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On the scene at EuroBasket...well done Spain!
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Veteran journalist Vladimir Stankovic at his 13th EuroBasket, in Poland
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Veteran sportswriter and Euroleague collaborator Vladimir Stankovic, who has worked nearly every EuroBasket for almost four decades, was on the ground in Katowice, Poland to give Euroleague.net readers his observations of the tournament's knockout stage. The do-or-die quarterfinals saw Serbia defeat Russia, Spain defeat France, Greece defeat Turkey, and Slovenia defeat Croatia. In the semifinals Spain blasted Greece and Serbia survived in OT against Slovenia, setting up the medal games on Sunday. That's when Spain blew out Serbia with one of the widest margins in tournament history while Greece grabbed bronze by a point from Slovenia. When all was said and done, more than 70 players on Euroleague rosters for next season were among the tournament's 16 teams when it started, and 20 of them won medals!
Spain, at long last
Spain finally made it. It needed seven finals to win the EuroBasket title, but Spain managed to do so forcefully, leaving no doubt that it's a great team. Justice was served in Katowice on Sunday for a country that loves basketball and did such a great job for many years. Spain invested in the game and produced great players. Spain deserved to win the gold medal. In fact, Spain had deserved it before this, but it is never too late for a gold medal. In the past, the country had other great generations of players, very good ones, but their moment of glory came with these "golden boys" - and I am really happy about it. I remember a gala dinner and awards ceremony of the newspaper El Mundo Deportivo back in 1999 at the King Juan Carlos Hotel in Barcelona. Among the many guests there were some kids named Pau Gasol, Juan Carlos Navarro and Raul Lopez, who had been world junior champions that very same year. That is when I first shook hands with these future superstars, who reminded me of a similar group, the Yugoslav generation that came together in 1987 in Bormio. Just as Divac, Radja, Kukoc and Djordjevic back then, players like Gasol, Navarro, Lopez, Reyes, Cabezas and Berni Rodriguez - who missed the event because of an injury - did great things as seniors, too. They are the reigning World and European champions, as well as Olympic finalists. Congratulations, chicos.
A lone Italian wins it all
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Sergio Scariolo, in debut with Spain, won it all
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It had to be him, an Italian whom no one in Spain views as a foreigner. After so many glorious years in Spanish basketball - coaching Baskonia, Real Madrid and Unicaja - Sergio Scariolo reached the biggest title in his career with his adopted country's national team. Very well-trained, a serious student, educated, able to speak many languages and ambitious, Scariolo had the right profile that Jose Luis Saez, president of the Spanish basketball federation and another key person in this success, was looking for. Scariolo's great moment gave a little joy to the few Italian journalists present in Poland. Italian basketball is going through one of its biggest crises and seeing one of their coaches win the gold medal for a different country doesn't make things easier. Congratulations, Sergio. Your new challenge is coming up. You have won the Italian League with Scavolini, the Spanish League with Unicaja and I know you will try your best to make Khimki end the CSKA dynasty in Russia.
Looking ahead
Spain conquered the gold medal with eight players that lost the 2007 title game in Madrid. Without injuries, Berni Rodriguez and Jose Manuel Calderon would have also been in Poland. On the other hand, Serbia only had four of the players that did not survive the first round in Granada two years ago: Milos Teodosic, Stefan Markovic, Milenko Tepic and Novica Velickovic. They were almost invisible back then. Two years later, Teodosic made it to the All-Tournament team along with Rudy Fernandez, Vassilis Spanoulis, Erazem Lorbek and Pau Gasol - I guessed four players, looking for Ersan Ilyasova to step in at small forward. Tepic and Velickovic this summer signed with two of the greatest teams in Europe, Panathinaikos and Real Madrid. Coach Ivkovic started a revolution, choosing very young players with the hope of looking forward to the future. This generation, with Nenad Krstic being the oldest player at age 26, can make it together to London 2012 and even beyond. Serbia was first to opt for a new generation of players and was rewarded with a silver medal way before anyone expected such a big success. Everyone agrees that having Serbia fighting to win titles is good news for European basketball.
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Omer Asik and friends look ahead to 2010 in Turkey
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Greece also did a good work in the same direction. Only four players in this team also won the EuroBasket 2005 title in Belgrade: Spanoulis, Nikos Zisis, Ioannis Bourousis and Antonis Fotsis - by the way, four of the best players in the team. With Dimitris Diamantidis out but a fully recovered Sofoklis Schortsanitis - still young at age 24 - and several youngsters, Greece is travelling in the right way. The bronze medal in Poland is definitely a step forwards. Turkey finished eighth, but its final ranking is a bit unreal. A shot missed at the end of the extra period in the quarterfinal game against Greece was the thin line between finishing eighth or at least fourth. The team sank after this loss and did not have the pressure to qualify to the 2010 FIBA World Championships - Turkey hosts the event next summer. It lost its final four games but Turkey has a very good team that will be dangerous at home next year. Bogdan Tanjevic did a great job that did not find its reward. Tanjevic is a marathon-man, able to run long distances in basketball. He gave a chance to Omer Asik and Semih Erden in this tournament, who made the most out of it. Enes Kanter gets next, a 17-year-old kid that promises to be one of the best big men in European basketball.
I feel sorry for Slovenia. Their best generation ever deserved a medal as the minimum reward, but injuries reduced the team's rotation to seven and eight players. Their best players, Erazem Lorbek, Jaka Lakovic and Bostjan Nachbar, were really exhausted at the end of the tournament. France, the last team to arrive, finished fifth losing just one game but the key question is: who will lead when Tony Parker stops playing? Croatia bounced back to make it to the World Championships, a down-to-earth result for a team with many ups-and-downs. Russia will have to wait for a wild card from FIBA to make it to the big event in Turkey next summer. It was too much for Russia to be without Andrei Kirilenko, J.R. Holden and Viktor Khryapa.
In the end, it was not a great EuroBasket, but it had a GREAT team. That was, of course, Spain, more than great enough to win the gold medal!
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Euroleague.net
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