Yarone’s late Friday’s joints

Globalization – The player with the highest VAL on Zalgiris of Lithuania was US center Loren Woods. The players with the best VAL for Italian Montepaschi were Rimantas Kaukenas and Ksistof Lavrinovic from … Lithuania. In fact, the latter two combined for a VAL of 45 while all Lithuanian players on the Lithuanian team combined for a VAL of … 40. Neither Kaukenas nor Lavrinovic, by the way, ever played for Zalgiris.

New tunes – How many African big men can you think of who topped the “Best FT%” category in any league? Joventut’s Pops Mensah-Bonsu hit 4 of 4 last week, while yesterday proving he can make it even better by making 11 of 12 from the charity stripe in the loss at Roma. Can you believe this guy averaged 66.7% in the ULEB Cup and 54.6% in LEGA the past season, and that these numbers were considered decent for him?

Career low – In his long, long Euroleague career Nikola Vujcic had finished just one single game with a negative index rating: That was in last year’s semifinals, when Maccabi upset Montepaschi and Nikola had a -2 VAL. This was before his last Euroleague game with Maccabi. After the first game with Olympiacos, Vujcic set a new personal record with a VAL of -3.

Historical moment – If that’s not enough, the game against Unicaja will go down in history books as the first game ever that Nikola Vujcic finished with zero points in a Euroleague game. Vujcic had posted several games with two points, but always somehow found the way to get that ball through the rim. Last night, he missed one shot from close range, another behind the arc, and two shot attempts from the charity stripe. Nikola will surely contribute to Olympiacos down the road when the money is on the line and as long as his team won, he’s happy, but this game won’t be colored with happy shades in the boxscore archives of the Vujcic family.

Zero – Believe it or not but Le Mans, a team with two of the best shooters in Europe - David Bluthenthal and Dewarick Spencer – finished their first home game of the season with zero three pointers made of 12 attempts taken. The duo was responsible for eight of these attempts.

Just across the street – Not too far from there stood Cibona Zagreb. The days Croatian teams were considered great shooting teams are sadly long gone now, but they were just a tiny bit better than Le Mans. A long-range shooting night of 2-for-14 on Cibona’s side shone only next to Le Mans’ performance.

Happy thoughts for Pao – Obviously the biggest result of this week was the big knock out Pao got in Barcelona. The final difference was 24 after Barca were all over the game from tipoff. If you’re a Panathinaikos fan that might even be good news. On 21 March 2007, the last day of the Top 16, Pao traveled to Barcelona only to return to Athens with a very disturbing 21 point defeat. At the end of that season, Pao won their first Euroleague title since 2002.

No guards – Pao scored only 14 field goals inside the arc in the big defeat. Coach Zeljko used 10 players in his rotation, but only four were able to connect from two-point range. Three of them were big guys Fotsis, Batiste and Pekovic. The only saint in the backcourt was … Sarunas Jasikevicius, who knows the nets in Palau Blaugrana pretty well, but still won’t remember this “homecoming game” fondly.

February 14, 2008 – On that day Davor Kus missed his last Euroleague free throw shot until last night in France… Then, at Barcelona, he was only 1-for-3. Then followed a streak of 10 consecutive shots to finish the season, another 6-for-6 last week against Maccabi, and last night one of the best free throw shooters in the Euroleague was stopped. Literally. He finished the game 0-for-7 from the field and a VAL of -8, but when he went to the line in the closing seconds to secure the triumph with Cibona up by three, Kus connected just one. Enough for the win. Goodbye to the streak.

Spencer ties – The weekly followup on the battle between Dewarick Spencer and David Bluthenthal continues, and this week we saw the first tie at 1-1 in their competition “who took more shots?” Spencer contributed 14 shots and Bluth lagged behind with only 11. In between them crept JP Batista with 13. Altogether, the trio provided a little less than 2/3 of Le Mans’ shots.

Few of a kind, part I – Now check out this unique stat line made by Terence Morris. He registered a VAL of 23 but that was the only category in which he totaled double-digits: 9 points, 9 rebounds, 5 blocks, 2 assists and only four field goal attempts. Very, very few players in Europe can reach such a high index rating by doing a little bit of everything.

Stay away! - Some of those fantasy fanatics out there believe that it’s good to take the best players of the weak teams figuring that “well, at least one guy needs to have a decent game.” Panionios, in their home defeat to CSKA, proved this theory wrong. Panionios set a new season low with a team index of 28, while the top individual high on the team was no more than … 7. Several players scored a better individual VAL this week than the entire Greek team.

Few of a kind – part II – So there are very few players like Morris in Europe, and that’s why he’s in CSKA making the big bucks; but his successor in Maccabi, D’or Fischer, showed this week he can produce the same numbers. Fischer crossed the double-digit mark in scoring 11, but added 7 rebounds, 2 blocks and four drawn fouls to reach a VAL of 21.

Foul him! – Daniel Ewing finished this week as the top scorer with 32 points on a great shooting night when Prokom smashed SLUC Nancy 91-62. He hit 7 of 9 from close range, 6 of 8 in the distance and well, no shots from the foul line. Why? Because in the entire game, Ewing was fouled just once by the French defense. Ewing was hot, all right, but when you foul a player in a zone just once in a game it says a lot about the lack of aggressiveness in Nancy’s defense.

Nevertheless more than perfect – Real’s Sergio Llull, the 21-year-old guard, is one of the funnest players to follow in the Euroleague. He’s quick and athletic but most of all plays with no fear. With Real having Raul Lopez and Pepe Sanchez on the roster, Llull probably didn’t expect to see a lot of playing this year before the season tipped off, but now he’s leaving the duo veterans behind. At Partizan, Llull had a perfect game: 19 points, 7-for-7 on two-pointers, 1-for-2 from three, 2-for-2 from the line, one rebound, one assist, one steal, zero turnovers with three personal fouls and two drawn. OK, so it’s not 100% perfect, but if you followed the game you know Llull’s only missed shot and two of his fouls came in the last seconds in attempt to save his team from a loss. On paper, he’s close to perfection. For us watching, he was more than perfect.

Close to perfection on the dark side – So Llull was huge, but take a look at Pepe Sanchez’s stat line from the loss in Beograd: 22 minutes on court, 0 points, 0-of-0 on two-pointers, 0-of-0 on threes, 0-of-0 FT, zero defensive rebounds, zero offensive rebounds, one assist, one steal, two turnovers, 0 bl-f, 0 bl-a, 0 fouls-c, 0 fouls-d and the poetic justice of 0 VAL.

Italian mafia – Efes Pilsen collected a key road win in Milano, and the ones who made the difference were Charles Smith, Milos Vujanic, Michalis Kakiouzis and Bootsy Thornton. What they have in common? All played in LEGA at some point in their career.

Monday’s cigarettes

There we go: We know now all the Eurobasket 2009 participants except one, and the Euroleague tipoff is only one month away.

• So France and Italy have to go through an additional qualifying round next summer in order to qualify for Eurobasket 2009. In the tournament, they will face Bosnia-Herzegovina, Portugal, Finland and Belgium. Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine and Estonia will play for the relegation in Division B.
• Talking of Division B, there are still three teams that remain unbeaten and have the best chances to move up to Division A: Belarus, Montenegro and Sweden. The competition will resume in summer 2009.
• The first major European League, the German Bundesliga, started this weekend. You can still join our Fantasy League Division and if you want to get the real feeling, watch the impressive pre-season trailer from Telekom Baskets Bonn. By the way, the league will start with three new arenas and is about to reach 2nd place in our European attendance ranking.
• ACB Classico brings us the phenomenal Sarunas Jasikevicius during the 2003 Finals with FC Barcelona, where he comes up with a monumental blocked shot to decide the game.
• The French basketball press saw some changes recently, with the end of Maxi-Basket and Basketnews and their merger into two new magazines: BasketNews weekly and MaxiBasketnews monthly. Additionally, BasketNews now also has a very informative website, though only in French.
• A shocker in the Italian League, as two teams have been excluded: Capo d’Orlando and Napoli. The Sicilian team was late in their payments while Napoli faked documents in an attempt to enter the league. Both teams will not be replaced.
• The Lliga Catalana has once again been won by DKV Joventut Badalona in beating Regal FC Barcelona 95-83 behind 29 points from Demond Mallet.

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Olympic Games: the Lithuanian fan experience

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Ricky freezes Lithuania

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Thursday rumors

How about Juan Carlos Navarro back to the Euroleague?
This is a tricky one, but it does seem very possible, though Mario Kasun and Roko Ukic need to be factored into the equation. Roko played a great season in Rome, where his team made it all the way to the finals before losing to Montepaschi Siena. We know that the Raptors drafted him in 2005, but do they really want or need him?

Ukic currently has a contract with FC Barcelona, the team that desires the return of Juan Carlos Navarro so badly. Kasun, who has already played in the NBA for the Orlando Magic, also has another year on his contract, but Barcelona is filled with centers and is rumored to be interested in Mark Gasol as well. So why not make a package deal in which Barcelona sends Kasun and Ukic to the Memphis Grizzlies to get Juan Carlos back?

It is a possible deal, but there are too many factors inluded to make this more than rumor:

UPDATE: There goes the gossip the Carlos could make €10 million for five years with Barcelona…

Willie Solomon will join Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Willie had a great season in Turkey this past year and was one of the top players in the Euroelague. Of course, anybody would want a guy like that. And if the coach wants you, the managers and team president will try anything to get that player. Now consider: This is Maccabi Tel Aviv, who just suffered a disappointing outcome in the Final Four - they really wanted to win that trophy but there was no way past CSKA. To match up with such a team, Maccabi must acquire players like Solomon; and don’t forget, Willie also thinks about the money, not only a nice team, which Maccabi has plenty of right now. The only thing that might scare off Maccabi fans at least: Willie likes to shoot - as a point guard.

Solomon to Maccabi:

Sarunas Jasikevicius leaves PAO and joins … CSKA.
Did you really think that CSKA Moscow would keep only the coach, Smodis and Trajan Langdon, while other teams try to assemble a team to beat CSKA? Not really, right? Especially with Moscow’s type of budget, you’d want to get another player that helps your team. Now wait: At what position does CSKA need help?

Let me think … man, this is hard to find out … how about shooting guard? Well, the team just signed Russian shooting guard Victor Keyru, so that isn’t open for more signings, but a point guard might be very helpful to CSKA. We all know that they have Papaloukas, but many believe he’s past his prime. Papaloukas might be a fine leader off the court and still a great player, but Jasikevicius could be just a perfect fit.

How would that work? Sarunas’ buyout price is €250,000 - pocket change for CSKA. They could even offer Sarunas a way better contract. Since Panathinaikos had a bad season and Sarunas was coming off the bench, they might look for another more point guard-like player.

Chances of Sarunas landing in Mosocow:

Terrell McIntrye will leave Siena.
Siena management has informed the press that they do not need to have Terrell next season. Well, I would not break up a team like Siena at all, but again a scoring point guard is not that hard to find. If you have read above that Panathinaikos is in need of a PG and if Sarunas is let go, this would be the next step for Terrell - at least when it comes to money.

Terrell McIntrye leaving Siena and joining PAO: