And here we go again for the cigarettes you absolutely need to start the week.
- The story of the weekend (at least in French basketball) may be the coaching style of Michel Gomez with the national team. After much criticism about his selection as head coach, the results in preparation were not that great. And as L’Equipe points out, Gomez has used 11 different starting fives in the 11 games he’s coached so far. Well, after the first qualifier against Belgium last week, in which team captain Tony Parker started the game on the bench while watching his team fall behind 11-1, Parker talked about this to the coach. The result: For the game against Ukraine this Saturday, players voted on who should start in three of the five spots. This is really incredible and unheard of in professional basketball. It was not enough, though, as the starting five of Parker, de Colo, Turiaf (players’ choice), Diawara and Issa (Gomez’ choice) lost to Ukraine by 1.
- Watch here for the first big explosion of Pau Gasol with the Barcelona Jersey in the ACB Classicos during the Copa del Rey 2001. It’s a great opportunity to see some other European legends such as Arturas Karnishovas (new international scout of the Houston Rockets), Sasha Djordjevic or Alberto Herreros in action.
- Loren Woods has arrived in Lithuania.
- Great Britain won their first game in their road to Eurobasket 2009 against a poor Czech Republic team. The overtime loss in Israel last Wednesday additionally shows that this goal is real. Chris Finch was not too happy about what happened in the final seconds of the game in Tel Aviv during the week.
- Omer Asik will miss the next sixth months of competition after the Turkish team hoped to see him back for the first weeks of Euroleague.
- If you like blockedshots, be sure to watch the Top 10 Blocks from the French league.
- Simon Cote, former international scout for the Denver Nuggets, started his first head coaching job in Germany this season. His team the Giessen 46ers seems pretty hot in the preseason, as they won one of the most important Bundesliga preparation tournaments in beating Telekom Baskets Bonn in the final, 75-68
- Italy is doing quite badly at the moment. Finishing last in a qualifying round with Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary (!) and Finland (!) is quite tough. FIBA Europe defines the situation quite well: More defeats could see them drop into Division B, quite a development for a side that just four years ago won a silver medal at the Olympics.
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