Montepaschi Siena 193
Bonus stat: Professional clubs sending most players to 2012 Olympics
From among the preliminary rosters of European team still remaining in contention for the 2012 Olympic Games, who do you suppose are the most represented professional clubs? While most wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Euroleague finalists CSKA Moscow and Olympiacos lead the way with seven and six players, respectively, check out the interesting roster […]
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 […]
Olympiacos wins! Olympiacos wins! Olympiacos wins! (a.k.a. *The* European basketball story of 2011-12)
Let’s put this into perspective. The last time Olympiacos took the Greek national title, they were led by David Rivers and Dragan Tarlać. Vassilis Spanoulis was 15 years old and not near professional club play. Dejan Bodiroga was in the middle of his career and Mirsad Turkcan had just turned 21. Across the pond, Lebron […]
Euroleague 2012-13: An attempt to deduce the composition (plus Official Fearless Prediction™)
Yesterday, the basketball-centered bit of the Twitter universe was centered in two real-life locales: New York City and Barcelona. Topics in play were the falling of ping-pong balls in New York City and Euroleague’s incipient decision on the construction of Euroleague 2012-13. Hopefully, BallinEurope will get something together on the former later, but for now, […]
The BallinEurope All-American Euroleague team (also all-Russian, -Greek and -former Yugoslavian teams)
Now here’s an argument starter for you … with much debate perpetually going on among European basketball fans vis-à-vis the influence of American and/or NBA players on the Euroleague, BiE decided to take a look back at the 2011-12 season in hopes of drawing some comparison on an individual, player-by-player level. Below, then, runs four […]
Eclipse watching: All-time records under threat at Euroleague Final Four 2012
For all the history/stat junkies out there – including myself, as BiE readers know – BallinEurope today takes a look at what all-time Euroleague Final Four records might fall this year … and some that seem unbreakable. • Under assault could be the all-time free-throw mark of 56 held by Nikos Galis. Galis set this […]
Euroleague Final Four: The video preview
And this week … the Euroleague Final Four! To get things started, BallinEurope presents a roundup of highlight clips from the seasons-that-were of CSKA Moscow, FC Barcelona, Panathinaikos and Olympiacos. (Wow, BiE wonders every time upon looking at that list just how the big league could have ended up with a more scintillating Final Four: […]
Revealed: The EuroChallenge championship curse
Winning the EuroChallenge title is a good thing, right? After all, it’s typically the first Continental trophy to display on the mantelpiece and the champions label wins the club to right to play in the more prestigious (and more big-bucks) Eurocup competition the following season. Well, Uygar Karaca may convince believers otherwise. In the first […]
Explaining BallinEurope's Euroleague MVP ballot (plus the top 25 for 2011-12, highlight clips)
In the interests of complete transparency – hey, somebody in Hungary should aspire to such – BallinEurope today presents the outcome of a heavy Euroleague basketball-watching habit plus several hours of intense thought: Namely, the five names that went onto BiE’s media representative’s ballot for 2011-12 Euroleague MVP. Since there’s no way the chosen quintet […]
Marco Bellinelli: “Chris Paul is the best PG”, “I want to stay in the NBA”
The Italian-language version of MSN news is today running an exclusive interview with Marco Belinelli, the New Orleans Hornet whom the outlet calls “the most American-style” of all three of Italy’s NBAers. Belinelli weighs in on all things NBA; some choice quotes include the following. “Obviously, [Chris Paul] is the best [point guard] in the […]
Kemzura releases extended Team Lithuania roster: No to Lavrinovic brothers, yes to Kleiza
National head coach Kestutis Kemzura has released his list of 18 candidates who could be suiting up for Team Lithuania in the 2012 Olympic qualifiers and beyond. On paper at least, the selection looks pretty good – particularly compared to the Eurobasket 2011 version of the team which included a single true no. 3 after […]
Why Andrei Kirilenko and CSKA Moscow must win the Euroleague
Regular readers of BallinEurope may recall a similarly entitled writeup on Montepaschi Siena on these pages from a long time ago – actually two weeks, but already it *feels* like quite a spell. Contributing writer Enrico Cellini was as surprised as any of us when Olympiacos began Siena’s ejection from the tournament, Facebook-messaging BiE with […]