Results:
Olympiacos 82-66 Real Madrid
Khimki 82-76 Prokom
Roma 83-65 Bamberg
Olimpija 95-92 Efes Pilsen (2 OT)
Fenerbahce 86-69 Rytas
Tonight:
CSKA 73-88 Milano
Zalgiris 73-62 Partizan
Baskonia 94-78 Maccabi
Unicaja 84-73 Charleroi
Barcelona 80-66 Cibona
Valencia 56-72 Panathinaikos
Siena 76-44 Cholet
I'd like your opinions on a matter that came up to my mind while watching Khimki-Prokom last night.
Khimki had five Americans in their squad (and 3 Polish guys on bench). EL doesn't have a foreigners limit, but I think they should have a limit on non-Europeans. After all, it's EUROleague. What's the point of playing in a European competition with majority of players being American?
Also presuming Prokom is paying around $300K for each of them, they got a $1.5m budget for 5 Americans. If a limit of 3 non-Europeans would be established they could spend $500K on each American, hence brining better players.
Also as I've heard Prokom got 25+ players this year. They play with different squads in Poland than in VTB and EL. This for me is distortion of competition. But this is not the first time. In Croatia youngster Saric will be playing for two totally different clubs at the same time during the season. For example he will play for team A on Wednesday and for team B on Sunday. I think European basketball is losing some of its professionalism with such amateurism.
[quote name='Black Urum' timestamp='1287654274' post='25768']
I'd like your opinions on a matter that came up to my mind while watching Khimki-Prokom last night.
Khimki had five Americans in their squad (and 3 Polish guys on bench). EL doesn't have a foreigners limit, but I think they should have a limit on non-Europeans. After all, it's EUROleague. What's the point of playing in a European competition with majority of players being American?
Also presuming Prokom is paying around $300K for each of them, they got a $1.5m budget for 5 Americans. If a limit of 3 non-Europeans would be established they could spend $500K on each American, hence brining better players.
Also as I've heard Prokom got 25+ players this year. They play with different squads in Poland than in VTB and EL. This for me is distortion of competition. But this is not the first time. In Croatia youngster Saric will be playing for two totally different clubs at the same time during the season. For example he will play for team A on Wednesday and for team B on Sunday. I think European basketball is losing some of its professionalism with such amateurism.
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I am not for that idea. If some teams want to be retarded let them. Sooner or latter they will find out that a NBDL team won't take them anywhere. IT teams will have to get that into their head, also Prokom and some Russian teams. No need to penalize the whole competition because of that. The market will take care of that. The US guys that come over and don't prove anything on't last in the league anyway so who cares.
Anyway i am soo glad Olimpija finaly won one in the EL, and even with the refs being Spanish pricks who whistled onesided. Nachbar was destroying us Jagodnik was too slow to guard him, and Markota was too waek, he was penetrating at will and making space for others. Once he got fould out we came back and eventually won it.
We still have a lot of room to improve Sherma will only get better with minutes and while he gets used to the EL. Perry will also get used to the team and do much better, a few open shots he had will go in for sure in the next games.
All in all i am liking this team and the spirit, the crowd in the Arena was good, next team we play PAO the place is gonna be packed for sure, especially if we manage to beat AJ.
Were you at the arena? Was it sold out? How was it? Can you see well from any spot in the arena? How about the acoustics? I saw that the seats were spacious, I liked that. Also the corridors were wide, as they should be.
What is the capacity? From an overview shot it seemed smaller than I thought it was.
[quote name='Black Urum' timestamp='1287660469' post='25772']
Were you at the arena? Was it sold out? How was it? Can you see well from any spot in the arena? How about the acoustics? I saw that the seats were spacious, I liked that. Also the corridors were wide, as they should be.
What is the capacity? From an overview shot it seemed smaller than I thought it was.
[/quote]
Yup i was there. It wasn't sold out but close something like 9000/12500, very good if you consider all the problems the team had, and the bad results in the past. You can see excellent even from the highest spot of the arena, beucase it is very steep, which also makes it seems like its not as big as it actually is. Whats awesome is that it is round, and even if you have seets almost behind the basket(which are usually cheaper) you can still see very well if you are not smack behind the backboard. The court is very close to the stands so it is great, you can see everything perfectlly. The acoustics are great as well for cheering, Green Dragons(the organized group) who were in the top ring of the arena and there were not many of them around 100 were heard very well, and the cheering, especially in the second half was loud as hell, so i would say the acoustics are terrific, only problem is you can hardly understand the anouncer. There are loads of exits and as you say the corridors are very spacious, you exit the arena in a minute, even if it is packed, 2 minutes if you are in the top ring. There is enough leg room, as well as seeting room as well.
The LED ring has still not been mounted, as well as the central square scoreboard, which as i hear, are already in Ljubljana, they just need to be paid for. Once those two things are mounted its gonna be even more great.
The things about Prokom having two dif squads (and ffs 25 players?!) is fucked up, but not as fucked up as the thing with this player playing for two different teams.. how is it possible? can you give some more information about this thing? thanks.
about non-european players restrictions, I don't know.. I mean yes, I might not be totally fair cause I'm a fan of a team that usually has 4-6 americans every year but there's one problem, most of the European teams are not very rich and the top European players are usually discovered very early and their prices can get very high while on the other hand, teams can get talented and cheap americans, that were rejected by the NBA but still have a great potential to be great players (of course it doesn't work all the time but you get what I'm saying).
About Caja vs. Maccabi- Maccabi once again built a new team and didn't get alot of time to connect, even though the team looked pretty good in the Israeli league first game and in the Israeli league cup. it seems like the team is missing another man in the paint, Sofo is great but he can only play for 18-22 minutes right now and in the other ~20 minutes Maccabi is somewhat stuck, Green is simply not good enough, he wasn't good enough in the last seasons and his age is certainly not helping him.. so Blatt try to play with Hendrix as 5, the problem is that so far Hendrix just didn't look very good in this position and it might create Maccabi a problem in the paint.
as for the 4-5 positions, so far it seems like Blatt is playing with the combinations of Eliyahu-Hendrix and Blu-Sofo, Eliyahu and Hendrix play pretty good together, both players run side-to-side very fast and they seem like a great combination in the offense so far, Blu and Sofo also look like a great match, Sofo needs the space inside and Blu doesn't like to play in the paint too much while sofo who on many occasions get double-teamed is freeing Blu for the outside scoring, which so far in this season Blu does amazing (btw for those of you who don't know, David Bluthenthal has changed his name to David Blu <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' /> )
As for the 1-3 positions, Perkins and Pargo, when play together are simply deadly on both sides as long as they use their brain, a little problem is that they have an awful start from the 3 this season..Eidson doens't look too good so far, still not confident with his shot, Pnini is still a great three point shooter and doing great job on defense and so far it looks like Burstein will get a nice amount of minutes, despite his age cuz so far he's doing pretty well. Blatt is using the fact he got 4 great ball handlers, Pargo Perkins Eidson and Burstein pretty good so far..
lol that was long <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' /> anyway that's pretty much what I can say about Maccabi at this point before their game in Spain, I got a feeling this one is 50-50, I'm still a bit not sure about this team's chance to actually beat a team in the level of Caja at this point of the season but I hope for the best.
[quote name='MaccabiTA' timestamp='1287668465' post='25774']
The things about Prokom having two dif squads (and ffs 25 players?!) is fucked up, but not as fucked up as the thing with this player playing for two different teams.. how is it possible? can you give some more information about this thing? thanks.
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The player is Dario Saric. He plays for KK Zagreb in the Adriatic League and Dubrava Zagreb in the Croatian League. What a joke.
As for the Americans, I guess it all depends on team's philosophy. Caja LAboral is in the same financial level with Maccabi. They buy young European (and South American) talents and got them for 5-6 years and then sell them. A lot better then getting cheap Americans and changing them every year. The first one is a lot harder while the latter easier. Now Caja Laboral got Musli and Bjelica while Maccabi couldn't even land Macvan, who would cover the C position for 5+ years and could even bring money back to the club in last year of contract by selling.
[quote name='Black Urum' timestamp='1287671043' post='25775']
The player is Dario Saric. He plays for KK Zagreb in the Adriatic League and Dubrava Zagreb in the Croatian League. What a joke.
As for the Americans, I guess it all depends on team's philosophy. Caja LAboral is in the same financial level with Maccabi. They buy young European (and South American) talents and got them for 5-6 years and then sell them. A lot better then getting cheap Americans and changing them every year. The first one is a lot harder while the latter easier. Now Caja Laboral got Musli and Bjelica while Maccabi couldn't even land Macvan, who would cover the C position for 5+ years and could even bring money back to the club in last year of contract by selling.
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One thing to consider when making this limit is,. that Euro players would demand a lot more money because they would be needed more, especially the good ones, and the mid level ones, would be able to strong-arm teams way too much. I think something like that happened exactlly in the polish league, or was it russian i can't remember. In one of those leagues there is a rule that a 23yo player or something needs to be on the floor at all time or similar, once the young players understood what that meant, the good or average onse, made crazy demands to teams, because they knew teams needed them very much.
But it the long term there will be more local players produced, hence offer will equal the demand.
Milano leading CSKA 52-29 in Moscow at halftime! <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />
Pecherov with 15 points so far. Wow, this could be a HUGE upset and a serious statement by Milano.
CSKA almost came back (almost) from 28-48 at half time vs Panathinaikos at Berlin Final Four. Can they do it tonight?
First shock of the season.
CSKA 73-88 AJ Milano
CSKA could be affected by the trip to USA, but still the fact is they lost. And next week they play in OAKA vs PAO. So if PAO wins tonight in Valencia and then beats the Russians in OAKA they will already have two wins difference.
[quote name='Black Urum' timestamp='1287671043' post='25775']
The player is Dario Saric. He plays for KK Zagreb in the Adriatic League and Dubrava Zagreb in the Croatian League. What a joke.
As for the Americans, I guess it all depends on team's philosophy. Caja LAboral is in the same financial level with Maccabi. They buy young European (and South American) talents and got them for 5-6 years and then sell them. A lot better then getting cheap Americans and changing them every year. The first one is a lot harder while the latter easier. Now Caja Laboral got Musli and Bjelica while Maccabi couldn't even land Macvan, who would cover the C position for 5+ years and could even bring money back to the club in last year of contract by selling.
[/quote]
I didn't talk about maccabi specifically, and let's leave the building of the team for the management, let's not forget Nate huffman Ariel mcdonald, Anthony Parker, maceo baston, those players led maccabi to 3 European crowns in the last decade (alongside with some other players of course, and let's not forget vujcic who was probably the best deal of the last decade and he was European) while caja didn't win any European championship, I agree their attitude leads to more stable team but it's not as simple as Europeans good Americans bad, plus caja's most important player in last years was non-European as well..
Maccabi is playing like SHIT
57-32 for caja on half time
[quote name='MaccabiTA' timestamp='1287688705' post='25788']
Maccabi is playing like SHIT
57-32 for caja on half time
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No problem, you got many Americans, so everything will go well for you.
[quote name='Black Urum' timestamp='1287689833' post='25790']
No problem, you got many Americans, so everything will go well for you.
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This game won't change the facts above, maccabi was the more successful team last decade, the current team is probably not good enough, maybe it will change in the next few weeks but again, this game has nothing to do with what I said above, and it was right.
[quote name='MaccabiTA' timestamp='1287691104' post='25791']
This game won't change the facts above, maccabi was the more successful team last decade, the current team is probably not good enough, maybe it will change in the next few weeks but again, this game has nothing to do with what I said above, and it was right.
[/quote]
Panathinaikos got 4 trophies last decade. With Europeans. So Europeans work better.
[quote name='Black Urum' timestamp='1287691427' post='25792']
Panathinaikos got 4 trophies last decade. With Europeans. So Europeans work better.
[/quote]
Panathinaikos got twice (or three times) the budget of maccabi, so money works better
btw those damn Americans just took maccabi to 13-0 run in the begining of the 4th
[quote name='MaccabiTA' timestamp='1287691900' post='25793']
btw those damn Americans just took maccabi to 13-0 run in the begining of the 4th
[/quote]
Burstein and Pnini scored 12/16 points so far in 4th quarter.
[quote name='Black Urum' timestamp='1287692094' post='25794']
Burstein and Pnini scored 12/16 points so far in 4th quarter.
[/quote]
guess what? They're Asian <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' />