BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

At first, the headline is one hell of a stopper: Basketball writer Chris Sheridan tops his latest piece with “Prokhorov to sell Nets, donate fortune.” No, wait, it continues. “…if elected president of Russia.”

Ah, well, then. At present, Prokhorov is in Russia in an effort to win votes for his liberal, pro-business Right Cause party with few delusions of actually, you know, becoming Russian president; the Washington Post states that “his main goal at the moment is to force a second round, by keeping Putin under 50 percent and emerging as the second-place finisher.”

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Here it is: Another one for the Human YouTube Highlight Clip’s collection. From the Love-less Minnesota Timberwolves’ 86-84 victory at the Sacramento Kings last night, Ricky Rubio contributed what the NBA official website is calling “The Play of the Day.”

In the third quarter, Tyreke Evans lost the handle, and La Pistola swooped in on the errant ball to lead the fast break for the ‘Wolves. And then, the pass. While in motion, between the legs to another BallinEurope NBA favorite, Nikola Pekovic, for the slam as Evans can only watch.

Ah, Ricky Rubio, you’ve done it yet again…

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Congratulations go out from BallinEurope to Team France leader Tony Parker, who wrote himself into the NBA record books by becoming the San Antonio Spurs’ all-time leader in assists yesterday – o, and he also went for 42 points in his team’s 107-96 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder. Parker eclipsed Avery Johnson’s mark of 4,476 in the third quarter with his final assist of the game.

Below runs a clip of the record-breaker itself, a feed to who else but Tim Duncan; a full run of game highlights may be seen here.

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Team Spain’s controversial Eurobasket addition truly teed off the Dallas Mavericks last night on the other side of the pond. Serge Ibaka contributed an awesome double-double (okay, so the 2-of-8 shooting wasn’t so impressive, but still) of 11 rebounds and 10 points in the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder’s 95-86 win over the defending NBA champions. The Thunderer is now third in the league in total blocked shots and blocks per game; Ibaka has recorded at least one block in 19 of 20 games played in 2011-12.

But hey, don’t stop at the brief text description. See below the break for a compilation of all 10 swats, and repeat after BiE: “Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-block-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

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Surely to no one’s surprise, Gazzetta dello Sport gave its prestigious Euroscar Player of the Year Award to Dirk Nowitzki, he of the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks. Clearly the favorite to take FIBA Europe’s equivalent award, the Mav was bestowed with the honor on the same night he collected his bling-bling title ring in Dallas.

Enrico Cellini has gathered a few choice quotes from la Gazzetta’s interview with Nowitzki, including the German’s thoughts on his favorite Italian player, meeting Angela Merkel and topping Arvydas Sabonis.

On January 27, Dirk Nowitzki did not play for the Mavericks against the Minnesota Timberwolves but still brought home two interesting souvenirs from American Air Center. As you are reading BallinEurope, you don’t probably care too much about the diamond-encrusted $40K NBA championship ring (courtesy of Mark Cuban) that Dirk received in a touching ceremony (courtesy of Rick Carlisle), do you? Instead, what’s worth reporting about that night is the fact that Wunder Dirk also received the Europlayer 2011 award, an acknowledgement assigned by Italian Gazzetta dello Sport to the best European basketball player of the season.

You may see the ceremony here.

All right, so it wasn’t quite as dramatic as the ring ceremony but still …

Gazzetta dello Sport later published in its printed version an interview with Nowitzki, in which Würzburg’s finest touched on several topics.

Said Dirk on the loss in the 2005-06 NBA Finals to the Miami Heat: “That experience actually helped me – it made me improve: Now I handle the fourth quarter with more intelligence.”

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Ever since the Los Angeles Lakers’ dreary loss to the Orlando Magic last Friday and straight through to yesterday’s brickfest in a loss to the Indiana Pacers, this fan’s thoughts are turning to – OK, now nearly obsessed with – making a trade to shake things up.

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.

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With an league-best 13-3 record, all signs pointing to a deep run in the NBA playoffs and a pleased-as-punch fan base that has long forgotten about the non-acquisition of Dwight Howard, it’s not like the Chicago Bulls need more positivity. Regardless, BallinEurope’s gonna give it to them; as it turns out, their brightest European prospect can play in the clutch as well.

Prospective Bull/Euroleague “Rising Star” Nikola Mirotic again came to the fore last night to prevent an upset of his Real Madrid at Unicaja Malaga. In Los Blancos’ 81-80 victory, Mirotic played 25 minutes to help matters with six rebounds, two blocks and 6-of-9 shooting for 12 points, none as important as his clutch shot in the final second.

Below the break, watch how Mirotic burns Jorge Garbarosa and Luka Zoric on the way to the hole to throw in a buzzer-beating runner off the glass with 0:00.5 or so remaining in the game – dagger!

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Amidst a 93-85 Minnesota Timberwolves victory over the Detroit Pistons, Ricky Rubio produced yet another for the YouTube annals. Just watch. (P.S. How can this guy not be considered the no. 1 candidate for NBA Rookie of the Year?)

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BallinEurope gets things rolling on Saturday with highlight clips – okay, some links to online stuff You Should Read as well, but the main point is highlight clips, right? This morning, then, a quick look at some excellent performances turned in in last night’s NBA action from the Continent’s top players. Starring Tony Parker, Luol Deng, Tiago Splitter, Ty Lawson, and of course a certain Spanish point guard you may have heard something about…

• Tony Parker contributed perhaps his best NBA performance of 2011-12 last night, with 20 points and nine assists to lead the San Antonio Spurs to a 99-83 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. Fellow TrueHoop blog 48 Minutes of Hell does some “Statistical Sleuthing” in an excellent piece on Parker’s play in the paint and at the rim this season, for ages a strength for the Spur.

After crunching the numbers, 48 Minutes’ Aaron McGuire deduces that “The fact is, Tony Parker has been playing atrociously, *especially* at the rim, and it’s tough to say whether this should make Spurs fans excited or terrified. Why excited? It’s easy to simply chalk this up to small sample size and assume he gets better as the year goes on, which would be an instant improvement to San Antonio’s already gelling offense. Terrified is more obvious — if this represents a permanent change in his game, the Spurs are essentially down to *no* all-star caliber offensive players.”

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Spanish-language Blog de Basket has quite the compelling story running today, particularly for Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors fans; the problem is that BallinEurope.com cannot seem to confirm the story’s veracity or the source reportage.

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.

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