Quiz: The NBA- and Euro-centric year in basketball, 2011-12

Quick! Before those memories of basketball championships European and NBA fade completely, take a brief look back at the season that was – one crazy one on The Continent that began with Tony Parker, Ty Lawson and Mehmet Okur playing over here and concluded with titles taken by King James and Emperor Spanoulis. Get out those pencils and take the BallinEurope quiz…

1. The 2011-12 Euroleague season:
a) was one of the greatest ever
b) was the greatest ever
c) proved Jordi Bertomeu’s contention that “we don’t need NBA imports to be a top-quality competition”
d) was awesome, but man, i’m jonesing. When does the season start?

2. The Euroleague title was won by:
a) CSKA Moscow, regarded as one of the top two teams outside the NBA going into the Final Four tournament
b) FC Barcelona, the other
c) Panathinaikos, the defending champions
d) Not one of them. Whoa.

3. Olympiacos’ double-title run:
a) represented heroes emerging from crisis
b) catapulted Dusan Ivkovic into greater transcendent heights of European basketball coaching history
c) implied that a huge budget and fancy American imports aren’t necessary to win titles
d) was Vassilis Spanoulis’ test-screening for a primary role in “Avengers 2”

4. The European club team of the year was:
a) Beşiktaş Milangaz
b) Ah, come on, you know who it was.

5. Vassilis Spanoulis:
a) turned in one of the great individual seasons of all-time
b) can now be considered one of Olympiacos’ immortals
c) is God
d) could probably even solve his country’s economic problems
e) A, B and C only

6. Andrei Kirilenko:
a) is “not a robot”
b) still has perhaps the baddest back tattoo on Earth
c) could return to CSKA Moscow next season
d) unless he doesn’t

7. The 2011-12 edition of NBA basketball proved that:
a) we’re witnessing a golden age for the league
b) 82 regular-season games is in fact too much
c) David Stern still rules and the fans will after all easily forgive a work stoppage and ugly business deals dominating the news
d) Player lockout? What player lockout?

8. The Miami Heat’s championship win was most distressing for:
a) fans in Cleveland
b) fans in the other 29 NBA markets
c) the Serge Ibaka Army
d) haters of all that is wicked and immoral in the galaxy – i mean, basketball world

9. Tweeter of the Year was:
a) Ty Lawson

10. Kobe Bryant was offered the following contract from Claudio Sabatini and Virtus Roma:
a) €500,000 for a single game
b) €1.5 million for three games
c) about €5 million for the entire season
d) all of the above, but really probably anything just for a phone call…

11. Kobe ultimately:
a) turned down all offers from Sabbatini
b) will be playing for Virtus Bologna any day now to be sure

12. Mikhail Prokhorov is currently more popular in:
a) Newark
b) Russia
c) another dimension, maybe

13. Bigger scandal:
a) This…

b) …or this?

14. The most valuable NBA refugee for a European team was:
a) Deron Williams with Beşiktaş
b) Andrei Kirilenko with CSKA Moscow
c) Sonny Weems with Žalgiris Kaunas
d) Adam Morrison with Red Star Belgrade
e) Brian Scalabrine with Benetton Treviso

14B. One of:
a) us!
b) One of us!
c) One of us!
d) One of us!

15. Deron Williams had his jersey retired by Beşiktaş JK for:
a) playing in a few more games for the club than Allen Iverson
b) his 50-point barrage against BG Göttingen
c) getting Beşiktaş highlights onto SportsCenter
d) all of the above, but mostly C

16. The craziest craze in the NBA in 2011-12 was:
a) Rubiomania!
b) Linsanity!
c) Ersanity!

17. The winner of Italy’s Serie A was:
a) Montepaschi Siena
b) Montepaschi Siena
c) Montepaschi Siena
d) Montepaschi Siena

18. The winner of Poland’s PLK championship title was:
a) Asseco Prokom Gdynia
b) Asseco Prokom Gdynia
c) Asseco Prokom Gdynia
d) Asseco Prokom Gdynia

19. The winner of the Greek League championship title was:
a) Panathinaikos
b) Pana – wait a minute, PAO didn’t win?

20. The team that has the best chance of preventing a Spain-USA gold-medal game in the 2012 Olympics is:
a) Russia
b) France
c) Team USA itself
d) The committee that decides the groupings for preliminary rounds

21. For 2012-13, Ettore Messina will be coaching:
a) CSKA Moscow
b) Oh, come on
c) Oh, come on … why’d you leave us, Ettore? (Option for Los Angeles Lakers fans.)

22. The biggest snub by the Euroleague:
a) BC Minsk
b) Unics Kazan
c) Lietuvos Rytas
d) Anybody besides Unicaja Malaga

23. In the driver’s seat for the 2013 FIBA European Player of the Year award is:
a) Vassilis Spanoulis, though Team Greece isn’t expected to go far in the Olympics
b) Tony Parker, though his San Antonio Spurs completely collapsed for four straight games against the Oklahoma City Thunder
c) Andrei Kirilenko, though his CSKA Moscow utterly disappeared for one of the most important quarters in club history
d) guess we’ll have to wait for the London Games…

24. The 2013 Euroleague Final Four will be played in:
a) London
b) WTF

25. The 2014 Euroleague Final Four will be played in:
a) London
b) No, really, WTF

Correct answers: Like BiE’s gonna give out marks – yeah, surrrrrrrrrrrre. It’s summertime, for Naismith’s sake.

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