February 2011 34
And the Oscar (Robertson) goes to: Basketball Movies in 2010
So the envelopes have been opened and the celebratory parties in Tinseltown have yet to truly begin as Hollywood’s version of the NBA All-Star Weekend draws to a close. BallinEurope spent most of the weekend flipping between the ACB, NBA, “Black Swan” and “The Kids are All Right,” and is thus in perfect mindset to […]
Fratello named Team Ukraine coach for Eurobasket 2011
Former Atlanta Hawks coach/Marv Albert’s right-hand man Mike “The Czar” Fratello has been named coach of Team Ukraine in advance of Eurobasket 2011. According to press releases and Associated Press reportage, Ukrainian Basketball Federation president Olexandr Volkov stated that “We have a verbal agreement and will sign an official contract any day now. This will […]
And the nominees in the category of “Best Euroleague Coach” are…
Over at the Lithuanian Perspective, BallinEurope typically contributes to a weekly column entitled “The Wise Men Know” (hey, BiE didn’t choose the moniker). This week, the deadline sadly whooshed past this writer and so no contribution from Os Davis appears in the current edition. However, BiE just couldn’t let this week’s third question – namely, […]
Lietuvos Rytas 68, Panathinaikos 67: How do you say “Khalid El-Amin rules!” in Lithuanian?
Forget Jeremy Pargo, Vassilis Spanoulis and even mighty Sofoklis; instead consider: Could Khalid El-Amin have been the best Euroleague free-agent signing of 2010-11? The former U. Conn Husky/journeyman of Turkey and Ukraine once again applied the dagger with two free throws for his 10th and 11th points of the game, beautifully facilitated ball movement and […]
Top 100 teams in Europe: Week of upsets edition
While NBA fans were mostly talking about Blake Griffin and Carmelo Anthony last week, the buzzword around Europe last week was “upset.” Seemingly from end to end, Continental leagues saw their respective mighty – if not fall – at least stagger from a blow dealt by a lower seed. Real Madrid lost to new no. […]
Vlade Divac’s All-Star Weekend in Hungary
So how did Vlade Divac spend his All-Star weekend? By hanging out with former Bull/Cavalier/Raptor/Gran Canaria/Tau Ceramica big man Kornél Dávid plus a buncha players from Hungary and old Yugoslavia! As a prelude to the Hungarian National League all-star game between locals and foreign-born players, the country’s sole NBA product was reunited with his fellow […]
A week in highlights: Spanish block party, mighty Milos, Utah rap and some dude dunking in L.A.
Yes, readers, it’s Sunday. Or, as BallinEurope likes to think of it, “YouTube Trawlday.” (As though BiE avoids the ‘Tube on the other six days. Yeah, surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre.) Whatever you want to call it, start your day with these 10 video clips starring Nando De Colo, Mirza Begic, Mehmet Okur, Milos Teodosic, Ibrahim Jaaber, Bojan Bogdanović […]
Vassilakopoulos: Full steam ahead on Mediterranean League
BallinEurope admits to having felt a great deal of skepticism when the rumors of a new major pan-European (and now -Asian! But more on that momentarily) basketball association were first announced; day by day it seems, however, that the Mediterranean League comes closer to reality. The prospective league could potentially involve teams from nine nations, […]
Cartoon Dirk takes his talents to “Cleveland”
Last Sunday in the ‘States, prime-time animated program “The Cleveland Show” ran its take on the NBA All-Star game. Chief among the player cameos was that of Dirk Nowitzki, who gets to do lots of stuff about how he doesn’t speak English so good. Nowitzki was joined by Lebron James (really), Shaquille O’Neal (no surprise […]
Top 100 Teams in Europe: After the cups, then what? Edition
The dust – and in Germany, the glass – has settled on a week of Cup tournament action throughout The Continent, so it’s time for BallinEurope to crunch the numbers in compiling the weekly Top 100 Teams in Europe list. But, ran the first question, what relative weight should be prescribed for these games for […]
Lietuvos Rytas Dance Team displays sweet routine
For those of you with Facebook accounts, drop everything you’re doing immediately (or perhaps after you get to the end of this post) and check out the Baltic Basketball League page for what could well be the coolest-ever number performed by a basketball dance team. Therein, the Lietuvos Rytas ladies are not only wearing some […]
Vesely named FIBA Europe young player of 2010
[Editor’s note: BallinEurope apologizes for a previous edition of this piece which incorrectly identified Jan Vesely as having rights owned by the Oklahoma City Thunder. This was a grievous error of which you surely need not know details. Rest assured that the infinite number of monkeys formerly ravaging the BiE headquarters are now under control […]