Sportando European Team of the Week: Week of April 1

Welcome to the first in a weekly series from Sportando in what we believe may be a fresh idea for European basketball – though seemingly commonplace among British football reportage, for example. In this inaugural column, we present the first-ever Sportando European Team of the Week. The idea will be to acknowledge individual excellence in the seven days past (Monday to Sunday, precisely speaking) on all higher professional levels of basketball.

Firstly, a quick rundown of a few criteria.

• A starting team of five plus a sixth man will be named. “Sixth man” here refers not necessarily to a bench player, but rather another player of merit this week. We’ll also list a second team of six.
• For Team of the Week consideration, the given player must either be a citizen of a FIBA-designated European nation or be playing in a European domestic league.
• While the level of play itself will be considered, in general each player’s performance will be judged on its own merits, i.e. 25 points in the Euroleague is to some extant equal to 25 points in the NBA or Slovakia. However, more crucial games (e.g. playoffs, national cup competitions, league advancement) will be weighted appropriately in judging.
• Players contributing in more than one game during the week will achieve greater consideration, although some one-game performances will merit a spot on the Team of the Week. (We’ve got one this week, in fact.)
• Finally, all rules are subject to change.

Right, let’s get on with it then. Your first-ever Sportando Team of the Week is…

First team

Ricky Rubio, PG, Minnesota Timberwolves. Rubio’s week peaked with a career-night performance Saturday against the Memphis Grizzlies of 23 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists – all game highs. But before teeing off then, La Pistola had contributed a consistent 14.7 points and 7.7 assists over three games in the four nights previous. O, and he might have hit the game-winner/game-tying free throws against the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night, if not for the possible no-call on Kobe Bryant. Unfortunately, no amount of heroism can save his Timberwolves from spiraling further down in the draft lottery order, it seems: Last week, the ever short-handed Minnesota went just 2-2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwGiNfuqzAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVjf18427DQ

Randy Culpepper, G, Ferro-ZNTU. In closing out the regular season in Ukraine, the second-year former UTEP Miner did what he’s been doing all season over there: Tore things up. The league’s tops in scoring and steals led Ferro-ZNTU to a second-place finish with two wins last week. His 20 points (on 8-of-13 shooting) and game-high five assists on Thursday was well outdone on Saturday, when he notched 24 points, six dishes and *eight* steals – all in all, a nice capper to a 19.7ppg/2.0spg season which included three 30-point games, one 40-pointer and gobs of crazy dunks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qds013O_b9M

Nigel Moore, F/G, UMFN Njardvik. Talk about your monster performances … these kinds of numbers will get you on the Sportando Team of the Week every week: On Monday, the longtime journeyman racked up a ridiculous performance index rating of 37 with 30 points and 13 rebounds to knot up the Express League quarterfinal series 1-1 with Snefell on Monday. Unfortunately for them, Njardvik was bounced from the tournament on Thursday in a heartbreaker, though not for Moore’s efforts in a near triple-double of 25 points, nine rebounds and nine assists in 39 minutes played.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Aa0E50TJU

Dirk Nowitzki, PF, Dallas Mavericks. Dirk picked a great time to start playing some of his best basketball in 2012-13 as the Mavericks make a late playoff run. The beast was awakened with a dominant 33-point nine-rebound show against the Los Angeles Clippers and a three-game 62% (36-for-58) run was the ultimate result. The culmination was the game-winning three to make it a season personal high 35 on Saturday night against the tired Chicago Bulls. With Dastardly Dirk back as sheriff, the Lakers and Utah Jazz better be watching their backs…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aSVqETWn80

Nathan Jawai, C, FC Barcelona. Jawai only played one game last week, but, wow, what a game. Getting  just his third Euroleague start of the season (thus an appropriate choice for Sportando Sixth Man of the Week) for the Pete Mickael-less and otherwise well depleted Barcelona, Jawai got off to a rough start early with a missed layup, a PF and two TOs. During the early Barca timeout with the team down 10-0, the big man went on to utterly dominate the paint on both ends for a monstrous 22 points (on 9-of-10 “shooting” – Jawai slammed home five dunks in the game) and 12 rebounds plus a pair of blocks. The message: Beware this man at all times. And beware the apparently deeper-than-we-thought Barcelona come playoff time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nz7jPM3XNA

Sixth man

Deon Thompson, F, Alba Berlin. Thompson followed his 20-point, five-rebound performance in the German Cup final game torching of Ratiopharm Ulm on March 24 with nifty 8-of-11 shooting and three steals in Alba’s stunning Euroleague victory over Zalgiris Kaunas (that team’s inner turmoil and drama aside, it *was* an upset). Unfortunately, Thompson was limited to just 10 points as Ulm got revenge on Sunday, but gets an “A” for effort for his team-high 10 boards.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2K1hCyjcPo



Second team: Luol Deng, Chicago Bulls; Mladen Pantic, Levski Sofia; Tony Parker, San Antonio Spurs; Marcellus Somerville, SLUC Nancy; Gregory Washington, Svendborg Rabbits; Martin Zeno, Nilan Bisons.

Honorable mention: Enes Kanter, Utah Jazz, for getting up and walking away from this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiHkhL4FfVg



Os Davis writes/posts/tweets for the ESPN TrueHoop Network site BallinEurope.com. He also co-produces the mostly European basketball-centered weekly podcast Taking the Charge, and watches way too much basketball through online subscription packages and dodgy live streams.

http://www.ballineurope.com
http://tinyurl.com/TakingTheCharge