Blogs

4-by-4 post-mortem

Sat, 15 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

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 2010 Final Four, as the culmination of a great Euroleague season, confirmed several predictions. For instance:

- Regal FC Barcelona was the best team.
- Olympiacos has more the best players than the best team.
- CSKA Moscow is still way up there despite the budget cuts.
- Partizan Belgrade more than justified its place at the Final Four.

Each of the four teams can draw positive conclusions, too:

- Barca has shown quality, maturity and an ability to withstand pressure.
- Olympiacos improved its final standing as compared to Berlin 2009, where it finished fourth, and now hopes that a third consecutive Final Four qualification, if it happens next season, will be the charm.
- CSKA, with a Russian coach (Evgeniy Pashutin) and several local players (Viktor Khryapa, Sasha Kaun, Andrey Vorontsevich) showed that it doesn't depend solely on foreign stars.
- Partizan has demonstrated plenty, even losing twice in overtime, because it achieved something rare: getting talked about more in defeat than its opponents were in victory.

Starting from here, each will have homework for next season:

- Barcelona will face the fact that it is more difficult to defend a title than to win one.
- The Reds will face doubts about the future of such an expensive roster.
- CSKA will have to decide whether being at the Final Four is success enough, or whether it wants to upgrade in order to win the title again.
- Partizan must try to preserve its roster, a difficult task due to the market's interest in talented players and its own lack of signing power.

Back to the start, the things that really struck me about these four teams were:

- Barcelona's balance. Their roster is the perfect example of how to spend money well, if you have it. There is no difference among the local players and the foreigners, between the inside and outside players, between starters and substitutes. Juan Carlos Navarro, the Final Four MVP, is the star for the media, indeed, but in that roster he is only one among many. If the signings are the great work of Joan Creus, the style of play and the relationships inside the lockerroom are the masterpiece of the young and evidently talented coach Xavi Pascual.
- The individual talent of Olympiacos. The Greek club will have to analyze why a team as full as stars as this one was so helpless in the Final. Still, nobody can doubt Theo Papaloukas's genius, the talent of the season MVP, Milos Teodosc, the quality of Josh Childress, Linas Kleiza's scoring ability, the sheer strength of Sofoklis Schortsanitis, Nikola Vujcic's experience, the abilities of Ioannis Bourousis, etc....
- The great scoring abilities of Trajan Langdon and Ramunas Siskauskas for CSKA Moscow. Since the days of Nikos Galis, who scored 43 points against Partizan in the first Fnial Four of 1988, no player scored as many points as Langdon's 32 in the third-place game. And he made it look easy! The same thing can be said about the great Lithuanian shooter Siskauskas. Langdon and Siskauskas form a lethal duo, no doubt about it.
- The talent and heart of Partizan. In the system established by coach Dusko Vujosevic one can find many things, but the one thing that stands...

Let's stay together

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hello again! This is Andrey Vorontsevich of CSKA Moscow. I am getting back to you the day before we get to Paris for the Euroleague Final Four! It has not been an easy time for us because we lost three consecutive games in the Russian League, as you probably know. We have managed to do better in friendly games, prepare well and get ready for the Final Four. These three losses belong to the past now, but even so, they make you wonder and think about it, especially about our defense and which changes we should make. We have practiced harder than ever and I am sure everything will be fine when we get on court in the semifinal against Barcelona. We played - and won - two friendly games against Unics. I think it was a great idea to play against them because Unics has a similar team structure as Barcelona. They have some players that are close to what we can expect in the semifinal in Paris. Marko Popovic is a scoring guard similar to Juan Carlos Navarro. At the same time, Kresimir Loncar and Maciej Lampe are physical players with good range like Terence Morris or Erazem Lorbek. These two games have been very important for us. One of the keys to the game against Barcelona is that our frontcourts are quite different. I think we are shorter but faster than them. We can find some advantages if we play the right way.

We have a very experienced team and that always counts against such a strong opponent as Barcelona. You don't how how you will play or shoot in a situation like this - but experience definitely helps. If you miss shots, you start to think about t and there is no time for anything but playing hard! I have to say I like Barcelona, they are a great team. They have very fast guards in Navarro and Ricky Rubio-. They play really good defense and, of course, they have size. For instance, Boniface Ndong is huge - he is like a defensive wall - and of course, I know Terence Morris and Erazem Lorbek, our teammates from a year ago. Barcelona will be the toughest opponent we have faced so far this season - not only for us, but for everybody. This is the Final Four and you cannot expect an easy opponent. We will go out there, respect them and play hard in order to beat them.

As for the keys to this game... Well, if you are expecting me to go into small details, you better check another blog - or another website! In general, we need to be patient, play our game and do what we do best. We cannot lose control, and if we manage to do that, everything will be OK. We are excited with the chance to play another Final Four but don't talk to much about it, as we are focused on preparing the big game against Barcelona. We are working hard in practice and everybody knows what we need to do to get the job done.

If we win the Euroleague title this season, I would be the biggest highlight of my career, better than any other trophies I won in the past. I stayed more time on the court this season and this is why it would mean so much to me. I used to see very little playing time in just some Euroleague games but it all changed this season. Our coach trusts me, gives me playing time and my game has improved due to the confidence he has in me.

Well, before I pack my stuff, here is a message for all CSKA fans coming to Paris. They are always there to help us and this Final Four will not be different. Just remember one thing: if we stay together, we can win this Final Four.

New page turning

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hi everyone. We're on our way to Paris with an intense and successful finish to our preparations! We played the quarterfinals of the Greek League playoffs over the weekend, winning on Saturday and Monday to advance to the semis. We finished up the series on Monday night in Thessaloniki, flew back to Piraeus, and by midday on Tuesday were on our way to Paris already! I think it has been good for everybody playing right up to our departure in serious games - and especially winning them! Those kinds of things can help you get confidence and work on some things for the Final Four. But I think that for every team this has been a tough couple of weeks prior to the big event. Our semifinals opponent, Partizan, played the final of the Adriatic League, winning in overtime one of the most incredible games I've seen in awhile. For them, it was the right place at the right time, and they must be feeling good about winning, too. But the truth is that on Friday, what we all did the last few weeks doesn't count anymore. It's a new page, a new game, everything completely new that night. We all start from zero again.

Everybody had time rest or get rid of injuries, and by playing at the end, everybody has caught the rhythm needed to be ready. On our team, everyone is a professional and knows his own way to prepare himself for the semifinal on Friday. I believe everything and everyone is crucial at this point. The time is now and everybody has to give 110 percent. For my own preparation, it often depends on the minutes I am playing. I was not playing in the last Greek League games, because I have been off the roster as the extra foreign player in this part of the season, so I had to do extra work by myself to get in shape and prepare my body for the Final Four. Everyone has to prepare his own way, like I said, but we also have to study the details we need to know for Friday. I say that because any small detail can make the difference in a Final Four. All the steps we have to take individually to be ready are important, but most important of all is our teamwork. We have to be together as much as we can be and then those details will turn into winning ones.

So it turns out we are going to Paris a day earlier than we expected, due to a strike here in Greece on Wednesday. But my experience at the Final Four says that it can help us, an extra day on the scene. It's often better to get to the hotel early, have everyone together, have a couple good practices and just get ready in the same place where we are going to play. Everyone knows that at a Final Four you have to get used to the baskets, to a new and different and unique atmosphere. So the fact that we came a day early, in my opinion, cannot hurt us.

The Partizan team we will play in Friday is young, talented and full of enthusiasm. It's a great opportunity for most of their players to go to their first Final Four, so for sure they will come out strong and excited, especially in the first minutes of the game. As I said in the first blog, everyone still talks of them as the surprise of the season, and maybe they are on paper, but I don't think you can call them that anymore. They've had too great of a season playing and beating the best teams in Europe to be a surprise to us. Partizan is Partizan. We will have to be ready for every second of the game. The best example is what they did against Maccabi, being down 20 points at Nokia...

Ready for this new challenge

Mon, 03 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, everyone. It is the final conutdown until the beginning of the Final Four, and of course, the excitement just keeps growing. But don't worry, we've got it under control!

From the moment when we qualified for the Final Four, we've played a lot of important games and we did a lot of hard practices. We won the Adriatic Legaue in an unbelivable way! On the opponent's court in front of 16,200 fans we beat Cibona in overtime with an azming three-point basket by Dusan Kecman! Not only for a win, but for the title! We were lucky, but I think we deserved that luck. That victory and trophy mean a lot for our self-confidence and gave a significant contribution to our preparation for the Final Four.

Of all our players, only Kecman has played the Euroleague Final Four previously. For the rest of us, this will be a new experience. The fact is, however, that this year we played a lot of important and tough games. Even if we have a young team, we won two trophies, so I think we are all ready for this new challenge.

The best that European basketball has to offer will be in Paris, and we know that. All four teams deserve to be there, because of their outstanding seasons and quality. Olympiacos, CSKA and Barcelona were favorites for this Final Four at the beginning of this season. It was not the same story for Partizan, but that's the beauty of this game.

Our opponent in the semifinals, Olympiacos, last year lost in final seconds of the same game against Panathinaikos. This year, they made a new team to be better and to go one step forward. They already won the Greek Cup and proved their quality many times. Regarding our semifinal, we respect them very much and they are favorites, but we are aware of our strengths. Also, we know that in a Final Four, favorites are not necessarily winners. The winning team is the team that shows in each segment of the game more desire and capability to win, during all 40 minutes.

In Serbia, everybody is speaking about basketball, Partizan and the Final Four. For our fans, we are already champions. They say that we already made a big success and that now it is important just to be focused, relaxed and to give our best. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for all of our fans to come to Paris, but we know that they will support us, wherever they are.

Together, with them and for them, we will give our best to represent our basketball, our country and our club. We have a great desire for victory and if that is enough for another step forward, we are ready!