Professionalism is still attractive
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| 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.
Given the sporting culture that we have in Europe, I have a hard time understanding the passion with which some NBA games that "decide nothing" can be played or enjoyed. I am referring to many regular season games starting in the second half of the season, when some teams are qualified for the playoffs already and others have no chance left of doing so. Nonetheless, both fight to the death. The only explanations must be professionalism and morale. These "trash games" - as they are called in Spain - are inevitable in any competition, but there are different ways to play them.
All of this introduction is dedicated, almost wholly, to Entente Orleanaise, the French team that started the season 0-7, already eliminated from Top 16 contention, and with good possibilities of finishing 0-10. But the French champs, after letting Olympiacos escape Orleans by a nose, have knocked off two other teams good enough to make the Top 16. First, they felled Partizan and now, in Week 9, they did the same to Unicaja on the road, giving us a great example of professionalism...
Along the same lines I would put Union Olimpija. Despite losing in overtime to CSKA, the Slovenian champs have also shown great morale. Only a rare 0-11 run at the end of regulation time permitted CSKA to force overtime and in the end win the game. Olimpija, together with EWE Baskets Oldenburg, has the Euroleague's worst record, 1-8, but on Thursday played as though the game was a final.
There are more examples: Maroussi was considered a Top 16 long-shot after starting the season 1-3, but is now alive with options to reach the next round. Cibona and Asvel Basket started 0-3, while Zalgiris was 1-7, but at lease one of them will make it to the Top 16.
Rookie rewards
For the 2009-10 season, the Euroleague chose Russian League runner-up Khimki Moscow Region to join the competition. Now that the team of Sergio Scariolo is qualified for the Top 16, it is easy to see that the decision was justified. Khimki is a rookie at this elite level, but has the capacity to play against - and beat - the best. The club's organizational and economic efforts of the last few years are bearing fruit. Russia has its second team, just like a few years ago Dynamo Moscow, as a rookie, reached the Quarterfinal Playoffs. What's strange is that the Russian League has only nine teams, four of which have not great ambition to win trophies, but despite this narrow number of clubs, Russia has a big role in Europe. CSKA and Khimki are in the Top 16 of the Euroleague. Unics Kazan is one of only three undefeated teams in the Eurocup, where both Spartak St. Petersburg and Triumph have options to also reach the Last 16 of that competition going into the last week of the regular season.
Europe needs Russian basketball.
A giant keeps growing
Doing a report on a Buducnost Podgorica game in the 2002-03 season, I wrote that the Montenegrin team had a player who could be "the European Yao Ming". I was referring to Slavko Vranes, who was then 19, stood 2.29 meters and possessed fundamentals that were very promising. Obviously, I was wrong in predicting he would be the next Yao Ming, but his path in basketball is a good example to study for young players who seek money before glory - and most of all, before it's time. Due to his enormous size, Vranes was a toy in the hands of agents and others around him. From FMP Zeleznik, he went to Efes Pilsen, and from there to a second-division Turkish team in Anatolia. His next stop was Buducnost, for a season, and from there he was signed by two NBA teams, New York and Portland, but made only testimonial appearances before returning to Europe to join first Crvena Zvezda and, again, Buducnost.
Before joining Partizan three seasons ago, at age 24, Vranes had spent five lost years in eight different clubs. As he himself has said, signing for Partizan was the best thing that happened to his career. There, he found what he needed: hard and specific work with a coach, Dusan Vujosevic, who gave himself the great challenge of converting Vranes into a useful player. Mission accomplished. Vranes is now playing as well as he ever has. On Wednesday, after an injury to Aleks Maric, the top-rated player in the Euroleague, in the game's 12th minute against Lietuvos Rytas, Vranes had the best game of his Euroleague career: 13 points, 4-for-5 two-point shooting, 5-for-6 free-throw shooting, 9 rebounds, 4 blocks and 7 fouls drawn in 29 minutes for a performance index rating of 27! Still just 27 years old, Vranes can progress a lot more, too, and I am convinced he will do just that.
The numbers
The Euroleague has its first long-distance "thousand-aires" - the first two players to go over 1,000 three-pointers attempted this decade. With his 3-for-8 performance from downtown in Ljubljana this week, J.R. Holden of CSKA Moscow arrives at 1,003 three-point attempts for his Euroleague career. He has made 336 of them, ranking 173rd in accuracy (33.5%), and on a per-game basis there have been plenty of players shooting more from the arc than Holden. But in terms of total three-pointers shots attempted, no one has taken more - although one is close...Gianluca Basile of Barcelona, with his 1 of 4 triples against Asvel in Villeurbanne this week, is now 366 for 1,001 on the decade, for a 36.3% rate. We'll have to wait years before anyone catches either of them, as the nearest pursuer is Jaka Lakovic of Barcelona with just 809 attempts....Among active Euroleague players, the "true" leader in career three-point percentage is Holden's teammate at CSKA, Trajan Langdon, who has made 303 of 697 attempts, for a 43.4% accuracy rate. Although he actually ranks 11th in accuracy rate for the decade, nine of the players ahead of Langdon have made fewer than 250 attempts, including the only active one, Ksistof Lavrinovic of Montepaschi Siena, who has made 62 of 129 for 48%.
POSTED BY
Vladimir Stankovic, Euroleague.net
DATE:
Saturday, January 09, 2010