GameThread: Regal FC Barcelona vs. Maroussi BC
by wyn on Jan 30, 2010 11:30 AM CST
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PrintThe Euroleague playoffs have begun and Ricky Rubio's squad enters undefeated.
NBA TV is broadcasting Regal FC Barcelona's first match in the Top 16 at Noon Central today.
If you're watching, already watched, or want to talk about something associated with the Wolves that hasn't actually lost this season, this is your place.
If you don't understand how European basketball is organized (as I didn't until this morning) look below the fold.
European Basketball Primer
- The Union of European Leagues of Basketball (ULEB) organizes the Euroleague (highest level of European basketball) and Eurocup competitions (second highest). As such, the ULEB Rankings are the competitive hierarchy of European domestic leagues.
- Euroleague (competition format) consists of 5 rounds.
- The Qualifying Rounds that result in two of eight teams moving on to the Regular Season, with the remaining teams going to Eurocup.
- The Regular Season includes 24 teams divided into 4 groups of 6 playing a double round robin.
- The top 4 teams in each group advance to the Top 16 (the 09/10 Top 16 is starting January 27, 2010) where 4 groups of 4 teams play a double round robin.
- The top 2 teams in each group advance to the Quarterfinal Round where each #1 team from the Top 16 is pitted against a #2 team from a different group in a best of 5 series.
- The Final Four consists of the winners of each Quarterfinal series in single-elimination. All told, between the Regular Season and Final Four teams play between 10 and 23 games.
- Teams compete in their domestic leagues where their performance influences invitation to Euroleague and Eurocup. There are often multiple domestic leagues in a country, but they exist for competitive stratification, rather than overlapping. See the ULEB rankings link above for comparison of domestic leagues.
- Lastly, teams often compete in their national cup. For example, Spain has the King's Cup, Italy has the Italian Cup, and Greece has (surprise!) the Greek Cup. In Italy, however, they also have the Italian Championship and the Italian SuperCup (between the top Cup and Champsionship teams).
- This is all to say that for us NBA fans, there's no direct analog for how a European team's season works. NBA teams have the 82-game Regular Season and Playoffs consisting of four rounds. But Panathinaikos, for example, played 35 A1 Ethniki games, 3 Greek Cup games and 22 Euroleague games in their 2008/09 season. By winning all 3 of their competitions (Euroleague, domestic league, national cup), Panathinaikos won their 2nd Triple Crown.
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Fun fact
When Ricky screams a swear word, hi. Choice is the F in English.
www.canishoopus.com
by wyn on Jan 30, 2010 12:20 PM CST via mobile reply actions
If only my damn iPhone hadn't butchered the sentence!
www.canishoopus.com
by wyn on Jan 30, 2010 12:36 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
Watching rubio so far
it really looks like he made the right decision to stay in Euroleague..He would be eaten alive by most NBA Point Guards
In unrelated news...
Duke can’t handle Greg Monroe — a lot more telling than his struggles vs the Syracuse 2-3 zone. His passing is better than most NBA bigs, right now.
He can definitely shoot
He’s got the mentality of a soccer midfielder, always looking to make the offense function, steal possession back for his team when the opposition has the ball, but doesn’t always occur to him to score himself. That’s probably not going to change much. Hopefully he continues to improve his jump shot so it goes in when he does shoot. And his finishing around the rim, as well. If he gets that together, and I feel like he’s getting better with it from the little I’ve seen, he’s going to be great in the NBA.
you guys realize...
You guys realize these games are taped right, and a few days old.
Usually they are played on wednesdays or thursdays and shown on SAT on nbatv.
These games on nbatv are never live.
Ricky has had a poor last 2 games.
rubio
boxscore…
http://www.euroleague.net/main/results/showgame?gamenumber=11&gamecode=121&phasetypecode=TS
what a sucky game by him
by hotshotschamp on Jan 30, 2010 2:32 PM CST up reply actions
It was one of his poorer games, certainly
I think Barca is in a little trough; they lost their 2nd ACB game the other day (on an admittedly absurd sequence at the end of the game). And they should have blown out this team easier than they did.
He’s played much, much better in earlier games.
by Eric in Madison on Jan 30, 2010 3:09 PM CST reply actions
his stats
His stats are much better in spanish league, in Euro league, his shooting % drops off pretty dramatically.
Really? Looks reasonably similar to me
over a relatively small sample.
by Eric in Madison on Jan 30, 2010 4:11 PM CST up reply actions
I dunno
http://www.eurobasket.com/player.asp?Cntry=esp&PlayerID=84319
Shooting %’s and steal numbers seem different.
My take on Rubio
I’ve watched a few of the FCB games this season and here are my impressions of Rubio:
1) Initial positives: He has an almost unique basketball sense and anticipation on both sides of the ball especially for a kid his age. His head is always on a swivel and he has great court awareness. He is a facilitator and a great passer even in traffic. I have noticed he drives with an intent to bring defenders to him and has a great knack for making passes in close quarters. He has been shooting the three pretty well but has a somewhat slow release. On the defensive end he seems to always overplay the passing lane and use his anticipation and court sense to get steals. He rebounds well and has that instinct for where the ball is and where it is going so he seems to pick up lose balls this way.
2) Initial negatives: He is not a scorer. Rubio does not seem to look to score. He will have to change this to be able to step foot on an NBA floor. While he has worked on his three-point shooting he is very far from being a half-court scoring threat. As of now, it is a no-brainer that other teams will dare him to score. On the defensive end, he would most likely get blown by or posted up by any good NBA guard. I have yet to see him display any good one-on-one defense. He seems to always play for the steal but rarely plays “team” defense by giving help. He has trouble defending the screen game always seeming to fight through and trail.
3) Physicality – Room to grow: Ricky is young and has a young body. He undoubtedly needs to grow up and put on some muscle. He has good length, long arms and big hands. He lacks foot speed and is not a strong player. He would get muscled around in the NBA game as well as blown by. All this being said, Rubio seems to look for contact and to draw players to him so as to distribute to scorers.
4) A Star In The Making?: The big question is will Rubio’s uncanny passing and court sense make up for his lack of athleticism and pure scoring ability to make him a unique talent in the NBA? No one will know for sure until he steps foot on an NBA court and that will most likely not take place until the 2011 season. If Rubio’s game develops in terms of scoring and if he is able to pick up the concepts of playing team defense, Ricky Rubio can become a very good player in the NBA, I believe. But the sheer physicality and difficult matchups at the NBA level could also relegate him to mediocrity.
From a European that is NOT Spanish
You need to discount all ACB Spanish games. The level is nowhere near the Euroleague. Only people from Spain claim it is any good or care about it. The Euroleague is FAR, FAR better. No way should any NBA fan ever base Rubio on any ACB games. Only the Euroleague is somewhat comparable to the NBA.
No one outside Spain cares about the ACB. And just so you understand , Draftexpress is written by people that live in Spain. And most of the nonsense about that league comes from that site. Also those ULEB league rankings you site – you NBA fans need to understand that those rankings come from the ACB. The owners of the ACB also own the Euroleague, which is based in Barcelona, Spain. Let me repeat that for NBA fans, the owners of the ACB also own the Euroleague and ULEB. So disregard those rankings. The Greek League and the VTB league are much better leagues than the ACB is. Much better.
Beyond that some other important points. The Euroleague playoffs have NOT started yet. That is not until the next round. Barcelona has not yet reached the playoffs. Also it was stated that Maroussi is a poor team that should be easily beaten by Barcelona. Not true. Maroussi is one of the top 5-6 best teams in Europe and Barcelona will be very, very lucky to beat them on the road.
NBA fans tend to get all their info about European basketball from fan forums, from ESPN hype, from Draftexpress. None of it is accurate in the least and NBA fans should not be basing opinions about Rubio on it, but they obviously are. I work as a pro scout in Italy and Greece and I will be more than happy to give proper info on Rubio here if NBA fans want it.
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