Aftermath cigarettes

October 24, 2008

The first Euroleague game day of the 2008/09 season is in the books – all the home teams won their games besides Avellino (Italy) who lost to Olympiacos, and SLUC Nancy (France) who got killed at home against FC Barcelona.

Player that impressed me the most: Loren Woods. I know Will McDonald is the Euroleague MVP of week 1, but with all the big problems in Kaunas, money problems, Loren hitting people on the court and then facing Panthinaikos, Loren pulls off a game with 17 points and 16 rebounds in 33 minutes, which means 28 ranking points for Loren. Good job!

Player that disappointed (me) the most: Ibrahim Jaaber – come on man: you’re on my Euroleague fantasy team! I chose you for your steals and defense last season…and this time not one steal, not one assist and not even one point in 18 minutes. Thanks for your -3 ranking.

Euroleague TV comments: I watched at least 10 minutes of every game during the first gameday to find out if the pay-more-money-for-fewer-games thing works out. I have to say that the stream works really fine and I had no problems following the games even switching between them all the time. What I did not like is the resolution offered. The windows are clearly too small to really enjoy a game and by switching to full screen you can’t even read the score because of the bad resolution. Also new this year – as far as I remember – EL.tv stays online during halftime and offers a closeup of the bench during timeouts.

Brandon Jennings watch: Evin Demirel talks about it: It’s obvious Jennings is learning to adjust to the European game. 9 points on 3-of-7 for threes and 0 assists – not sure if this is what European basketball is about. I am sure, though, that it won’t take too long for Brandon to show his real potential and we really are looking forward to this.

The 31st overall draft pick for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Nikola Pekovic, in his first Euroleague game out of Serbia and for Panathinaikos: 14 points in 14 minutes in a 78-51 win against Zalgiris Kaunas in front of 12,000 visitors, according to Euroleague statistics.

Speaking of Euroleague statistics: Marques Greens (Fenerbahce) played 30 minutes and had 5 points by making one two-pointer, one three-pointer and two free throws. Please tell me that this still would equal 7 points.

Same game, same problem – Gasper Vidmar: 1-of-2 on free throws equals 3 points right?

Josh Childress watch: 14 points, 8 rebounds in 25 minutes with a ranking of 22. Josh, learn to look at these ranking points – This is what Europe, especially Euroleague fantasy players, will judge you for. Here are the highlights.

Finally our thoughts on the Euroleague TV commentators. Overall judge – funny and entertaining – with insightful comments in a true European/Italian way (in terms of pronunciation and passion). Really disappointing is the only guy who seems to be an American. His English might be perfect but the way he commentates a game made me fall asleep while Unicaja and Le Mans were actually playing a very interesting game. We know that he had problems with European names: problems with European names in the past, but I am sure, if you prepare a little bit for a game you can see that David Bluthenthal is not spelled David BLUMENthal, which in German means David Flowerthal, by the way.

Oct 24, 2008ballineurope

This post was published on October 24, 2008

Comments: 14

rubmasta
15 years ago
well maybe the first time it’s funny to listen to these trashy EL-comentators. But actually they are really soul-destroying!!! They just don’t have any notion of commenting a bball-game… much less of entertainment. But having no real inside knowledge is the worst thing at all. At least pronouncing the names in the right way is a must-have. So these guys are so embarrassing for me as a spectator i just can’t stand it (in Germany we’ve got a nice word for it: “Fremdschämen”).
In face of the prize and this lack in quality you have to admit that the EL-TV-pass is just not a good product… it is a shame to the euroleague-organization.
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loteq
15 years ago
On the Euroleague commentators.

I have to say that from 2 games I watched, the first, Nancy-Barcelona, was absolutely no fun. The commentator kept looking for excuses to the awful match of Nancy, while downplaying nice plays of BCN. The guy actually got more excited about a missed jumper by Nancy than by a dunk by BCN, which he barely acknowledged. That’s just wrong. Not just biased, but wrong.

The other match, Madrid-Panionios, the commentator started in greek… i was really surprised, because i clearly remembered checking that the comments were being in english before i signed up and paid them 90€. I don’t know exactly when because i turned off the sound, but later i noticed that the commentator switched to english. This guy actually knew how to do his job pretty well – once you understand him.
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loteq
15 years ago
By the way… i would have loved to send my comments to the EL.tv staff… but the only contact i found was the EL.net webmaster, which must be so overflowed with spam that noone ever reads that inbox.

Do any of you guys know of a contact address of EL.tv? After all, i’m sure *someone* would like to know what their customers are thinking.
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loteq
15 years ago
This is hialrious:

Ok, this is what you get when you try their online support chat:

Welcome to Euroleague Technical and Billing Support! An agent will be with you shortly.
You have been connected to XXX (anonymized the poor guy).
XXX: Hello! Thank you for contacting Euroleague Live Support. How may I assist you today?
Customer: Hello Curtis
Customer: I am a EL.tv customer and I would like to give my feedback about the service. I know this is probably not the place, but I would appreciate a pointer to such a contact
XXX: I’m sorry but we do not have the information you have requested available to us. Thank you for understanding.
Customer: Where can I obtain that information then?
XXX: Please use Google or Yahoo search engine to find more information.
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Yarone Arbel
15 years ago
Hey loteq,

would try to pass it along to the right people…

Thanks for your opinions.

Y
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loteq
15 years ago
Hi Yarone,

I’m not sure I understand what you mean… If you’re saying that this place is not the right place to post my opinions, i don’t agree, as the post clearly is talking about the shortcomings of the EL commentators.

If however, you are saying that it is useless for me to post my comments here, you are probably a little right. I’m sorry if I vented my frustration here, but it’s the only place that seems to care. Sorry if I have offended anyone.
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Tobias
15 years ago
Hey loteq,

We do care and Yarone made you an honest offer. He knows the people within the Euroleague – was not trying to be funny.

I even sent you an email to the email address you left – but this is probably not working. Please contact us through the contact page on our web site.

Best wishes,
Tobias
BallinEurope.com
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Geoff
15 years ago
The guy doing the Roma-Alba game was a disaster. He could not distinguish between Julius Jenkins and Rashad Wright or Steffan Hamman/Casey Jacobson and Adam Chubb. He was also often incapable of seeing who had commited the foul or what had happened during the play, did the ball go out of bounds, was there a foul…In general he detracted from the game and could not spit out his sentence without being about a play behind.
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Tobias
15 years ago
Hey Geoff,

I also watched the game of Alba vs. Roma. I know that it is really hard to generally figure out what is going on on the court. You have to keep in mind that the Euroleague TV guys are not in the arena and see the same feed we do on the computer. I tried to follow the ALBA game full screen and I could not even read the score, so I can’t blame that guy for not knowing who is who since he probably never saw them in person. Of course commentating a game through a live feed is not the best way, but then you have to think about the costs to send these guys to the games.

We would love to get Euroleague TV improved as much as you do, but we have to keep it in a realistic range.

Thanks you for your comments though!

Tobias
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Geoff
15 years ago
I also only watched the game online and I realize that the commentators are not there and only watching the same stream that I am but I still think that that game was exceptionally bad (I did watch parts of every game so I can compare it). This is my first year using the EL.tv service and although I have been in Europe for a few years I have only followed the German Basketball League so other than Brezec I had not seen any of those Roma players before.

Maybe the commentator does not know it exists but the EL could have provided him with some game tape from a sportdigital.tv game. He may not understand German, mine isn’t very good either, but at least he could have gotten a basic understanding of the team. If he were to have watched one/two games of Alba beforehand he would have known a little bit about the roster. I don’t think that it is unrealistic to at least try to watch a team play on tape before you comment on their game.
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Tobias
15 years ago
Well, this is a point we agree – I think they should prepare for this – at least ask how to spell names or watch a few NBA games to see what people talk about 🙂 I mean it is not that they discover new territory – the NBA shows them how to entertain people.
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Stevan
15 years ago
Well, why does not Christophe and you(Tobias) commentate games?

I mean, you have the better insights in EVERY team, you can tell particular storys about some players, you have the Bball knowledge…

why not?
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Yarone Arbel
15 years ago
I’m against it.

I hear from Tobias and Christophe enough as it is.

If I hear them on the EL TV as well, I would kick my computer.
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Sotis
15 years ago
I must say that the quality of this years Euroleague.tv is slightly better than last year. A bit expensive though. Also, the internet site is better as well.

I wonder, Do they release any statistics of Euroleague.tv? How many subscibers are there so far? And how about last year? I am curious to know.
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