Dirk Nowitzki 140
Dream Team Europe nips 1960 Team USA, 107-106, in Festivus Invitational opener
The first annual BallinEurope Festivus Invitational Tournament tipped off today, brought to you incidentally (they probably even haven’t heard of BiE) by the sports simulation website What If Sports. Opening up the tournament is BiE’s own (slightly modified) Dream Team Europe, who hosts that original dream team, the 1960 Team USA squad that destroyed all […]
Introducing the 2010-11 BallinEurope Festivus Invitational Tournament
As a holiday present to the audience, each of you has received courtside tickets to the first annual BallinEurope Festivus Invitational Tournament. Thanks to the miracle of totally BiE-unaffiliated (and totally mind-blowingly awesome) website What If Sports, we can bring together great players of the past and present for true dream matchups – and without […]
Interviews: Bauermann, Barkley, Blessed Footsteps, a Blue Devil and more
The interviews, as always, seem to be coming out of the virtual woodworks online these days. BallinEurope below rounds up some links featuring recent words of wisdom straight from the warriors’ mouths – though BiE forgives you if you skip directly to Charles Barkley’s bit at the end.
Pau Gasol versus the vampires (and BallinEurope versus Bill Simmons)
BallinEurope yesterday read the latest anti-Laker screed basketball column by ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons, an alternately funny and blood-boiling confession-style bit about conditioning one’s children to cheer for the “right” sports team, i.e. Daddy’s favorite team. Ultimately, however, The Sports Guy’s affectionate look at dominating your child’s formative years is perhaps best characterized as “disturbing.” And […]
Interview: Dirk Nowitzki on lockout, Caron Butler, Bayern Munich
BallinEurope friends and sponsors Kickz.com recently managed to score an interview with Mr. All-Time Europa NBA himself, Dirk Nowitzki while his Dallas Mavericks trained in the preseason. Below runs a translation of the German-language discussion in which Dirk discusses the importance of Caron Butler, which teams showed interest in him during the offseason, the collective […]
The Eurocentric 2010-11 NBA Preview (or How the Hoops World revolves around Europe)
With the 2010-11 NBA season tipping off tonight, BallinEurope marks the occasion in the best way possible: By overrating the league’s Continental players and making a few offhand Fearless Predictions™ in the guise of a preview column. Brief notes and snarky remarks on all 25 NBA teams follow. (Yes, BiE said “all 25.” Since the […]
Bricks, snickers and root canals: The week in Twitter
BallinEurope thinks he’s in love … with Twitter. (Yes, BiE knows he’s behind the times for this relevation, but still.) And so, for no better reasons than idle amusement and trying to justify a bit too much time spent over on *that site*, BiE presents a look at some of the top basketball-related tweets of […]
Dirk Nowitzki: Star of court and YouTube
For no good reason beyond sheer awesomeness and weirdity, BallinEurope presents a pair of Dirk Nowitzki fan videos which show the big German not only dominates his own game, but that he’s also a true genre-buster. Surely many of you have heard about (and three or four might even care) about the late November release […]
Most popular jerseys in Europe: Top 10 half European; Kobe, LeBron, D-Wade still rule
In advance of the Los Angeles Lakers-FC Barcelona game next week, fans of both teams in Europe are helping make Pau Gasol’s NBA jersey one of the hottest items among The Continent’s basketball faithful. Gasol reached no. 4 on the NBA’s official list of jersey sales in Europe. The list was compiled from sales at […]
European players in the NBA for 2010-11 (or, Come on, Raptors, sign Primoz Brezec already) [UPDATED]
With NBA teams starting to get warmed up for the regular season tipoff, BallinEurope figured it high time to take stock of the European players prospectively set to take the court in America for 2010-11. In considering the expanded rosters for each of the 30 NBA teams, BiE counted 50 players from The Continent plus […]
Kanter can’t play at U.K.? Fenerbahce Ulker exec blows whistle on eligibility
All those rumors that dogged Turkish phenom Enes Kanter through his senior year of high school in the U.S. – to the extent that he twice transferred schools when his eligibility was questioned – have blown up into allegations that may threaten his much-anticipated freshman year at University of Kentucky. Fenerbahçe Ülker GM Nedim Karakas […]
BallinEurope’s 2010 FIBA World Championship power rankings 5.0
Right. It’s time for the final edition – pending Nenad Krstic’s prospective suspension by FIBA – of BallinEurope’s 2010 FIBA World Championship power rankings. Now that Team USA has had it out with Spain and Greece, we can see the picture a little more clearly heading into the tournament tipping off Saturday. There’s a clear […]