Yarone’s Friday’s joints

Sofoklis Schortsianitis (Olympiacos) – No shot attempts at all and only one foul in 7:42 minutes. Only once before has Schortsianitis finished a Euroleague game without a single shot attempt and that was when he played only two minutes.

Milos Teodosic (Olympiacos) – How often did you get to see this Serbian scorer finish with zero three-point attempts in 14:40? It happened once last season. If this were to continue this season, it would mean Yannakis is turning the kid from a scoring machine into a true team player. Keep an eye out.

Loren Woods (Zalgiris) set a Euroleague career high with 17 points and nine defensive rebounds against Pao, who have one of the best front lines in Europe.

Tamar Slay (Avelino) had his Euroleague debut as well against a Greek team, but we won’t mention this game on his resume, with his 1-of-10 from the field and -11 VAL.

Marcus Brown (Maccabi) – On Monday, Brown took two flights to arrive in Tel Aviv in the afternoon from Kaunas. The following day, he took two more flights to get from Tel Aviv to Zagreb with his new team. In total, Brown has probably had more flights than practices with his new team. Nevertheless, he played 27:44.

Willie Deans (Zalgiris) - In his Euroleague debut, Deans finished 1-of-10 from the field and -9 VAL against Pao.

Tau Ceramica Vitoria (ACB) used the shortest rotation this week with only eight players. Efes used nine, with one player on the floor for just 22 seconds. All other teams used between nine and 12 players

Rawle Marshall (Cibona) – Simply fun to watch. 20 points, 5-of-9 from the field, 3 rebounds, 3 steals, zero turnovers, 7 fouls drawn, and 29 VAL in a Euroleague debut. All cold numbers. Bottom line: Simply fun to watch.

Dimitris Diamantidis (Panathinaikos) – The best defender award winner for the past four years and one of the top three ball stealers on The Continent played 25:42 against Zalgiris with zero steals.

Dewarick Spencer & David Bluthenthal (Le Mans) – Now this could be a weekly check: Which of these two took more shots for his team? This time, Bluth wins 14-13 and also scores better accuracy.

Theodoros Papaloukas (Olympiacos) - 2,380 days have passed between 18/04/02 and today. Back then, Theo played his last Euroleague game for the Reds; yesterday, he made his rdappearance. Back then, he finished the game with 26:53 in playing time, 8 points, 3 rebounds and a VAL of 16. Today, he played only 90 seconds less, still scored 8 points, still grabbed 3 rebounds, and notched a VAL of 15 …consistency over a six-year span.

Avelino (LEGA) – In its Euroleague debut, the small Italian team registered a VAL of 36. Often this is less than the best weekly VAL from a single player.

Armani Jeans Milano (LEGA) – The game at Moscow was far from Milano’s Euroleague debut but under the new hat and management, expectations were different. Just like Avelino, another Italian team finished a game against a Final Four contender with a poor VAL rating of 36.

Tau (ACB) and Fenerbahce (TBL) combined for 52 attempts from long range on a night on which neither surpassed 30%.

Drew Nicholas (Panathinaikos) – After three seasons in a row over 40% from long range, the US shooter started his career in green with an 0-for-3 performance from long range.

Juan Carlos Navarro (Barcelona) – La Bomba bombed on the NBA runnerups 34 points less than a week ago. Last night, against SLUC Nancy empire, Navarro celebrated his return to the Euroleague with only four points and 1-of-8 from the field.

Derrick Sharp (Maccabi) – The veteran didn’t play a single second the entire game in Zagreb. The last time a Maccabi coach chose not to use Derrick was on 6 January 2000. After a 195-game streak and 3,213 days, a new count begins. Back then, in the first week of the millennium, Maccabi was just 1-of-6 from long range. Last night they showed a poor 4-or-16. Whether that’s a coincidence or not, you be the judge.

Oguz Savas (Fenerbahce) – The Turkish center is a decent rebounder, sometimes even more, but in Vitoria spent more than 23 minutes on the court and finished without a single rebound. This happened to Savas only once all of last season and back then, he played only five minutes.

Milos Vujanic (Efes) is officially back. The Serbian point guard beat his former team by a single point and was his team’s top scorer with 17 and just a single missed shot. The last time Vujanic scored more than 17 in a Euroleague game was on 9 March 2005 (that’s 1,324 days if you’re curious), when his Fortitudo Bologna won at Zalgiris by a single point as well and Vujanic had 18.

Real Madrid (ACB) – No fewer than eight players wrote a double-digit VAL in the 21-point cruise to victory against Olimpija.

Ibrahim Jabber, Ray Allan, Rodrigo De La Fuente, Brandon Jennings and Sanice Becirovic (Roma) – Coach Repesa’s backcourt combined for 4-of-18 inside the arc against Alba.

Nana Mensah-Bonsu (Joventut) had a very busy night under both baskets. Around Joventut’s rim he blocked three shots but on the other end was blocked three times as well. Not many players get to experience such activity on both ends on the floor.

Partizan (YUBA) and Maccabi (BSL) – Both lost by a single basket difference, the smallest margins of the first week, but in both cases it was after a three pointer at the buzzer that only made it look closer than it really was.

Alba (BBL) – No less than 1,723 days, since 4 February 2004, when Alba won their last Euroleague game. It was a 16 point triumph over Efes. John Best, Jovo Stanojevic, Marko Pesic and DeJuan Collins were the top scorers for Alba then. Not a single player on Alba has survived on the team since that season.

Brandon Jennings (Lottomatica) – The most standout number in the game that took Jennings’ Euroleague virginity is his 22 minutes with just a single turnover. Brandon also took nine shots from the field, more than any other Roma player yesterday.

Montepaschi (LEGA) were shooting better outside the arc (48% with 12 made) than inside it (40.5% with 15 made) in the nine-point win over Prokokm.

Boniface Ndong, Marcus Haislip and Robert Archibald (Unicaja) – The team’s three big men were also its three top scorers with 14, 13 and 11 points, respectively, over Le Man’s bigs.

Alain Koffi (Le Mans) – The athletic big man has finished each of his five seasons in the ULEB Cup and Euroleague with seven to nine assists total. On Wednesday night at Unicaja, the local stat guys bestowed him with no less than three, obviously a career high, and a great start to set a new season record as well.

(In case you are too shy to leave a comment here, you can always contact Yarone by sending him an email at arbel@ballineurope.com)

Euroleague: CSKA Moscow, Russia

As last year, I had to go for one preview too. So I had the chance to talk about CSKA Moscow, the reigning Euroleague Champion. Nothing easier than that I thought but a team renewed at half is not the lucky pick this time.

Overall record prediction: 8-2

But even some things never change, Ettore Messina is still at the head of the most powerful basketball team in Europe. Being announced all around the globe nearly every year, this summer, it was only the position of French or Italian NT head coach that was seriously discussed for the best coach-blogger in Europe.

The biggest change at a first look has of course been in the guard area. The legendary Theo Papaloukas returned to Greece and CSKA was imputed of their brain coming from the bench. The addition of Zoran Planinic is very interesting as the Croatian guard has a very similar profile to Papaloukas, both being close to 2m tall. However, Planinic has not the aura (yet) of the most famous mullet of the Euroleague. Planinic will get some support in the back-court by the veteran JR Holden, Nikos Zisis and the Alaskan Assassin Trajan Langdon but also some newly added talent in Victor Keyru. The surprise of the team can however be Alexey Shved who saw some minutes with the team during the first games of the Russian Championship.

The wing positions are still held by Ramunas Siskauskas and Victor Khryapa. The Lithuanian SF will go for another season of doing it all and the loss of Papaloukas will even put more pressure on his shoulders as the potential go-to-guy. Khryapa needs to step up and go for more than fouls and switch into the Eurobasket 2007 modus if he wants to live up to his potential. Andrey Vorontsevich should get some minutes in the future in order to help these two to get some rests but the young Russian forward is currently injured.

The biggest question mark I have however will be the inside sector. With the absence of Matjaz Smodis, CSKA had some trouble to find the necessary inside presence in the Russian League. Hopefully, the Slovenian forward has no severe problems. Neither Erazem Lorbek nor Terrence Morris showed the necessary rebounding so far in order to go for the starting job. And there are even rumors about Morris going to leave the team. The addition of Sasha Kaun may be interesting for the future but his role will probably very limited for his Euroleague rookie season.

Still, CSKA Moscow looks like a heavy favorite to join the Euroleague Final Four. In a group with only Efes Pilsen and Real Madrid as real powerhouses, a first place is possible, even if that’s not the goal of the team. And squads like the CSKA one will go for some losses in the beginning of the season as the automatism need some weeks to work. When the time of the Top16 is approaching, you won’t see that many problems anymore. And the possibility to defend the title in Berlin is really there.

Final Four participants: CSKA, Olympiacos, Montepaschi Siena, Panathinaikos

Euroleague winner: Panathinaikos

After the Olympics: What’s the future of Greece?

The Olympic Games 2008 are history but the next basketball events for the national teams are just around the corner: Eurobasket 2009, World Championships 2010 and of course London 2012. BallinEurope.com takes a look at the current situation of Europe’s Olympic participants and gives an outlook into their future. To start, we are analyzing the situation in Greece.

Read more

Monday rumors

Jorge Garbajosa to join CSKA
What a signing by CSKA: Terrence Morris joins Ettore Messina for the 2008/09 season, but as you can imagine this was not the last signing CSKA Moscow has announced or will announce. It looks like they are battling it out with FC Bacrelona this year, at least as far as big signings are concerned.

This is where FC Barcelona is still in the lead by signing Spanish NBA player Juan Carlos Navarro. Hold up, wasn’t there a Spanish guy who just came to an agreement to leave his NBA club? Right: Jorge Garbajosa. You can be as sure as anything that CSKA officials are trying to get this man on the roster, or at least considering the move. We heard about Jorge signing with Unicaja, but with the latest weekend deals, Jorge might end up in Moscow: Even the Spanish media thinks so.

Jorge Garbajosa joining CSKA:

Daniel Santiago to return to the NBA
Speaking of Malaga, is anybody thinking about Daniel Santiago from Puerto Rico? Just take a moment and look Daniel up on Wikipedia - this guy is like a chameleon! No, I’m not talking about his eyes; take a look at his name: Daniel Gregg Santiago Lynn. He can either go American with Gregg Lynn or Puerto Rican with Daniel Santiago. Well, just a funny side note…

On a more serious note, I just saw an interview with Daniel Santiago telling us that his contract with Malaga is over and he would love to join the NBA - again. He played for the Phoenix Suns in 2001 and the Milwaukee Bucks in 2003. Santiago also tells us that he would love to play in the NBA, although he has numerous offers from European clubs.

Santiago going to the NBA again … Well, he wishes:

Carlos Delfino to join Panathinaikos
Sounds great, doesn’t it, Greek basketball fans? And Panathinaikos has to come up with a signing like this. Nikola Pekovic alone won’t be enough to compete with FC Barcelona and CSKA Moscow, especially if Sarunas is leaving the club as many people hope or fear.

In Toronto, Carlos is stuck. He doesn’t get any significant playing time and probably not the kind of money a club like Panathinaikos is willing to offer. Bringing these thoughts together, I am sure Panathinaikos is considering Carlos.

Carlos coming to Greece:

Papaloukas to join Olympiakos
For some - at least some people in Greece -  this is already a done deal. I’m fine with that, but I do have my doubts. I was following Papaloukas closely at the Final Four in Athens last year and it looked to me like he was very attached to Panathinaikos, the arena and the fans. Don’t you think that Papaloukas signing with Olympiakos might make things even more difficult? Just imagine the Olympiakos vs. Panthianiakos game … We like excitement so we’ll approve this rumor!

Papaloukas joining Olympiakos:

Anthony Parker to return to Maccabi Tel Aviv
Good thinking: This guy knows how the game is played, but let’s not rip this Raptors team apart. Some players still have to remain, right? Meanwhile, I await the first Calderon-coming-back-to-Europe news.

Parker back in Europe … I’ll give it a one-star chance: