Team Croatia 78
Just because: A look at some mock 2014 NBA Drafts (a.k.a. Way too early Saric-, Hezonja-watching)
From Fox Sports via the syndication wire, BallinEurope’ll put this one up here for the sheer audacity of it. Below runs exactly what the BiE headline advertises: The sports network’s admittedly “way too early” 2014 mock NBA draft. And though it is indeed way too early to be thinking about June 2014, BiE’s already looking […]
March Madness: Three teams (and nine players) to support in the 2013 NCAA Tournament
Can one website support three teams in a single competition? Hey, it’s March Madness, so why not? Earlier, BallinEurope took a brief look at half the European players set to compete (or not) in the 2013 NCAA Tournament; today, nine more – and a bit of a conundrum Though some 18 names on Big Dance […]
On Hezonja, Todorovic plus a couple of Swedes: FC Barcelona’s future as bright as the present?
As though FC Barcelona’s red-hot play – they’re now at 14-4 overall after an 0-2 start in Spain – weren’t enough to keep European basketball devotees watching, here are two more reasons for you: Mario Hezonja and Marko Todorović. At just 17 years old and despite missing the entire 2011-12 regular season, Hezonja finally got […]
European present, NBA future? Five more rights-owned draftees to watch in 2012-13
NBA Europe Live Tour and Euroleague American Tour games tip off tomorrow, giving a few fan bases a glimpse at some possible future prospects already drafted and with rights owned by a big league club. Following up on yesterday’s brief look at five rights-owned European players developing their games on The Continent, today is offered […]
European present, NBA future? Five rights-owned draftees to watch in 2012-13
Glimpses into the possible Euro-flavoured future of several NBA teams will begin on Friday with the welcome return of the NBA Europe Live Tour and the Euroleague American Tour. What could inspire a Chicago Bulls fan to catch a Memphis Grizzlies preseason game against Real Madrid? The prospect of checking out Nikola Mirotic, of course! […]
EuroBasket 2013 draw seedings: Some thoughts
Exactly what the title says then – BallinEurope takes a look at the seedings for the EuroBasket 2013 draw and riffs a bit. As we know, the six groups from which the final divisions will be comprised look as follows. No. 1 seeds: Spain, France, Russia, FYR Macedonia No. 2 seeds: Lithuania, Greece, Slovenia, Great […]
Twenty years ago today: The Barcelona Games
The 1992 Olympic Games, the Games of the XXV Olympiad: The first to be held without mass boycotts and, by many estimation, the greatest Olympics ever in presentation, hosting, and competition. It was the Games of Hungarian swimmer Krisztina Egerszegi, of Belorussian/Unified Team member Vitaly Scherbo in gymnastics, of the Russian men’s swimming team, of […]
Twenty years ago today: The Road to Barcelona
All right, so it wasn’t exactly twenty years ago today per se, but the current Argentina-Spain-US tournament playing these days brought to mind some of the warmup games in 1992 – at that time, all the Dream Teams kept us enthralled as we imagined the upcoming clashes in Barcelona. So today another chapter in BallinEurope’s […]
Twenty years ago today: The greatest in his greatest season
Drazen Petrovic: The name is always mentioned in any discussion of all-time greatest European player, his effect inestimable, his ultimate greatness unknowable. BallinEurope has waxed poetic on the Basketball Mozart innumerable times already, but must say that lost in the general hoopla of the Dream Team in 1992 was the fact that one of the […]
Twenty Years Ago Today: A European Dream Team for 1992
When basketball fans look back on the 1992 Olympic Games, the top three topics are the awesomeness of the Dream Team, the success of Lithuania playing its first Olympic hoops as an independent nation, and the success of Croatia playing its first Olympic hoops as an independent nation. Fair enough, BiE supposes, but what about […]
Drazen Petrovic: The video homage to a too-short career
Once again on June 7, BallinEurope takes a look back at one of the all-time greats, without whom the game of basketball would not be the same: Dražen Petrović. The man is still missed. An entire generation has entered basketball since his untimely passing and while ever-growing numbers of NBA and European stars who have […]
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 […]