Timberwolves in Eurobasket, Corey Brewer at the Fair, Replacements in Toronto

One week out from the start of some competitive basketball at Eurobasket 2013.  I can't wait.  The tournament will be shown on ESPN3 here in the U.S.

Spain beat France for the 2nd time in three days yesterday in a friendly; Tony Parker played in this one and almost won the game for France.  But a Marc Gasol basket at the end turned out to be the winner, as Spain escaped 85-84.

Sergio Rodriguez of Real Madrid and a spectacular beard was one of the heroes late, and appears to be the point guard Spain is going with in crunch time.

These are two of the strongest teams heading into the tournament, with Spain remaining the betting favorite and France and Greece the next two choices.  If you are interested, here is a site with betting odds for the tournament.

Lithuania might not be a bad value play, and Russia at around 30-1 seems like a decent long-shot bet.

In addition to Ricky Rubio and Alexey Shved, a couple of other players of Timberwolves interest:  Nemanja Bjelica is on the Serbian roster, and Canis Hoopus favorite Loukas Mavrokefalidis is playing for Greece.

In other "news":

• Video of Corey Brewer at the MN State Fair is on the Wolves site.
• Kevin Love is back in Minnesota and apparently looks pretty good.
• Neither Wolves rookie got any votes in any category of the rookie poll that asked NBA rookies about their peers.  Most interesting thing here is that his fellow rookies really seem to like Kelly Olynyk's game.