Recommended 2021-08-02 Last week Leo Westermann was running his basketball camp for kids in Mulhouse, France, close to his hometown. And he lost the track of kids wearing Luka Doncic jerseys. That's the guy who in few days could be standing in the way of his fellow Frenchmen and their Olympic dreams. But Westermann is anticipating this potential semifinal game between France and Slovenia. An experienced point guard is ...
 2021-07-30 Rokas Jokubaitis haven't seen an NBA Draft broadcast before so the expectations for this year's event were simple - wait out for his name to be called and go to bed at around 5 in the morning. His plan didn't quite work. Even though Jokubaitis was drafted higher than expected, he had to try hard to fight off sleepiness. "I thought the whole draft would last two hours. But I noticed that after two ...
 2021-07-30 On July 21, 2021, Italian league champions Virtus Bologna officially announced that they were "unilaterally" parting ways with big man Vince Hunter. It was a surprise move, considering that just a few weeks ago, on July 3rd, the team had extended Hunter for two years. So what changed in such a short period of time? Few days after the contract extension with Hunter, it was revealed that the player ...
 2021-07-27 Real Madrid will receive a significant buyout if Usman Garuba moves to the NBA. At this moment, his contract with Real includes an NBA buyout clause of 3 million euros, per BasketNews sources. If a 19-year-old forward moves to the NBA this summer, he'll need to pay around €2.345M out of his own pocket. This year NBA teams are allowed to cover $775K (€655K) of the buyout. According to ...
 2021-07-27 Ariel Hukporti, a center out of Germany, has signed with Melbourne United as part of the NBL’s Next Stars program, according to an ESPN report. Last season big man played an important role for the Lithuanian top division team. He averaged 10.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and 11.5 PIR over 23.2 minutes in national championship. Hukporti scored a season-high 17 points against the ...
 2021-07-27 After an extremely convincing sophomore season at Gonzaga, an already strong team, Serbian big Filip Petrusev made a rather surprise move last summer by withdrawing his name from the 2020 Draft and opting to play in Europe. Of all teams in his native Serbia, he chose Mega Soccerbet, a club renowned for getting players ready for the giant leap to the NBA. There, he had a stunning season, averaging ...
 2021-07-26 Round One of the Tokyo Olympic Basketball Tournament wrapped up on Monday, with all teams having played their first game. Let's recap the most intriguing events from the first six Olympics matches. 73-year losing streak The tournament kicked off with a game between Iran and the Czech Republic. The last time Iran had won a basketball match at the Olympics was way back in 1948. The Czech Republic ...
 2021-07-21 Keith Langford will turn 38 next September. In a summer period when several EuroLeague veterans, among them Vassilis Spanoulis and Omri Casspi, decided to retire, one of the continent's most productive scorers keeps going. The EuroLeague trophy may be still missing from his collection of silverware, but the experienced slasher has always been capable of delivering the goods whenever required. An ...
 2021-07-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo is definitely one of the most unlikely superstars in NBA history. The son of Nigerian immigrants who settled in Greece in the 90s started playing basketball around 13 years old and made a (modest) name for himself in the lower levels of the Greek league. Now, having won the NBA title with the Milwaukee Bucks and having dropped 50 points in the decisive game of the NBA Finals, ...
 2021-07-14 With several teams already set for the next season, some of the best free agents have already found a home but there are still some prominent names out there who could help any team. I tried to make a list of the best/most intriguing free agents available on the market. Of course, it's only my take on the subject, so no offense intended to the ones who didn't make this list. Kevin Pangos The ...
 2021-07-13 12 Dev Adam (12 Giant Men) is an overly exhausted brand. First introduced as 2001 EuroBasket campaign embedded in a widely popular song by Athena (the band), it was intended to symbolize the glorious future of Turkish basketball. Over the last 20 years, this self-imposed image of being a "giant" witnessed only occasional celebration, few rare moments of euphoria, like the finals reached at the ...
 2021-07-13 In the latest Urbonus podcast BasketNews' Donatas Urbonas and Orazio Cauchi discuss two of the biggest stories in European basketball this offseason: Partizan Belgrade big moves with Zeljko Obradovic and Vasilije Micic signing a new deal in Istanbul. Topics: Zeljko Obradovic’s return to Partizan (5:00); is politics behind Partizan’s cash flow? (10:37); possible Ekpe Udoh and Obradovic ...
 2021-07-12 There was a constant that connected all the Olympic Qualifying tournaments: none of the teams that hosted the tournaments were able to qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Not a single one. Lithuania, Croatia, Canada, and Serbia went home without that golden ticket to Tokyo. BasketNews continues its series of reviews about countries with strong basketball traditions and winning history. We've ...
 2021-07-11 BasketNews returns with a series of articles about recognized basketball countries that have been underperforming for the past few years. We have already recapped the struggles of basketball in Greece and the state of Croatian basketball. Today - Lithuania's turn and their upcoming changes. The Lithuanian National Team lost to Slovenia on their home turf in the Olympic Qualification Tournament and ...
 2021-07-10 BasketNews continues its series of articles about recognized basketball countries that have been underperforming for extended periods of time. Yesterday we presented the state of Greek basketball, while today we dive into Croatia's basketball situation. It is strange to read quotes in one of the biggest news websites in Croatia stating that the debacle in Split during the Olympic Qualifying ...
 2021-07-09 Greece, Lithuania, Serbia, Croatia. What do all these European countries have in common? Well, for starters, they used to have very strong basketball national teams. Olympic Games, EuroBaskets, World Cups would have been unthinkable without them. But it's all in the past now. The upcoming Tokyo Olympics will take place in their absence. Is it another sign of decadence? Does it mean that those ...
 2021-07-08 Luka Doncic is, maybe, a difficult person, they said. It's not clear how many people will be excited to play with Luka, they said. Before starting the Olympic mission, Luka put all that NBA noise behind the Slovenia National Team camp doors. There were at least eleven basketball players, specifically from Slovenia, who were very excited to share the floor with Luka Doncic. And playing with Luka ...
 2021-07-07 A dominant 97-72 win over Greece in the final of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Victoria, Canada, made sure that the Czech Republic's national team was going to the Summer Olympics for the first time since the formation of the country back in 1993. As Czechoslovakia, the team last appeared in the biggest summer sporting event in 1980. The last decade brought a whole new level of success ...
 2021-07-06 The NBA Finals are right around the corner, and we are going to see an unpredicted matchup between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns. Extraordinary playoffs, marked by injuries to NBA stars, will end with an extraordinary Finals series. The Bucks will be trying to reclaim the championship after 50 years-long drought, while the Suns will fight for their very first title in 53-year franchise ...
 2021-07-04 Few hours before the Eurobasket 2017 final tips off. Smoking area of Sinan Erden arena in Istanbul. Sasa Doncic, the father of Luka Doncic, couldn’t stand still. Slovenia was facing Serbia in a gold medal game. His 18-year-old son was one victory away from becoming the European champion. "Look at my shirt," Sasa Doncic smiled, wet and still sweating. And it wasn't just because of a ...
 2021-07-03 That’s a morning table you would like to be a part of every single day. Goran Dragic, Radoslav Nesterovic, Sasha Doncic, and the rest of the Slovenian basketball federation enjoyed their coffee on a nice terrace of one of the main Kaunas hotels. Nesterovic was all smiling. He loves that warm but not humid Lithuanian weather in summer. And he had to love his team's start in the Olympic ...
 2021-07-02 Olympiacos beat Maroussi 93-87 on Wednesday night to take the series 3-0, earning the promotion to the Greek Basket League after spending two years in the second division. Now, it's up to the management to decide what to do, compete in the first division or not. The club's development team undertook the difficult task of securing one of the two spots that led to the first-tier of Greek basketball ...
 2021-06-29 Rick Pitino is a remarkable speaker. After all, it was partly due to his persuasiveness that he managed to convince Vassilis Spanoulis for a "Last Dance" with the Greece national team. However, Spanoulis got injured and will not only miss the FIBA Olympic Qualifying tournament in Canada, but he also announced the end of his career. Thus, the American coach, who is leading Greece's effort to ...
 2021-06-28 Describing Carlos Arroyo's basketball journey is a difficult undertaking. The ingenious Puerto Rican has traveled to almost every place on earth during his career, which lasted from 1996 through 2019. Seven teams in the NBA, five in Europe, and two more in his homeland asked for his services before he decided to draw the curtain at the age of 40. The guard from Fajardo, who was not selected in the ...
 2021-06-28 It was a tough five years that Mario Hezonja spent in the United States. Three seasons with the Orlando Magic and another two with the New York Knicks and the Portland Trail Blazers gave the opportunity to the once child prodigy of Croatian basketball to explore his abilities at the highest level. Alas, the forward from Dubrovnik may have fulfilled his NBA dream, but he never managed to really ...
 2021-06-27 Vassilis Spanoulis decided to end his career. The greatest leader in the history of Olympiacos Piraeus informed club owners Panagiotis and Giorgos Angelopoulos about his decision and then shocked European basketball with a message on his Instagram. Spanoulis, having made his decision, asked for a meeting with the Angelopoulos brothers, in order to explain his thoughts to them. It was during the ...
 2021-06-27 With the departure of coach Sasha Djordjevic, who didn't agree to a new contract, Virtus Bologna is set to enter a new era for their project after spending the past two years and a half with the Serbian coach. Sergio Scariolo, the current head coach of the Spanish national team and now-former assistant coach of the Toronto Raptors, will be team's new head coach, bringing tons of experience and ...
 2021-06-27 After completion of the 2020-21 season, 18 EuroLeague teams are already aiming for their next challenges. How will their final rosters take shape? Where some of the biggest names in Europe will move over the summer? What is the future of the league MVP Vasilije Micic? BasketNews is actively monitoring the situations of all 18 EuroLeague clubs and will keep updating their rosters throughout the ...
 2021-06-27 On Friday afternoon, what was originally just a dream for Partizan Belgrade fans, became reality. The Serbian club officially announced the return to the bench by Zeljko Obradovic, the legend himself, who spent most of his playing career and started his managerial one precisely with Partizan, on a three-year contract. 28 years after his last stint with Partizan, Obradovic is back. Probably one of ...
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