Panathinaikos 264
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 […]
Anadolu Efes takes Two Nations Cup, “teaches Olympiacos a lesson”
Congratulations to Anadolu Efes for convincingly taking the inaugural Two Nations Cup two-day basketball tournament, winning the final match over Euroleague competitor Olympiacos, 87-62. Efes bested defending Euroleague champs Panathinaikos on Saturday to play for the cup. Olympiacos, meanwhile, had advanced by knocking out Fenerbahçe Ülker, which ultimately ended up in third after taking out […]
Top salaries in European basketball, 2011-12
Kudos and thanks to BallinEurope reader Agent, who recently crunched some numbers for basketball fans vis-à-vis the top salaries in European basketball for the 2011-12 season. In case you’re wondering why some top NBA names are seriously considering jumping the puddle, check out the findings below. Using euros as the currency, and figuring for net […]
Coming to Europe: The top five most influential American players of all-time
With seemingly no end in sight to the NBA lockout situation forthcoming, BallinEurope has to admit to enjoying the schadenfreude of the situation … just a bit. Even more exciting than the day-to-day speculation as more and more players from the big league consider their Continental options are the possibilities for the future: History has […]
Greece’s clubs owe players money … lots of money
While NBA franchise owners are crying poverty (reportedly, some 20 of 30 clubs are losing money), at least the players get paid. And while speculation on which NBAers will play in Europe during a 2010-11 full-season lockout continues – Whoever thought a Sonny Weems-to-Žalgiris deal would be so compelling? – we can now assume that […]
Angelopoulos brothers resign Olympiacos management; blame corruption, “unethical attacks”
Those Maloofs of Europe, George and Panagiotis Angelopoulos, have apparently given up their ownership of the Olympiacos franchise and they’ve done so in a big way. In their (apparently philanthropic) run with the Reds going back to 2004, the pair have become known as running one of the freest spending operations in Europe – yet […]