David Stern 31
FIBA’s new international tournament rules: Capitulation, silent collusion or just plain selling out?
Apologies from BallinEurope for not weighing in on this … thing until this morning, but after rereading it for the nth time, BiE felt the rant building but wanted to avoid posting an overly emotional response. Perhaps a day and a good night’s rest would temper my viewpoint; maybe upon waking this morning, we’d all […]
US Presidential Election 2012: America’s basketball diplomat hits hardwood for last-minute votes (plus Official Fearless Prediction™)
Love him or hate him after nearly four years in office, one thing is for certain: Barack Obama is the first basketball president – a fact that could curry lots of favor with Generation X and Y voters in a celebrity-charged election. Sure, Bill Clinton was lucky enough to enjoy his home-state University of Arkansas’ […]
Podcast: “The Euroleague Bonanza”
On this, the eve of Euroleague basketball 2012-13 edition, David Hein and BallinEurope (unleash) present a serious gabfest on all things Euroleague (and some NBA) with two of our favorite hoops scribes. It’s two hours of solid basketball talk, a.k.a. episode four in the “Taking the Charge” podcast series, which Hein took to calling “The […]
Stern Words: Analyzing the NBA and Euroleague bigwigs’ Berlin press gig
So apparently this is what BallinEurope does when dithering about Official Fearless Predictions™ for Euroleague waiting around to record podcasts: Watches video of league management types. On the other hand, this isn’t just any commissioner we’re talking about today – This is El Jefe himself, arguably the most influential figure in international basketball for a […]
NBA Europe Live, Euroleague American Tour: Bo knows highlights; Celtics regroup against Milano; Stern travels; video clips
The past three days saw five cross-continental club games play out in Europe and the US in the 2012 Euroleague American and NBA Europe Live tours. And, hey, it’s Monday, so let’s just roll the highlight clips! • Naturally, the biggest news was all about the lone upset among the games: Fenerbahçe Ülker’s 97-91 toppling […]
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 […]
Spartak St. Petersburg 82, Triumph Lubertsy 73: Epic display of flopping, personal vendetta or match-fixing conspiracy?
Criticizing the referees is the international pastime for fans of every sport as losses are bemoaned and shortcomings blamed on those unloved (and allegedly) myopic zebras. Nothing new here. Cynicism and conspiracy theorizing are particularly rife in this part of formerly Soviet-influenced Europe, with anything up to and including Eurobasket losses. Again, nothing new here. […]
And the Oscar (Robertson) Goes To: Basketball Movies in 2011
Meanwhile, over in Hollywoodland … to no cineaste’s surprise, the silent film The Artist was named “Best Motion Picture of the Year” at the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony. While Tinseltown may have had a decent, if not mind-blowing, twelve months of production in 2011 – as evidenced by Woody Allen taking the “Best Original Screenplay” […]
Basketball diplomacy: Obama plagiarizes self in praise of Danilo Gallinari, Marco Belinelli
Hosting dignitaries and politicos from Italy this week, U.S. president/basketball devotee Barack Obama recently gave an interview to the visiting media as well, naturally taking time to praise Italia’s representatives in the NBA. As self-proclaimed scholar of basketball diplomacy – perhaps the only one on the planet – Enrico Cellini has noticed that Obama’s effusive […]
11-for-11: BallinEurope’s Most 11 popular stories from 2011
So 2011 may have been few people’s favorite year personally, European basketball fans have certainly got to be taking solace in the fact that the past 12 months featured a seriously great run of Continental-flavored hoops. To wit, in 2011, we enjoyed: • an exciting round of Euroleague playoffs which included FC Barcelona’s surprising tournament-round […]
Danilo Gallinari on life in Denver: “Crazy schedule, less aggressive women. I go to bed earlier.”
BallinEurope’s Enrico Cellini gives us some excellent highlights from a recent interview between his countryman Danilo Gallinari of the Denver Nuggets and Italy-based daily Gazzetta dello Sport. Gallinari is nicely candid in the piece on topics ranging from the comparison of the ladies in Milan, New York and Denver to el jefe himself, NBA commissioner […]
NBA Nuclear Winter, European exodus reportedly over
And just when things were starting to get interesting … D-Will going for 50 points, Lamar Odom and his reality-show entourage were set to join him in Turkey, CSKA Moscow winning without their AK-47… About two hours ago, CBS Sports reported that a deal had been reached between the NBA Players Association and owners, with […]