CSKA ends tour against Toronto
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 Despite never having been there before Tuesday, the court at Air Canada Centre will look familiar to CSKA Moscow when the Euroleague champions take on the Toronto Raptors at 19:00 local time tonight (01:00 CET on Wednesday) in the second game of the Euroleague Basketball North America Tour. As novel as the idea of a Euroleague team playing in North America against NBA rivals may be for some fans, players on both teams playing Tuesday have crossed paths plenty in recent years. CSKA has four players with recent NBA experience, while the Raptors feature a string of former Euroleague players. Add to that some of the national team experience of others in recent World Championships and Olympics, and there will be relatively few strangers between Tuesday's opponents.
Among the Toronto players who know CSKA's roster best is Anthony Parker, a former Euroleague MVP with Maccabi Tel Aviv. Parker plans to brief any of his Raptor teammates not in the know about Europe on just who they will be playing Tuesday.
"CSKA is a great team: they've proven that," Parker said Monday. "They have a couple roster changes, but they are still a great team. They have the core group of guys still there. And Coach Messina is one of the top coaches, if not the top coach, in Europe. So they're going to be ready. I think they're game against Orlando was a kind of warmup transition game. I'm sure they're going to be a lot better prepared for us."
Parker noted that a number of players he saw in the Euroleague either came with him, or shortly after, to Toronto. They include: former Euroleague finalists, Jose Manuel Calderon, with Tau Ceramica in 2005, and Will Solomon, with Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2006; former Euroleague Rising Star Trophy winner Andrea Bargnani; and former Euroleague starter Roko-Leni Ukic. A couple more - Jorge Garbajosa and Carlos Delfino - left the Raptors to return to Europe this summer with Khimki Moscow. For CSKA, the quartet of Victor Khryapa, Zoran Planinic, Terence Morris and Trajan Langdon all played in the NBA for at least two seasons this decade The proximity is such that Ukic and CSKA center Erazem Lorbek played for Lottomatica Roma only last season.
 For Calderon, the arrival of CSKA brings back memories of when his last Euroleague team, Tau Ceramica, upset the Russians in Moscow at the 2005 Final Four. Since then, he has seen a cross-flow of players going back and forth across the Atlantic.
"I think the level of European play for sure is going higher and getting closer to here," Calderon said. "You could see that in the Olympics. There wasn't a big difference. The U.S. has a big team, but Europe is there, too. So, you know, it's getting close and I think it will continue to go back and forth."
For CSKA head coach Ettore Messina, so many familiar players on both benches tonight is proof of basketball getting better globally.
"What this tells me is that we have a great league in Europe," CSKA coach Ettore Messina said before the game. "You see guys like Anthony Parker, who was a star in Europe, also having success over here. Or Andrea Bargnani, the rising star in the Euroleague a couple years ago, establishing himself here. It tells you there's a lot of great basketball in Europe and a lot of great players."
Messina is also hoping that his team's last stop in America will be a chance to help his team coalesce going into next week's Euroleague opener.
"We start with the Russian League on Saturday and the Euroleague next week, and we continue to try to prepare ourselves, as we have throughout the trip, for those challenges," Messina said. "We want to show ourselves that by playing better than we did in Orlando the other night and by doing some of the specific things we know we need to get better."
For CSKA newcomer Terence Morris, an all-Euroleague choice with runners-up Maccabi Tel Aviv last season, the trip continues to be about getting on the same page as his new teammates and coaches.
"First up for us is to play as a team and try make ourselves better out there," Morris said. "We know that in Europe we won't play teams as good athletically as these ones. But if we stand our ground and try to do things we know we can do, be aggressive, the way we can play, that's what we want. Usually it takes few regular season games before a team jells, but with these preseason games we have a chance to get our chemistry down a little better."
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Frank Lawlor, Toronto
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