BigDirty

No you're misinformed :P , Forlan DID suck at ManU, they show the Premier League here and whenever I saw him he wasn't very good and missed a lot of easy chances (although when I saw him playing for Uruguay he always played much better) and on other message boards all the ManU we're always crying about how bad Forlan is and the Arsenal fans would make fun of him. Rodriguez is a Reserve for Schalke, I should know, I watch all the Bundesliga games. He only played in 8 of 15 Bundesliga games this year (well technically 9 but one time he came in in the 90th minute so that shouldn't count ) and only because the real starter Christian Pander is injured for a long time period and Schalke has no other players for the left defense side (and they spent all their money on other players like Kuranyi, Ernst and Rafinha, so they can't really afford another signing). Plus he's not playing very good, I liked him before he came to Schalke, but since he played for them he wasn't very good. You do have some good players, but somehow that one special superstar player is missing. I once thought Recoba could be that guy, but he isn't there yet. What's with those two PSG guys Bueno and Rodriguez are they good?

What use would he be? He's no center, he plays the 3 and 4, so he wouldn't get much time, cause we already have Childress, Smith, Harrington and Williams at these spots right now. Plus he couldn't get playing time on the Nuggets, Warriors & Timberwolves and I guess there's a reason for it, plus it's said that he's weak defensively. I might do it for Delk, cause we have no use for Delk, but I don't think Skita would help us much.

Well Forlan isn't playing as good as last season and before that he sucked 3 years for ManU, so he isn't really that good anyway. And some of your players like Rodriguez and Varela are only reserve players for their teams. You guys seemed to stop being good when Francescoli got old and retired. He always was one of my favourite players.

I'm for Lenny, cause when I became a real Hawks fan Lenny was the coach and the Hawks were really good back then, so if he comes back the Hawks will be good again, you just have to believe! I have I question: On that 12-70 Clippers team the topscorer was Mike Woodson, is that our Mike Woodson? If that's him then no wonder we're losing so much, he intentionelly teaches losing so that his former Clippers team doesn't look so bad and he doesn't have to be ashamed anymore to have played for one of the worst 5 teams all-time.

Germany has a quite easy group. My prediction: Group A: 1.Germany 2.Poland 3.Ecuador 4.Costa Rica Group B: 1.England 2.Sweden 3.Paraguay 4.Trinidad & Tobago Group C: 1.Argentina 2.Holland 3.Serbia-Montenegro 4.Ivory Coast Group D: 1.Mexico 2.Portugal 3.Iran 4.Angola Group E: 1.Italy 2.Czech Republic 3.USA 4.Ghana Group F: 1.Brasil 2.Croatia 3.Australia 4.Japan Group G: 1.France 2.Hanguk 3.Swiss 4.Togo Group H: 1.Spain 2.Ukraine 3.Tunesia 4.Saudi-Arabia My tickets turned out to be for: Sweden - Paraguay (good game + a player from my favourite team Werder Bremen, Nelson Haedo-Valdez, plays for Paraguay) Ukraine - Tunesia (Tunesia is the absolutely last team I wanted a ticket for, well at least I get to see Sheva)

Cook plays for Dexia Mons-Hainaut in Belgium. Best plays for Unics Kazan in Russia. Williams plays for FC Barcelona in Spain. So these guys most likely aren't available, but yeah we need someone that actually has some point guard skills. By the way could somebody tell me why we aren't sending Ivey down to the d-league? I mean he isn't getting any playing time at all for the Hawks so why not send him down to give him some playing experience?

That's very sad.

Cenk Akyol played 8 minutes today in Turkey's 75-87 loss to Lithuania at the Euro Championships. He took zero shots, hab 1 rebound and 1 assist. If anybody cares here are stats of some other NBA players that played today: Okur 24 Min, 7 Pts, 2 Reb Türkoglu 29 Min, 14 Pts, 2 Reb (Turkey's topscorer) Nowitzki 42 Min, 27 Pts, 15 Reb, 3 Ast, 4/14 3FG (Germany's topscorer and toprebounder and had most assists together with Roller) Khryapa 27 Min, 13 Pts, 5 Reb, 6 TO Monya 28 Min, 8 Pts, 5 Reb, 3 Ast Kirilenko 36 Min, 22 Pts, 14 Reb, 5/16 2FG, 3 Stl, 5 Blk (led Russia in Pts, Reb, Stl & Blk) Medvedenko 21 Min, 14 Pts, 4 Reb Kasun 22 Min, 9 Pts, 8 Reb, 4 Blk (led Croatia in Blk and Reb tied with Giricek) Ukic 6 Min, 2 Pts, 1 Ast Giricek 37 Min, 22 Pts, 8 Reb (Croatia's topscorer) Planinic 26 Min, 16 Pts, 4 Reb, 3 Ast, 5 TO, 3 Stl Nesterovic 15 Min, 2 Pts, 2 Reb, 1/6 2FG Nachbar 27 Min, 16 Pts, 3 Reb, 1/6 3FG (Slovenia's topscorer with Brezec) Brezec 25 Min, 16 Pts, 9 Reb (Slovenia's topscorer & toprebounder) Gelabale 28 Min, 7 Pts, 3 Reb Pietrus 20 Min, 5 Pts, 4 TO Parker 28 Min, 10 Pts, 0 Ast, 3 TO (led France in scoring) Diaw 24 Min, 6 Pts, 3 Ast, 3/5 2FG, 4 TO (led France in assists, took the 2nd most 2FG shots on the team) Spanoulis 12 Min, 5 Pts Milicic 13 Min, 3 Pts, 4 Reb, 2 Blk Radmanovic 15 Min, 7 Pts, 3 Reb Jaric 26 Min, 0 Pts, 0/4 3FG, 2 Ast Rebraca 19 Min, 6 Pts, 2 Reb, 2 Blk Krstic 11 Min, 3 Pts, 2 Reb Calderon 28 Min, 17 Pts, 2 Reb, 3 Ast (led Spain in Assists together with Garbajosa)

Yeah but Darko was the number 2 pick, so the money is totally different. And the league didn't make an exception for the Bulls last year when they wanted to buy out Nocioni and Macijaukas, so I doubt they would make one for the Raptors. I think Ukic wants to play in the NBA but he's a realist, he knows he's not ready right now (and maybe never will, who knows) so why pay money and maybe ruin your reputation when you can get paid nicely and get playing time to raise your worth. He wants to go the smart way like Ginobili, not the fast way like Darko or Tskitishvili (plus he wasn't a 1st rounder so he's not even getting the money those both got). Basically what you're saying is that every highschool player that wants to go to college has no desire to play in the NBA (ok now with the new CBA they can't enter the NBA directly after highschool).

This has nothing to do with desire at all. Which is smarter? a) pay 750,000-1,000,000 to get out of your contract and then sign a 300,000-500,000 per year contract in the NBA where you might not get much playing time, fail (and if he is as bad as you think, he will fail in the NBA) and therefore lower your price b) sign a 300,000-1,000,000 per year contract from a team where you will get playing time and have less risk to fail (and therefore raise your price if you succeed, so that at the end of that contract you can try the NBA)

Yeah Ukic didn't win an award but he was the league's topscorer and 2nd best in assists and I'd say that's quite good for a 21year old. And it's not his fault that he didn't play euroleague, Dirk for example never played euroleague either (if I remember correctly he didn't even play a full Bundesliga season, only 2nd Bundesliga). Euroleague is not a real league but a tournament with group phase, that means each country sends a certain number of teams to play to the euroleague, Germany and Croatia for example only send one team, so you have to win the german/croatian championship to play in euroleague next season (sometimes the 2nd or 3rd placed team plays in euroleague instead of the champion, because there are some other factors like arena capacity, past success, etc.). So if Frankfurt wins the german championship this year, they'll play in the german league and in euroleague next year.

Johnson doesn't talk about his matchup against Ukic (he only says that he thinks no opponent gave him trouble) in that interview and he also didn't say Indy thinks he's better than Ukic. All he does is saying that Tomas is better than Ukic and he says that Indy is impressed by his progress. He didn't win the best import player award in euroleague either, he won the best import player award in the croatian league (his team didn't even play in euroleague), BIG difference. Ukic led the league in scoring and ranked second in assists, so he should have some skills (although I'm a little confused that he didn't even make all league 2nd team).

He looked bad against Jagla? Jagla is not even a good BBL big man (only 13 minutes per game, but atleast he gets 7 pts, 3.3 reb, which is ok), so one can only hope for Marty that he had a very very veeeeeeeeeeeery bad day. Damn I never would've thought that a NBA prospect big man could struggle against Jagla.

If they are the starters next year they will get killed every game and they might not even win 10 games. But it could be a nice lineup in 2-4 years.

I guess he's referring to Steve Smith. Or Leon Smith maybe.

Well I'm not a megaexpert concerning the different european leagues (I mainly watch the german league and the ULEB competitions) but I'd rank them as followed: 1. Spain, lots of good teams, they have money and the spanish players are quite good too. 2. Italy, the italian players are ok, but there are a lot of good foreign players. 3. Greece, traditionally strong, fans are crazy. 4. Turkey, not as many good teams, but Ülker & Efes are always strong teams. That are the leagues with some really wealthy teams. Then I would continue with Israel, Lithuania, Serbia & Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia but these leagues are mainly poor (moneywise not qualitywise) and therefore each only has 1-3 teams per year that play a good role in the european competitions. E.g. one year Zagreb might be a really strong team but then they might not be able to afford their players anymore and so they're weak the next year, after that they produce some good youth players and are strong again and so on and so on. After that come the likes of France & Germany, the quality of the national players is not very good (although french players are better than german) and the teams hardly play a role in the european competitions. In the german league for example most teams have like 3-5 german players (most of them sitting on the bench most of the time) and the rest are foreigners. You could certainly argue that the FRA and the GER league are stronger than the SCG, CRO & SLO leagues because they have better foreign players but SCG, CRO & SLO produce way better national players and that's why I ranked them higher. A country I can't really rank is Russia. They're building something now with these new russian money giants like Roman Abramowitsch. These new owners can and will spend alot of money. Abramowitsch already spent hundreds of million euros with his soccer team Chealsea London and he'll do the same with CSKA Moscow's soccer, icehockey & basketball teams.

mrHonline is absolutely right when he says that european teams don't give much playing time to their young players. It's mainly because european teams can't afford to lose. It's not like the NBA where the bad teams are rewarded with a chance to get the best young player. If you finish at the bottom you're relegated to the 2nd league and that means death for many teams because the income is much much much lower in the 2nd leagues. And if you finish only in a midtable position your team doesn't qualify for EURO league or ULEB cup and so you'll lose alot of money too. That's why euro teams have to win, to get money and keep the club alive. So when you have to win do you play the veterans or do you take a chance on some 18 year old who when he plays good will most likely leave for the NBA in a year or two? Of course you let the veterans play. Most teams have youth and B teams and that's where the youngsters get their playing time. My hometown team ALBA Berlin won six german championships in the last seven years and I don't think that they ever let a player under 20 get playing time during these years. Maybe Ademola Okulaja but that's waaaaay back. I'd say most players start to get playing time when they're 21-23. Until then they play for the B team or youth teams where they can learn and are allowed to make mistakes. That's why you really can't judge Andriuskevicius by his stats. The lithuanian league is quite a strong league and EURO league is even stronger so he won't get much playing time. Plus his opponents are not 17-21 year old little boys but grown men who played professional basketball for years and just because they don't play in the NBA doesn't mean they suck, there are alot of european players who could play in the NBA but chose not to because they are stars in europe and will make more money playing there (e.g. Bodiroga or Jasikevicius). I don't know if he is any good but he did have nice stats when he didn't play against the pro teams. Last year he averaged 17 pts (54% FG) 10 reb for Zalgiris B team. And he did quite good during european U18 championships last year: EC U18 Challenge Round -04: 14.3ppg, 9.3rpg, 1.5apg, 3.0bpg European Championships for Juniors in Zaragoza -04: Best Rebounder: 13.4rpg, Blocks Leader: 3.9bpg That's why the scouts think he has some potential. Parker & Diaw were getting playing time for a couple of reasons: 1. The french league is not as strong as say the italian, spanish, greek or lithuanian league. 2. Guards don't have to be strong, they don't need to develop a strong physical presence to be successfull in what they're doing. So they can get playing time a good 1-3 years earlier. 3. European teams nowadays are stronger than they were a few years ago so it gets harder and harder for young players to get some playing time in the first team. I don't know if I want the Hawks to draft Andriuskevicius or not, he could be the next Sabonis or the next Slavko Vranes (ok not the next Vranes cause he absolutely sucks ). He surely has potential but he might never fulfill it, but you have that risk with every player.