Panathinaikos 269
Sam vs. the Future: Basketball predictions for 2012
It’s always a good time for some predictions, eh? Sam Chadwick, Ball in Europe’s man in the UK, today dusts off the Official BallinEurope Crystal Ball in looking forward to another year of top-quality basketball in the world’s top competitions. Who does Sammy like in the NBA, Euroleague, college ball and the Olympics? Read on […]
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 […]
Euroleague Top 16 Draw: Final results, early reactions
Get ready for phase two of the 2011-12 Euroleague season, as today league officials will be determining the groupings for the Top 16 round. BallinEurope will be watching the live stream over at Euroleague.tv, though quite a few nations — Spain, Greece, and Israel among them — have local sports stations shows the draw as […]
Peja Stojakovic: The BallinEurope tribute
Just days ago, Peja Stojakovic appeared to be a viable free agent for an NBA team with roster holes, a still-deadly long-range assassin at the age of 34, a 19-year veteran with gas enough in the tank for late-game daggers and smart D, a prototypical European baller with an American championship pedigree. “Couldn’t he drain […]
On the road, where clutch happens: Top three Euroleague buzzer-beaters
Here on the Continent, we realize what NBA fanatics have been missing as they twiddled thumbs waiting for cessation to the player lockout – and continue to twiddle as they await Christmas opening day. BallinEurope’s Enrico Cellini, however, knows better; below, he lists his top three buzzer-beaters thus far into the 2011-12 Euroleague – where […]
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 […]
If Žalgiris Kaunas misses Top 16, does Milovan Rakovic return to Montepaschi Siena?
Though Žalgiris Kaunas club director/former interim coach Vitoldas Massalski has categorically stated that no changes to the Greens’ roster will be forthcoming until the end of the Euroleague regular season, this can hardly stop the speculative future-gazing in Lithuania and beyond. To wit: Yesterday, the Lietuvos Rytas website ran a report stating that Milovan Rakovic […]
Olympiacos at Panathinaikos tonight; Zeljko Obradovic urges restraint
Tonight will see another edition of The Continent’s traditionally most insane of all derby matches in Athens as Panathinaikos hosts Olympiacos at 7pm local time (6pm CET; noon EST). European basketball fans have come to know what to expect from whichever side of fans packs the house for a Greens vs. Reds war, namely this […]
Message from CSKA Moscow: Expect sellout, Unicaja Malaga
A quickie note here, extrapolated from a brief on RIA.ru. Scroll down for the quasi-obligatory – and why not? This team is awesome to look at right now – CSKA Moscow YouTube highlight clip. (Moscow) – Tickets for the November 16 Euroleague match between CSKA Moscow and Spain’s Unicaja Malaga had already been 70% sold, […]
Euroleague 2011-12: BallinEurope Official Fearless Predictions™ – in haiku form!
Right, then: It’s finally time. The top professional basketball league in the world (Now that bears some thinking about now, dunnit?) tips off its 2011-12 regular season tonight as Žalgiris Kaunas hosts AK47-armed, Teodosic-toting CSKA Moscow. Almost as anticipated as the actual Euroleague opening game is of course another round of BallinEurope’s Official Fearless Predictions™ […]
Sour grapes or serious allegation? Reds GM implies PAO favoritism, use of performance-enhancers
In a ceremony to mark the opening of the 2011-12 professional basketball season in Greece, Olympiacos GM Christos Stavropoulos rather bit the hand that feeds him a bit in making some rather harsh allegations – okay, implications – about official favoritism given his club’s chief rivals Panathinaikos. “These days, our country is passing through difficult […]
Euroleague Power Rankings: First of the Season edition
Right, then. With the last teams advancing into the Euroleague two dozen for the regular season and a break in the Kobe-to-Bologna soap opera today, BallinEurope breaks out an old favorite: power rankings! Once again, the BallinEurope Euroleague Power Rankings are based on current trends, i.e. who’s hot, who’s not. For this edition of the […]