Blogs

Surprise, surprise!

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Well it has been a while since I last wrote for the Euroleague website. Before I talked about the German national team and our way to the Olympics, then the experience of my first Euroleague season with Joventut and now I am back to tell you about Assecco Prokom Gdynia, probably the biggest surprise of this years Euroleague.

After my move from Spain to Poland many people asked me why I did it. The answer was easy: I wanted to play in the most competitive league in Europe, the Euroleague. I came to a team that had kept most of their players from last year and it took me a while to really land in Gdynia. I had to work my way into a good team that had won the polish Championship last year. Even though I struggled in the beginning, I have been able to find my role and contribute to the team's performance, especially in the Top 16.

Even though Prokom qualified for the Top 16 last year, we were not a shoe-in to do it again this year. We actually had to fight until the last game against Khimki to qualify, but nevertheless we made it. To be perfectly honest, I think we were the only ones who believed we could make it to the Playoffs, but when we beat Unicaja in Malaga, we put our name on the map. Then were able to wow even more people when we ended CSKA's 10 game winning streak on our home court.

Now we are here, the Quarterfinal Playoffs, a feat not accomplished easily, to go up against one of the strongest teams and a title favorite: Olympiacos. But we have a group of guys who are very athletic; our biggest strength has to be our ability to put tremendous pressure on an opposing offense. We know that it will not be easy, but every team that has made it this far will be a force to be reckoned with. So when we travel to Athens next week for the first two games of the series, we will be prepared to face that challenge.

Playoffs strengths and weaknesses

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Vladimir Stankovic, Euroleague.net

Veteran sportswriter and Euroleague.net collaborator Vladimir Stankovic has been following the best basketball on the continent longer than almost anyone journalist, writing for decades about the sport in major publications in both Serbia and Spain. For the new 2009-10 season, he offers a series of opinion blogs about what's happening on and off the court in the Euroleague.

Well, as it should be in any well-planned and organized competition, we are facing the most thrilling weeks of the Euroleague's 10th season. Yes, we will still have an even more spectacular weekend ahead, during the 2010 Final Four in Paris, but there will be plenty of time later to talk about the season finale. With the start of the Playoffs, however, we delve into these series of five games. I am not going to analyze all the matchups (a job that has already been done, and very well at that, by Euroleague.net) or the possibilities of one team or another making the Final Four. I'd just like to give my opinion on each of the eight quarterfinalists.

ASSECO PROKOM

To me, Prokom is biggest and most pleasant surprise of them all. For the first time, the Polish champ will be among the eight best teams in Europe. I think that the key to their success, apart from great club management, has been built on two points: a great selection of foreign players and the head coach, Tomas Pacesas, almost a bench debutante who has shown great maturity and courage. American players Qyntel Woods and David Logan are pillars on this team, but there are two more players who average more than 10 points: Dan Ewing (10.4) and Ratko Varda (10.8). One more player close to those numbers, Ronnie Burrell (8.7) and then four players who average over 5.5 points.

Strong point: Prokom survived a solid Top 16 group.
Weak point: lack of Playoffs experience

PARTIZAN

Talking about Partizan's third consecutive Quarterfinal Playoffs appearance, the first idea that comes to mind is: continuity. It may sound absurd to talk about continuity when a team loses four starters from the previous season (Novica Velickovic, Milenko Tepic, Uros Tripkovic and Stephane Lasme), but Partizan's case is unique. Thanks to the work of coach Dusan Vujosevic, who has been on the bench for almost a full decade, there's a well-established system and each new player learns his new role fast. The second key: Partizan just doesn't miss when selecting foreign players.

Strong point: rebounds (a total of 599, the best this season).
Weak point: turnovers (also leading the Euroleague with 278 so far)

MACCABI ELECTRA

Great season for the Israeli champs. Maccabi making the Playoffs didn’t surprise me, but I do admit that I was by its top spot in their difficult Top 16 group. As it should always be with a winning team, Maccabi has improved month by month to reach its peak at money time. Just...

Fair play on the road to the playoffs

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Vladimir Stankovic, Euroleague.net

Veteran sportswriter and Euroleague.net collaborator Vladimir Stankovic has been following the best basketball on the continent longer than almost anyone journalist, writing for decades about the sport in major publications in both Serbia and Spain. For the new 2009-10 season, he offers a series of opinion blogs about what's happening on and off the court in the Euroleague.

The Top 16 ended just like it had begun: with excitement, drama, overtimes, surprises and score changes. The Euroleague showed its maturity and complete trust in its teams with the decision not to play all the games at the same time, and the teams responded with fair play. Congratulations to everyone. The saying goes that history is written by the winners. Therefore, the glory of the playoffs will be for Top 16 group winners Regal FC Barcelona, Olympiacos, Maccabi Electra, CSKA Moscow and their second-place followers Partizan, Caja Laboral, Real Madrid and Asseco Prokom. Especially for the Serbian and Polish champs, the accomplishment is grand because of their limited budgets and year-to-year roster changes. We will analyze the playoffs shortly, but first I want to tell you a story that happened almost 40 years ago that I remembered while watching this week's unbelievable ending to Group H.

Overtime stories

When Marcelinho Huertas of Caja Laboral missed the first of a pair of free throws with 12 seconds to go on Thursday, few people at the Fernando Buesa Arena realized that overtime against Cibona was at that moment Caja Laboral's only option of making the Quarterfinal Playoffs. See, a one-point win over Cibona would not have been enough for Caja Laboral to advance, because at that moment BC Khimki was beating Olympiacos by 12 to 14 points, enough to leave Caja Laboral out due to its deficit in global point differential with Khimki. The two teams were to end tied with 3-3 records, also having beaten each other by identical 11-point margins. The next tie-breaker between them was their overall Top 16 point differences. In the end, after the overtime that was forced by the missed free throw from Huertas, Caja Laboral won by 12 points, which combined with the result in Moscow, was enough to eliminate Khimki by 5 points and push through to the playoffs.

As I was saying, this overtime win reminded me of an overtime avoided in similar fashion 39 years ago. It's a story widely known by those with enough years and good memory, but since there're always young and newer fans of basketball, they deservre to hear that famous story, too. In December of 1961, in the quarterfinals of the old Champions Cup, Ignis Varese and Real Madrid were playing in Italy. With a few seconds to go and an 80-80 tie in the score, with his top player Clifford Luyk having just fouled out, Real Madrid coach Pedro Ferrandiz called for a timeout and developed his master plan: the play he drew up was designed for Lorenzo Alocen to score, yes...but not for Real Madrid. Instead, Ferrandiz had Alocen turn...

Plenty left to decide!

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For a unique perspective on the most exciting months of the season, Euroleague.net brings you media blogger Flavio Tranquillo, a ranking expert on world basketball at its finest. Flavio has long been known as the voice of basketball in his native Italy- and for good reason. But in addition to communicating his expertise as an announcer, Flavio has the background of a coach, the curiosity of a journalist, and most importantly, the devotion of a basketball lover!

And then there were...six! Two more teams to qualify, four still trying, while 14 have been eliminated since the start of the regular season. Raise your hand if back in October you correctly predicted that Fenerbahce Ulker would have not made the Top 16 and that Panathinaikos would have been the first team ousted from the Top 16, joined the following week by Efes Pilsen, Montepaschi and Unicaja - while Prokom and either Maroussi or Partizan advance. Please, I want you to play lotto on my behalf week-in and week-out …

Still to be decided are the winners of the Maroussi-Partizan and Khimki-Caja Laboral battles. The Group E rivals, Maroussi and Partizan, play both on the road, @Panathinaikos and @Regal Barcelona, respectively. Coach Vujosevic's Partizan team has won one more game but has a minus-5 differential in the head-to-head matchup with Maroussi. Last week, both teams were beaten soundly by the two prohibitive favourites in the group. I think Panathinaikos in Belgrade showed the power of a clear mind. Once eliminated from playoff contention, the former defensive champions forgot the shooting blues and made 11 of 19 threes en route to a 16-point win. The basketball becomes so light when you don't have anything to lose or gain …. Witnessing the game through Euroleague TV (by the way: isn't it great to catch all those games at once?) I was very impressed by the fans in Pionir. To hear that incessant chanting, to see the fans support the team after the horn sounded like they had won by 16, well, that is Devotion! No other way to phrase it. Maroussi went down hard vs. Barcelona, scoring just 3 points in the third quarter against a team that had 11 scorers (the 12th was Victor Sada, a very important piece of the blau-grana machine, who was on the court more than 11 minutes). Against Partizan on Thursday, Barcelona will play for home-court advantage in the next round while trying to avenge its only Euroleague loss of the season. Panathinaikos will only play for pride vs. Maroussi, but that "only" needs to be put in context. I really think we should not dwell on teams having different motivations at this stage of the competition. First, the Greens already proved it a moot point by winning in Belgrade and playing very hard. And above all, teams know that tomorrow they might be the ones depending on someone else with little or no motivation playing hard. That's why if I was Partizan I would not be worried about a situation they don't have any control over. Even if, obviously, Maroussi will play for its life, and that is something that cannot be duplicated easily by the Greens.

Proof of the above-mentioned considerations is Cibona dismantling Khimki last week and Olympiacos keeping the Russian team perfectly alive by beating Caja Laboral. Caja Laboral is now -18 in total point differential, Khimki is -24. Both teams beat each other by 11 on the road in the head-to-head matches, while both play at home this week. The Spanish team will face Cibona in a game that will renew the acquaintances between Marcelinho Huertas, point guard of the hosts, and Jamont Gordon, point guard of the guests, who were teammates in Bologna last season in Fortitudo. Gordon might very well be the hottest player in the...