Dirk Nowitzki 140
Donatas Motiejunas declares for draft; BallinEurope revisits prospect
One of last year’s projected top five selections in the NBA Draft has declared instead for the 2011 edition of the world’s biggest hoops talent lottery: Big man Donatas Motiejunas deferred in 2010 because “really felt like he needed another year of international ball before he was ready for the NBA” … so how has […]
Playing with money: Are some European NBA players worth it?
Finally blessed with a bit of time to peruse ESPN’s compelling financial stats as presented in its magazine’s “All About the Money” issue (check them out if you haven’t already; big numbers are fun!), BallinEurope just couldn’t help, well … noodling around with the numbers some more! Over at the big network’s Chicago Blackhawks blog, […]
NBA Western Conference Playoffs: The Eurocentric view
Rumor has it that across the ocean, this basketball league called the NBA is about to begin its playoffs. With the 2010-11 regular season behind us, BallinEurope takes a present-and-future look at the playoff-bound Europeans in the American league series by series, together with musings, meanderings, YouTube clips and those Fearless Predictions™. Today: the Western […]
Nike Hoop Summit flashbacks: Dirk Nowitzki, Enes Kanter
In terms of performances from individual European players at the Nike Hoop Summit, two in the history of the annual game stand out from the rest: Those of Dirk Nowitzki in 1998 and Enes Kanter last year. Dirk’s monster 33-point, 14-rebound performance in a 104-99 International Team win was all the proof the Milwaukee Bucks […]
Ricky Rubio: An object of faith
Of all the European players who have come down the NBA Draft pike, none – no, not even Darko – has been as polarizing as one Ricard “Ricky” Rubio Vives. And why such derision on both sides of the Ricky Rubio question? Since when has anyone outside the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area cared so damn […]
Nike Hoop Summit: Nine named to World Select Team (but not Enes Kanter)
Rosters for the 2011 Nike Hoop Summit have been released and while The Continent is well-represented on the World Select Team, BallinEurope considers there to be at least one shocking omission. Team World will include Davis Bertans (Latvia/Union Olimpija); Evan Fournier (France/Poitiers); Przemyslaw Karnowski (Poland/SMS PZKosz); Mateusz Ponitka (Poland/Tempcold AZS); and Dario Saric (Croatia/KK Zagreb). […]
Take Dat Wit Chew: Nowitzki gets DJ Steve Porter remix treatment
DJ Steve Porter has done it again, and this time the NBA’s most popular European player is the star. The mixmaster, who has become ubiquitous in the American sports entertainment world since he parlayed his YouTube classic “Press Hop” into a deal to create the videos for last season’s NBA playoff advertising campaign, puts Dirk […]
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 […]
In case of lockout: Drei Deutschland destinations for Dirk
Who will benefit most (at least in the short-term) from an NBA lockout to start and/or kill the 2011-12 season? European clubs! Specifically, those European clubs which are blessed with either deep-pocketed owners or which wisely stockpiled a few extra million euros in case of this eventuality. Since before the new year, German pundits and […]
University of Central Florida study shows European NBA players dominant in aesthetics
While needlessly noodling around idly catching up on some online reading this morning, BallinEurope came across this little gem detailing European NBA players’ domination in a certain statistical area in the big league. The Onion, the US-based news source that once famously readjusted Dirk Nowitzki’s stats by current exchange rates, this week reports on a […]
On Team Germany, Bayern München and Dirk Bauermann’s Catch-22
When fans think of European basketball superpowers, typically names like Spain, Greece, Russia and even Lithuania or Italy tend to enter early into any discussion. At least one national program wants to change this conception – and thus far appears to be a paragon of success which others might do well to follow. To wit, […]
Festivus Invitational Tournament continues: Dream Team handed stunning loss; Europeans barely survive 60s again
Four more games are in the books as the first-ever BallinEurope Festivus Invitational Basketball Tournament rolls on, shattering all attendance records for Budapest basketball (no major feat, but still) as fans gather to witness the all-time greats plucked from their native timestreams for their amusement … but who was amused when the Dream Team itself […]