barcelona made easy work out of dumping Montepaschi: That was FCB’s statement game for this Euroleague season, and we have to pay attention because it arrived against a team which had deliberately risked a questionable Ksistof Lavrinovic (plagued by back spasms) in trying to keep its streak of 27 consecutive home wins alive.

But the Spanish primacy was huge. Siena couldn’t play its own game, simply because Xavi Pascual denied it. Pascual decided to take Terrell McIntyre out of the match, nearly double-teaming him on pick-and-rolls, and the choice paid large dividends: T-Mc wasn’t able to find a clean three-point shot from his preferred central position while obsessed by Rubio’s speedy hands. Meanwhile, neither Benjamin Eze or the injured Lavrinovic represented a threat in the paint, where others not involved with McIntyre rotated very well.

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