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Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Post-week nine
So Žalgiris gets its coach fired after playing .800 ball through 20 games, Spanish powerhouses lose in Lithuania and Germany, Valencia kills Milano, Efes Pilsen stuns PAO … just another week in Euroleague 2010-11, eh? And after happenings aplenty, it sounds like time for another edition of BallinEurope’s Official Euroleague Power Rankings! Let’s go! Tops […]
Armenian Youth Federation reviled by Kobe Bryant’s Turkish Airlines deal
One group won’t be joining the Staples Center crowd in chanting “M-V-P! M-V-P!” for Kobe Bryant the next time he’s at the charity stripe: namely, Los Angeles’ Armenian population. On Tuesday, Turkish Airlines (also current sponsor of Euroleague basketball) announced a two-year deal which would make Bryant the “global brand ambassador” for the airline beginning […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Post-week seven
Apologies for the tardiness of this column, dear readers, but the Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings are just as fun and informative on Sundays as they are on Saturdays! With four teams through into the Top 16 round and several more on the bubble, who’s cruising and who’s losing? BiE says the two dozen squads […]
Basketball Dreaming: Will Taiwan Phenomenon continue?
Now something of a personal story, if you’ll allow BiE. One of the great things about working a blog such as BallinEurope – after getting proper press seating for stuff like Euroleague Final Four and FIBA World Championships, of course – are the people you meet as a journalist. BiE’s not talking about hobnobbing with […]
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 […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Regular-season halftime
BiE still can’t claim to totally understand what’s going on in Euroleague basketball in 2010-11 (Real Madrid lost by how many? To *who*?) but at least some of the cream is rising to the top. This latest edition of the official BallinEurope power rankings should probably wait ‘til after some key games over the weekend […]
Marco Belinelli … for threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Just before halftime in Milwaukee, pride of Italy-in-New Orleans Marco Belinelli put in the NBA’s top play of the night – no really, it made the “ESPN Sports Center Top 10 Plays of the Night,” the sole basketball clip amid a squall of college (American) football madness – with his insane buzzer-beater against the Bucks […]
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 […]
Gasol, Odom take timeout from threepeat prep to pump ESPN 3-D
Straight from the man’s Facebook page itself (hell, yes, BiE “likes”), Pau Gasol brings us this candid shot of Lamar Odom, himself and possibly Mike Penberthy shooting a promo ad. The Lakers took a bit of time off from their quest for an NBA championship threepeat to push some 3-D, specifically ESPN’s new 3-D TV […]
Official BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings: Final preseason edition
The 2010-11 Euroleague season tips off tomorrow? Right, then. Presenting the last preseason – and thus last totally subjective, because we’ll be able to base these things on, you know, wins and losses beginning next week – BallinEurope Official Euroleague Power Rankings™. (Plus lots of video clips.) Enjoy! 1. (↔) FC Barcelona – Yeah, as […]
Sasha Vujacic out “indefinitely” after concussion
Sasha Vujacic will be sitting out a few days – “indefinitely” in leaguespeak – thanks to a concussion suffered during Thursday night’s team practice. According to the Los Angeles Lakers official blog: “Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic suffered a concussion after being inadvertently struck in the face, just below the left eye, by an errant elbow […]
Interview: Michael Tolajian, director of “Once Brothers”
Tomorrow night will see the ESPN premiere of the latest in its “30 for 30” documentary series, “Once Brothers.” This film focuses on the Yugoslavian basketball squads of 1988-1991, dream teams that included rosters filled with names such as Vlade Divac, Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja, Predrag Danilović, Stojan Vranković, and Jure Zdovc. When […]