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The official BallinEurope ballot for FIBA Europe Men's Players of the Year: Nowitzki, Navarro and…?
BallinEurope just loves season- and year-ending polls, and every December FIBA Europe offers hoops devotees the opportunity to participate in the naming the Continent’s Players of The Year. And while the winner of the award for 2011 – a.k.a. the Year of Dirk – is surely a no-brainer, the FIBA ballot calls for electors to […]
NBA Nuclear Winter settling in; Twitter bursts with news of player exodus
You know who benefits from the NBA player lockout? Twitter, that’s who. The website has become an endless source of interest as each event/non-event transpires in the NBA lockout soap opera. Minute to minute, commentators, players, pundits and rumormongers pithily weigh in and/or report on the immediate future of professional basketball in America… …and Europe! […]
The NBA Lockout Anthem: All together now!
BallinEurope admits to seesawing on the whole NBA lockout thing. On one hand, BiE’s never enjoyed such schadenfreude in any other walk of life and/or big-time media: It’s billionaires versus millionaires in a verbal tussle that only alienates the fan (on any part of the globe, BiE’d daresay). Hey, Europe’s still got basketball, lots of […]
Anton Larsen: “One great player to give Denmark hope”?
Denmark is one rarely associated with great basketball; indeed, the men’s national team is ranked no. 111 in the current FIBA standings, putting them well behind basketball powers such as Liberia and Togo. Despite it all, suggests Tom Schad in the Copenhagen Post Online, “Denmark could become world beaters in basketball.” Citing the examples of […]
Profile: Jan Vesely, Washington Wizards first-round draft pick
Despite the bad news handed down by NBA commissioner David Stern, BallinEurope’s man in the U.K., Sam Chadwick, is optimistic enough to suppose that the big league will be playing ball in 2011-12 – or at least optimistic enough to submit a draft profile on Jan Vesely. How good will the Czech be once NBA […]
Revisiting the odds: Which NBA players will come to Europe for 2011-12?
After another couple weeks of speculation, hype and quotage, it’s time for BallinEurope to revisit the odds: specifically speaking, the odds on NBA players coming to play ball on The Continent in 2011-12. Once again, should note that these lines are offered at no bookmaker service and are completely arbitrary (which is to say mostly […]
Profile: Enes Kanter, Utah Jazz' no. 3 overall draft pick
With Team Turkey bounced from Eurobasket 2011, BallinEurope’s Sam Chadwick takes a brief look back at the play of prospective Utah Jazz big man Enes Kanter during the tournament — and a look forward to speculate on what he can do in the NBA. Will he be a Al Horford type? Can he compete against […]
Has Dirk Nowitzki retired from Team Germany?
After an incredible 13th year with Team Germany came to an end with its defeat at the hands of Lithuania yesterday, Dirk Nowitzki may be contemplating retirement – in fact, the Germany-based Sport 1 believes it’s a done deal. Though in an interview with the network, Nowitzki stated that “he wanted to ‘see what the […]
NBA Draft expansion: What does it do to/for Europe?
Sports media and the blogosphere blew up a couple days ago, as the possibility of adding a third round to the NBA draft was reported to have been discussed as part of the ongoing labor negotiations. By day’s end Wednesday, some had publicly opined that this idea could be the “Best Thing To Come From […]
Spain holds off Germany in EuroBasket opener, 77-68
While this writer has left Lithuania (the “day job” calls…), BallinEurope can still provide coverage of EuroBasket 2011, thanks to our old friend Y. He’ll also be tweeting through the games as well, so follow our Twitter account at BiE_basketball as well! It’s the first day of second stage in Eurobasket 2011 in Lithuania, and […]
EuroBasket power rankings, post round one edition
The 2011 FIBA EuroBasket tournament gets things started again today, after the 12 advancing teams get in a couple days’ worth of hard-earned rest. With the dust now settled, BallinEurope takes a look at how the dozen sides look going into the second round of play (numbers in parentheses represent each team’s win-loss record brought […]
Eurobasket 2011: News, notes and clips going into day five
After a bit of a free day (not 100%, though, BiE can assure you) for BallinEurope, we get back in the game – so to speak – with a few notes, links and of course YouTubes for your perusal before FIBA EuroBasket games tip off today. • BiE’s games of the day? Today, Spain-Lithuania; tomorrow, […]