BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Courtesy the Euroleague folks, BallinEurope brings a compendium of facts and figures spanning history and record books regarding tomorrow night’s slate of a half-dozen games – plus lines on the games and highlight clips. Enjoy!

CSKA Moscow vs. Anadolu Efes Istanbul
• CSKA leads the all-time series between the teams, 8-7.
• Nenad Krstic has scored in double figures in each of his last 16 Euroleague appearances dating back to the 2003-04 season.
• Andrei Kirilenko and Nenad Krstic lead the Euroleague in index rating with at averages of 27.8 and 21.5 per game, respectively.
• Kirilenko also leads the Euroleague in blocked shots (3.2 bpg).
• Milos Teodosic is ranked second in the Euroleague in assists this season with a career-high 5.6 assists per game.
• Darjus Lavrinovic needs three more blocks reach 100 for his Euroleague career. With his next block, Lavrinovic will tie former CSKA big man Terence Morris for 12th place all-time.
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With seemingly no end in sight to the NBA lockout situation forthcoming, BallinEurope has to admit to enjoying the schadenfreude of the situation … just a bit. Even more exciting than the day-to-day speculation as more and more players from the big league consider their Continental options are the possibilities for the future: History has shown that inclusion of one American player can change the entire course of clubs, domestic leagues and even national programs.

While living in the present, BiE takes a look at the past with a virtual all-star team of guys from the ’States who have been great for the European game in one way or another. This quintet was chosen not necessarily for their skills and greatness, but for their impact on the game itself both in Europe and America – at least until Kobe Bryant decides to hop the Atlantic, heh heh…

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Lima: Ready for prime time?

BallinEurope was consulted in making up the individual player entries along with Euroball-reporting luminaries like Slam and Freaknick of ELA; Alejandro Gonzalez of Net Scouts Basketball; and Simas Baranauskas of The Lithuanian Perspective and Lithuanian Basketball.

While only the entry on Jonas Valenciunas is up at present at the ‘Adventures, BiE today provides his unadulterated superbrief takes (plus YouTube clips, natch) on a baker’s dozen of European prospects, soon to be incorporated on the Darkometer. Enjoy!

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The changes begin near the top in this week’s edition of the BallinEurope Top 100 Teams list, as Montepaschi’s third consecutive Euroleague loss dumps the Italian side down to no. 3, passed by their most recent vanquisher, Real Madrid. The top 20 stays fairly stable thereafter, with some jostling of position but no seismic shifts.

A handful of teams were added into the mix, expanding the pool of contention from 165 to 170 squads in the running for immortality – or what passes for it in the interweb age, which is to say about seven days of niche-level notoriety – though only one such team managed to crack the big 100.

As always, the first number represents the given team’s position this week, while the number in parentheses represents last week’s spot on this chart. And once again in support of Britain’s fledgling national program in the runup to the 2012 Olympics, the no. 100 position is held by the current alpha dogs of British Basketball League. (Sorry, Szolnoki Olaj fans — and yes, that is the highest-ranking Hungarian team at present…)

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With just a few more hours before the Euroleague gets fired into action, BallinEurope has just enough time to get in some quickie power rankings! Purely subjective, these rankings have been based on recent Euroleague and domestic league performance, but also on serious speculation about season-break transactions. Enjoy the games!

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Word has it that an overload of traffic brought down the live broadcast of today’s Euroleague Top 16 draw. So, in case you were shut out, the groupings for the next round of top-level European action looks like so:

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If BallinEurope is spelling “lull” with one L, you know that Euroleague basketball is between stages of play. No matter, BiE has a good argument starter to help wile away a little time before next Tuesday’s draw for grouping the Top 16 round: Announcing the official BallinEurope All-Euroleague Regular Season Team for 2010-11!

Though many of the best individual seasons have thus far been run up by guys mired on non-Top 16 teams, no special consideration was given to those bounced from the competition already. However, looking at the final list, it’s clear an all-star level performance becomes exaggeratedly important to a not-quite tippity-top European club. And let’s get to that list, shall we?

Ladies and gentlemen, yourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr BiE All-Euroleague Regular Season All-Stars!

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So Žalgiris gets its coach fired after playing .800 ball through 20 games, Spanish powerhouses lose in Lithuania and Germany, Valencia kills Milano, Efes Pilsen stuns PAO … just another week in Euroleague 2010-11, eh? And after happenings aplenty, it sounds like time for another edition of BallinEurope’s Official Euroleague Power Rankings! Let’s go!

Tops of the table
1. (↔) Maccabi Tel Aviv (8-1 in Euroleague; 8-1 in Ligat HaAl) – Here comes that blurb again: Forget the Miami Heat, the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers even (heresy); the best offseason was had by Maccabi Tel Aviv, which once again underwent a complete reboot, as the kids these days might say. Addendum: And now they’re adding Milan Macvan? Sheesh.

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“Do[es] all the little things with surprising grace and feeling – and an iron will to win.” – characterization of prototypical Lithuanian player in FreeDarko’s The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac

BallinEurope’s latest obsession started with a tweet. Specifically, a message from BiE’s main Lithuanian, Martynas “Air” Pocius. Pocius retweeted a fascinating stat about his Žalgiris Kaunas dug up by In The Game Basket, namely:

Žalgiris turns the ball over every four possessions in the Euroleague. Still they’re 4:3 and one win away from Top16.

Now we can make that 5-3 and still one win or one Baskonia loss away from the Top 16 after another typical 2010 Žalgiris outing against Asseco Prokom last week. In that match, the Lithuanian side eked out a 72-69 away win in Poland, though the home side had slight advantages in shooting (admittedly poor on both ends, as Prokom edged with 32% overall against Kaunas’ 30.5%) and rebounding.

And, of course, there were these statistics for Žalgiris: 59 possessions, 15 turnovers. Or 25.4%.

What gives? Join BiE on a romp through the numbers … and a lesson in that “will to win” principle expressed in real on-court terms.

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In last night’s special edition of Monday Night Euroleague Basketball, Olympiacos clinched its place in – and eliminating Spirou Charleroi from – the sweet sixteen of the big league with an 80-69 win in France.

Thanks to the win in fact, Group B has been settled: The Reds join Real Madrid, Unicaja Malaga, and Lottomatica Roma in advancing from the sextet. For those of you, as they say, keeping score at home, 10 of 16 spots have now been filled for the tournament. Only Cibona Zagreb in Group C has been mathematically eliminated, though Žalgiris Kaunas will grab a spot should they defend home court against Caja Laboral Baskonia tomorrow night.

Official highlight video follows the break.

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