BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

How good is Bogdanovic? Discuss.

Seven Euroleague games go off tonight as the season rounds into form a bit. The marquee match tonight has got to be the Khimki-Baskonia showdown to establish early supremacy in that tough Group A; Olympiacos-Unicaja will surely be worth the viewing as well, although the way the Reds have dominated on their home floor lately will make things difficult for the Spanish side.

In preparation for the festivities, then, BallinEurope presents some talking points: facts, stats, oddities, history and video relating to the games. Enjoy!

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Easy choice for Comeback Player of the Year

With the EL tipoff game tonight, BallinEurope is feeling devotion … not to mention a rush of Fearless Predictions™ coming on. How crazy can BiE get? You be the judge; here are 68 prognostications on all things Euroleague which you may [laugh uproariously about] ponder.

Enjoy the season, everyone! (And sign up for the BallinEurope Invitational League for your fantasy season. The password is “matjazsmodis” and remember: You’ll at least beat out BiE’s pathetic squads…) Fearless Predictions™ follow…

1. Olympiacos defends home court in tonight’s opener in a squeaker over Real Madrid.

2-17. The Euroleague Top 16 will be: Maccabi Tel Aviv, Caja Laboral Baskonia, Partizan Belgrade, Zalgiris Kaunas, Olympiacos, Unicaja Malaga, Real Madrid, Brose Baskets Bamberg, FC Barcelona, Montepaschi Siena, Cibona Zagreb, Fenerbahce Ülker, CSKA Moscow, Panathinaikos, Efes Pilsen and Union Olimpija.

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The Russians have landed in Florida and they’re ready: Five days after the defending NBA and Euroleague champions met in Barcelona, a pair of would-be dethroners will meet when the supercharged Miami Heat host CSKA Moscow in the first game of the Euroleague American Tour 2010.

A few connections between players on both sides may be noted, as Lithuanians Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Ramunas Siskauskas will be going head-to-head while there’s a minor University of Kansas reunion scheduled with Sasha Kaun and Mario Chalmers representing the Jayhawks out there.

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As you’ve probably heard, former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov resigned last week under duress. But it seems that citizens of Russian capital don’t have many reasons to be worried: The new sheriff is already in town! Of course, we’re speaking here about Dusko Vujosevic, Partizan’s proven “miracle worker,” who recently coached CSKA in his first official match.

After a few minutes into the VTB United League opening match, the situation didn’t look bright at all for Vujosevic’s side as Lietuvos Rytas took a quick 10-2 lead at the start of the match. However, after this uncharacteristic start, Vujosevic took a time out, and things turned out all right: CSKA played better from minute to minute right through to the fourth quarter, when the Red Army were almost unstoppable.

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August is here and it’s full speed ahead for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey later this month. In coming weeks, we’ll be seeing the national teams competing in the tournament playing warmup games all over the planet – indeed, some have already begun play.

With the last few big names having declared “yea” or “nay” on participation in the Worlds, BallinEurope figured it was high time to introduce power rankings for the upcoming tournament. Keep in mind that these rankings are not necessarily how BiE is fearlessly predicting they’ll end up when the 2010 Worlds are over, but rather how the squads are currently trending: You know, if the tournament started today…

All rankings are guaranteed to be 100% subjective with some semblance and factoring in of facts, FIBA rankings and sportsbooks’ odds on the tournament; the handy arrows indicate the team’s progress/regress on the chart (BiE’s pretending we ran one last week. Top 15 teams are ranked below the break.

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Déjà vu in 2010-11?

Oh boy, it’s the first big Eurocentric rumor of the 2010-11 season! According to TalkBasket.net and a few other sources, Olympiacos has informed Josh Childress that the club would like him not be to re-up with the Reds in his option year. One wonders if this information was passed on before or after Tuesday’s announcement that Childress had been named to the EΣAKE all-league team.

On Thursday, the Atlanta Hawks put in their qualifying order to Childress, thereby giving him the status of restricted free agent and allowing the Hawks to match any offer made to their one-time forward.

So what will Childress do? The rumors say he’ll be going to the Washington Wizards, actually, who are hot to make an offer for the man. Unless they’re not. But maybe they are.

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So call BallinEurope kooky: While everyone else with an eye on basketball – even European basketball, for Arvydas Sabonis’ sake – is concentrating on the NBA free-agent market, BiE is all attention on the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Men tipping off in Turkey in August.

Naturally, bookmakers too are into it and the early odds for the FIBA World Championship are up, including props on outright winner, group winners and even game one matches available at BallinEurope.com sponsor SportingBet.

Unfortunately, the SportingBet “2010 FIBA World Championship for Men Outright Winner” prop bet is merely that; no “each way” betting allowing punters to bet on the second-place finisher: a key wager in this tourney, should you be one of the teeming majority reckoning Team USA is the prospective runaway champion of this thing. The odds table looks like the following.

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A quick collection of quotes for you, collected yesterday and today at various press conferences and media meetings. With just hours to go before tipoff, enjoy a bit of wit and wisdom from coaches and players on BallinEurope.

On Paris
“It is […] special to have the Final Four in Paris. This is the city that never sleeps, with a lot of life, the best place to organize this kind of competition.” – Partizan head coach Dusko Vujosevic

On playing in the Final Four
“The semifinal is the most difficult game for me, because everybody is thinking about the final. If you don’t respect your opponent in the semifinal, you don’t get to the final.” – CSKA Moscow head coach Evgeny Pashutin

“[Trajan] Langdon, [Ramunas] Siskauskas and [J.R.] Holden know what this is all about. They have played many Final Fours. I had to watch them all on TV, but now I can compete in one at age 19. I’m looking forward to it.” – Ricky Rubio

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Toni Kukoc: All over the Euroleague record books

Attention, all statistics addicts! With the time to tipoff running down steadily, BallinEurope this morning puts things into a little numerical perspective. Which players, coaches and teams will forever be immortalized in the record books when all is said and done at the 2010 Euroleague Final Four? Some measuring sticks for would-be heroes are listed below. Let the countdown begin!

12: Number of free throws made – in 13 attempts – by Manu Ginobili for Kinder Bologna in a losing effort back in 2002. The trips to line helped produce 27 points for Ginobili, which tied the modern-era mark for scoring in a Euroleague final, matching … Manu Ginobili of 2001. Antoine Rigaudeau also scored 27 for Zalgiris (ironically against Bologna) in 1999 while going 5-of-7 on threes; Zoran Savic in 1991 and Dejan Bodiroga in 2001 also accomplished the feat.

11: Number of blocks registered by then-named Pop 84 Split, including four by Kukoc and three from Avy Lester, in a 70-65 finals win over Barcelona in 1991. The victory completed back-to-back-to-back Euroleague titles for Split, a feat never matched.before or after. In fact, the sole back-to-back Euroleague champion since ’91 was Maccabi Tel Aviv, with consecutive rings won in 2004 and 2005.

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Ah, open interview day! BiE just got back from the open 15 minutes granted media by the Euroleague with the players of each team. The boys from FC Barcelona and CSKA Moscow – particularly the outstanding Pops Mensah-Bonsu; more on this momentarily – generously gave of some time after practice to take questions from eager media members ranging from Eurosport television to … well, to BallinEurope.

Spanish-language media was well represented at the event – hey, why not? Espana’s dominating every other aspect of European basketball this summer – and perhaps due to this (plus a lotta hype), the topic of conversation no matter who was at the mic ultimately always turned to Ricky Rubio. Ricky himself managed to show up to the practice floor just in time to exchange helloes with Pops before getting down to the business of basketball.

A typical exchange featured Ramunas Siskauskas and went something like the following.

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