Basketball Events • Eventos del BaloncestoEurope: In postseason hoops, Euroleague Final Four trumps all
While the NBA is beginning its postseason, the Euroleague is culminating its tournament in what has been an eventful year.
• Ricky Rubio improves. Instead of sharing the Timberwolves' backcourt with fellow rookie point guard Jonny Flynn, Rubio famously decided to remain in Europe for two more seasons. Not only was he able to remain in his hometown by transferring to Barcelona, the favorite to win the Euroleague championship at the Final Four from May 7-9 in Paris, but he also has emerged as a better NBA candidate than ever.
"I think he has improved in two things," said coach Ettore Messina of Real Madrid, which lost to Spanish rival Barcelona in the Euroleague quarterfinals. "His three-point shooting is much better. He has improved his follow-through and his extension of the arm, so that I think he will have no problem adjusting to the length of the three-point shot in the NBA."
The more significant upgrade has been Rubio's floor leadership. Last season with Joventut Badalona -- a smaller Spanish club also based in Barcelona -- he had pushed the tempo ceaselessly, but that recklessness wouldn't do for the championship team he now leads. He has become a more disciplined point guard for Barcelona.
"Sometimes he was not taking into account the value of the ball and knowing the moment of the game," Messina said of Rubio's former style. "Now in the Euroleague, he knows when is the moment to try something and also when it is better to be safe and control the situation -- and he has done this without losing his killer instinct."
The discipline of contending for the biggest championship outside the NBA has toughened Rubio. In the Euroleague's best-of-five quarterfinals, Barcelona surrendered home-court advantage with a Game 2 loss to Real Madrid.
"[Rubio] was not a factor in the first two games," said Messina, who then watched Rubio respond by leading Barcelona to victories in Games 3 and 4 at Madrid. "He was the key. He was able to handle the pressure and he showed he has the patience to know when to step up."
American executives will continue to debate whether Rubio has enough athleticism to star in the NBA. While the 19-year-old has become a household name for European hoops, the hype does not dwarf the substance. What can no longer be doubted is his leadership and resolve to win -- a drive that was responsible for Rubio's decision to remain in Europe. Messina believes Rubio was not turned off by the wintry climate of Minnesota so much as he was concerned with the Timberwolves' long-term plan to rebuild, with several losing seasons likely to come.
"I understand how it is for the best players here in Europe," Messina said. "After playing so many years to win games, it is difficult for them to go to [an NBA] team and think maybe I will lose 45 games out of 82 and I will never have a chance to win. It is very difficult for them to think maybe in four years we will have a shot. Even for myself as an observer, I see the New York [Knicks'] situation where for two years they cleaned house and made space under the cap -- and I don't know how they can handle that. For me, it takes inhuman patience to do that. I respect it is part of your mentality, your world, but over here people could not do that -- not coaches, not players, not fans."
• Josh Childress, Season II. Childress has come to accept the pressure of European basketball to win every game. In his second year with the Greek club Olympiakos, the former sixth man of the Atlanta Hawks has helped lead his team to the Final Four while emerging as arguably the second-most-important player in Europe behind Rubio.
"I read an interesting quote by his coach [Panagiotis Giannakis], who pointed out how Josh managed to understand the pace of his game depending on the situation -- when to go slow, when to go fast," Messina said. "When he arrived in Europe last season, he could only play one speed. Now he reads the game much better. He is much more a complete player. He has been a tremendous piece for Olympiakos. He has always played with a very good attitude, always been open to the mentality and culture of Europe, to understand Europe and how we live sport."
Childress had a frustrating "rookie" season in Greece after leaving the Hawks in 2008 to sign a three-year, $20 million contract. He averaged a disappointing 8.8 Euroleague points last year, and then, to his credit, appraised himself with painful honesty.
"I wasn't really the focus of their plans last year," he said. "I was kind of an additional piece, and they wanted me to learn and to grow into the system. It's different in the NBA when you're the highest-paid player -- whether it's LeBron or whoever it is -- you're going to get a bulk of the minutes, the touches, all of those things. That wasn't the case last year, but in all honesty that helped me mentally. I went through a lot -- I was frustrated, angry, whatever -- but I think I grew from that. I learned I have to be more patient, smarter. I have to think the game."
Expatriate American players often play with one foot in Europe and one foot in the NBA -- they think of Europe as a penance to be paid before they can return home. This season Childress stopped thinking about how things used to be for him in the NBA, and he clearly devoted himself to the European style. The result has been a 15.1 points Euroleague average and a more dynamic role in the offense.
"It's a common misconception that people think the basketball is weaker over here, that it's the J.V. league," he said. "That's definitely not the case. I did have to prepare for it physically by getting stronger, and also with my game, by working on more specific things tailored for the European game.
"After the season I watched some film and broke down parts of my game that I felt I could work on. One of them was my shooting. One was also being able to make a move on a second defender -- I didn't have any issues getting by one guy, but it was the second guy coming over and being able to make a pass or a move on that guy. And also the pick-and-roll and being able to read those better, because that's pretty much all we run."
Childress has also adapted to the lifestyle realities of European basketball. When we spoke by phone last month, he had checked into the team hotel following a five-hour bus ride for a domestic-league game against Greek rival Trikala. He now takes it for granted that police in riot gear will surround the edges of the court during each game.
"Last year, I saw police getting beat up by fans and it was crazy, it was really like a riot in the middle of a game," he said. "In the NBA, you get booed a few times, but it's nothing compared to getting cell phones and cameras and lighters and coffees thrown at you. The only thing that has come close to hitting me was a roll of receipt paper. You know, the kind you see from a cash register. They'd thrown that and it came close to hitting me, and that would have hurt.
"They've shot flares on the court a few times, and you get the firecrackers still, the M-80s. All my teammates said you always run away from [a lit firecracker on the court] or kick it, because I think some [player's] finger got blown off one time.
"During the games they throw stuff at you, they're trying to spit at you, they're doing everything to try to get to you. But off the court, I haven't had too many issues. Maybe some opposing fans have keyed my car a few times; I was at the grocery store and I came back out and someone had keyed a big, long stripe down the side and the hood. If it was my car, I would have been a little angrier, but it's a team-issued car, and I'm sure the team is used to that happening."
As part of his contract, the club has provided him with a Volvo SUV and a townhouse. "It's something I would purchase in the States," he said. "Nice size, nice pool. They really took care of me."
He also likes playing for the Angelopoulos brothers, who control Olympiakos basketball. "They're true basketball fans," he said. "One of the brothers is in the gym all the time working out. He plays in a men's league. They truly enjoy the game and being around us and supporting the team. You see them during the games cheering or shouting at the referees just like Mark Cuban."
American fans may have trouble believing this, but players in Europe feel more pressure to win each night than stars of the NBA do. "They treat every game like a playoff game [here]," Childress said. "We stay in a hotel on game days because they don't want anything to interfere with the mind or the performance.
"Last year, we lost a game and I tried to go eat afterward, and it was like I was walking around like a crazy man -- like, what is he doing out when he should be home sulking? The type of fan support obviously is great, but it can have its drawbacks, too. We went back to our training facility one time after we lost a game and [discovered] some things had been broken and the fans had kind of rioted. On the court, you try to focus on the game, but if you're not playing well, they'll let you know. I've gotten used to it, but last year it was a tough adjustment."
Consider how much one year in Europe did to elevate and harden Bucks rookie point guard Brandon Jennings. Childress, 26, has undergone similar improvements. Not only is he tougher, but NBA scouts say he has become a better shooter and a more versatile decision-maker. As one NBA team executive put it, "He's making more money over there than he could have made in the NBA, and he's going to come back with a better understanding of how to play different positions. At the end of the day, he made a good decision to go over there."
But he insists he hasn't decided whether to stay with Olympiakos for a third year, or to try to return to the NBA before the anticipated lockout of 2011.
• To bet or not to bet? The Euroleague broke ground this season by negotiating a provocative endorsement. Go to the league's official site and you'll see that a main sponsor is Sporting Bet, an online sports gambling service that enables fans to bet on Euroleague games.
"We feel comfortable with Sporting Bet and our relationship with them," Euroleague communications director Kirsten Haack said. "Everything indicates that our players, our referees and our coaches aren't influenced by the betting results."
Sporting Bet trades on the London Stock Exchange. "They have alarm systems installed in their betting systems, so that when they notice sudden peaks or algorithms that don't make sense, they freeze the betting," Haack said. "Betting on the games is an accepted part of European culture. In Spanish football [soccer], there has always been some kind of lottery or betting system -- that has always existed in Spain and a lot of countries in Europe."
European soccer has been dealing with a gambling scandal based in Germany and other countries, but basketball has yet to generate similar big-money interests.
When NBA referee Tim Donaghy was betting on the games he was officiating, he was doing so to win money on his bets. But European basketball operates on a different dynamic. When European referees have been accused of fixing a game, the riggers haven't been interested in gambling on the outcome -- they've simply wanted their team to win the game.
The Euroleague hopes its partnership with Sporting Bet will enhance interest in basketball by encouraging fans to literally invest in the games and therefore care more about the outcome. The bottom line -- despite the official denials -- is that all leagues probably want fans to bet on the games. The NFL is so popular in part because of betting; the hysteria over the NCAA tournament has everything to do with the entire nation gambling on the 64-team pool. If your games aren't attracting wagers, it means your league is irrelevant and in trouble. The example of the Euroleague's breakthrough partnership with an online gambling partner was one reason NBA commissioner David Stern told me in December that someday his league may view nationally legalized gambling as not only a "possibility" but also a "huge opportunity."
from
FIBA
