Linas Kleiza 88
Greek media: Fernandez “very likely to return to Europe”; Childress, Pekovic fled violence
For readers of Greek out there, Sport.gr is running an interesting piece on the subject of available big-name free agents, comparing the ACB to the EΣAKE and Team Spain to Team Greece while taking a hard look at the possibility of top names playing with Panathinaikos or Olympiacos for 2010-11. Beginning with the premise that […]
Pekovic to Minnesota, Kleiza to Toronto nearly there; Diaw staying in Charlotte
News from the NBA free-agent market this morning says that the Minnesota Timberwolves and Toronto Raptors are both reckoned to be closing in on officially incorporating a pair of big names from The Continent. The Associated Press is reporting that Timberwolves GM David Kahn soon hopes to be reporting the official signing of Nikola Pekovic, […]
Olympiacos pursues five; seven NBA teams pursuing Josh Childress
In wake of the exodus from Olympiacos – we’re talking the incipient departures (of relative likelihood) Linas Kleiza, Josh Childress, and Sofoklis Schortsanitis – the Reds are looking to fill some roster holes with lots of cash still in the Angelopouloses’ pockets able to be paid. According to Greek media, the names Olympiacos are currently […]
Toronto Raptors make $20 million play for Linas Kleiza
Interesting – and yet, it should have been expected in hindsight – comes the news out of Toronto that the Raptors have extended a four-year $20 million offer sheet to Olympiacos’ Linas Kleiza. Since Kleiza has reportedly also signed the offer sheet, his former NBA team the Denver Nuggets have a week to match the […]
Team Greece's FIBA World Championship preliminary roster announced: No Papaloukas, still scary
The preliminary Team Greece roster of 17 players has been announced and, despite the notable exclusion of Theo Papaloukas, the 2006 FIBA World Championship silver medalists are bringing quite the squad to the 2010 edition of the competition. EΣAKE’s two most celebrated franchises are naturally well-represented, with six Panathinaikos players and five from Olympiacos making […]
The BallinEurope Sunday playoff quadruple-header (plus Fearless Predictions)
All right, on this last World Cup-free weekend for the foreseeable future, who’s up for a little basketball? No, make that a lot of basketball. A barrage of basketball, if you will. Get ready to clear the schedule, stock up the liquid refreshment and blow off the familial obligations for the hoops marathon we like […]
Panathinaikos destroys Olympiacos, 73-54: Going to YouTube for answers
More than a shocker and well into slap-in-the-face territory was game one of the EΣAKE championship series, where hometown Panathinaikos took care of all business in dispatching Olympiacos, 73-54. Though BallinEurope did not see the match and knows empirically that games should never be judged on the stat line, one number still stands out like […]
Invisible to insane: The six types of basketball team owner
They say that no one has ever bought a ticket to a sports event in order to see an executive but with two weeks of American and European basketball club owners hogging sports page headlines, BallinEurope got to thinking about these moneyed celebrity types who run the teams we watch … and the often disturbing […]
Euroleague championship trivia
From the Le Sais-Tu Department comes a few interesting news bites on this evening’s Euroleague Championship participants. Read on, triviamongers!
All-Euroleague first team highlights
Who can get enough highlight clips? Certainly not BallinEurope, even if disagreeing with one or two of the selections made by the Euroleague folks this year. Below the break runs three-and-a-half minutes of awesome action from yourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 2009-10 All-Euroleague team, namely Olympiacos’ Euroleague MVP award-winner Milos Teodosic and Linas Kleiza; FC Barcelona’s Juan Carlos Navarro; […]
Top 10 reasons why BallinEurope loves the Barcelona-Olympiacos final
How thrilled is BallinEurope to see tonight’s Barcelona-Olympiacos final? Let us count the ways… 10. Both teams earned the trip with tough semifinal wins. Against CSKA Moscow, Barcelona played smart while deploying Europe’s best defense in 2009-10 against a much bigger Red Army team; Olympiacos truly gave everything in overcoming plucky Partizan Belgrade. The result: […]
“We are here to work”: Opening up the post-Euroleague semifinal quotebook
Since last night’s games ended, it’s been a blur of press conferences and meetings for us here in the press section at the Euroleague Final Four … so here’s another round of wit ‘n’ wisdom from the men guiding and playing the games. On winning “Yesterday, we played beyond our limits. My players gave everything. […]