Here we go again with our roundup of what our favorite player-bloggers are telling us. Once again, it was Adam Hess that came up with some shocking news. Before the game in the brand new O2 World in Berlin, which will also host the Euroleague Final Four, the following dramatic scenes happened:
[I] was impressed that the visiting locker room of the O2 arena was three times the size of my apartment, had a spa that could fit ten people, twelve bikes so every player could warm up at once (I guess that is important??), a plasma TV, and some other things alluding to the obscene amount of money put into the building.I will also mention that 160 million dollar arenas do not come equipped with strong toilet seats. One of the guys broke it during its inaugural use. Who knows, maybe it will be good luck, like when people smash a champagne bottle against a ship before its first trip. And no, I will not divulge who. He is a sensitive one and might be offended!
So of course, the question remains: Who was the delinquent? To give you some hints, the following are the “official” weights of some of Adam’s teammates: Darren Fenn, 112kg; Dirk Mädrich, 116kg; Darius Hall, 120kg. I have some doubts about the figure listing Hall at only 120kg, because when you check out his highlight clips on YouTube, he really looks like the possible toilet seat breaker.
Euroleague.net has also presented its new Euroleague blogger, Ricardo Greer. Well his first post could have been used as one of our upcoming Euroleague Team previews and doesn’t have that much funny to report, except maybe this:
…we’re all going to have fun, but I know one guy who might have more fun than anyone in the league: our new center Rod Benson. He’s already famous for his blogs back in the States, and we’re all running round here saying “Boom Tho” all the time, to get with his movement. Maybe I can’t blog head-to-head with Rod, who’s got an incredible imagination, but I’ll do my best.
Well said, Mister Greer, so let’s check what the founder of the Boom Tho movement has to say … Well, nothing special, indeed, except a nice road trip video with a very important croissant story.
But not only do Euroleague players blog. Hundreds of US-born players are active as professionals in Europe and those active in the lower European divisions particularly face problems that some top stars could not imagine. Brandon Adair is one of these players; he’s currently with the Schwenningen Panthers in the fourth German league and he talks about the current problems that his team is up against.
Tuesday was another scheduled practice. Everyone showed up, everything seemed to be OK. Next thing you know, the coach calls a meeting for the players, and he starts talking to them (I do not know German) I do not understand a word he is saying, but it seems to me that he is not happy. Well, after my teammate translated it for me, it comes to find out that he is NOT under contract. The organization has come to a verbal agreement with him, but he has not been able to sign anything because they have not come up with the papers. THEN, another shocking moment, only 3 players have signed a contract for this year. Me and two other players. Everyone else is under “verbal agreement” which does not suit well with the coach. He wants to coach this team, but he wants to coach the team with no off the court issues such as contract problems. …
We had a team/club meeting on Thursday about the problems both the players and coaches have. I had the joy of sitting there in the room for about an hour listening to a language that I did not understand. I enjoyed sitting there looking at everybody’s faces to see if they were getting disgusted or having a good time. The actual meeting room was business-like. Also, it was in the shower room with chairs.
If you want to know how the situation develops, I would recommend you read Brandon’s blog, as it is quite interesting and his writing style is pretty funny, too.
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