By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Happy birthday Eurohoops! Today we complete two years of online life and what’s important for us is that, despite being only at the start, we have enjoyed our ride and we feel that we have just scratched the surface of what Eurohoops can be in the near future.
A company of experienced journalist based in one of the most basketball crazed countries in Europe, Greece, started this portal in order to cover in depth everything concerning Euroleague, something never done before in that degree in a continental level and in English.
Our goal is to provide accurate and unbiased reports focusing mainly on the biggest continental league in Europe and of course provide updates for every important domestic league at this side of the pond.
We love basketball and specially every European facet of it during an age in which European players, coaches and contributors are traveling all over the world with a ball in their hands as a passport. As you may have guessed Eurohoops is also a labor of love for the sport. However we like to have an opinion, even to intervene with our articles when we see fit to, to investigate everything and never trying to get credit by using the work of others.
True journalism consists of having first hand information, the ability to judge it and produce original content. Our ethics demands from us to respect everyone, to give credit to every other media which reports information that we reproduce and even in that case, our philosophy is to try and give additional information about the same subject or an other view.
As for the day to day reporting, it’s almost living and breathing. Every day things changes, shape differently or even tumble. On our 24 months of life, we have posted exclusive news and reports from every corner from Europe and of course we had our share of mistakes. That’s why we present you with our biggest triumphs and also some of our – much less important we would like to think – “failures”, reports that in the end of the day weren’t confirmed by the final turn of events.
Exclusives
Eurohoops has revealed first all around Europe the signing of Giorgi Shermadini to Olympiacos, the deal of coach Vangelis Aggelou to Anadolu Efes and also the signing of Zoran Planinic by the Turkish club. The transfer of Giannis Bourousis to Real Madrid and also the movement of Mirza Begic to Olympiacos.
We were the first to report three days before the official announcement that Vasilis Spanoulis remained a player of Olympiacos, which was the biggest transfer serial of the summer, and also the extension of Acie Law’s contract with the champs. We also reported first that Kyle Hines decided to continue his career in CSKA Moscow and also that a Chinese player, Shang Ping, for the first time will play in Euroleague.
There are also the transfer of Lucas Mavrokefalis to Barcelona, Jason Kapono’s deal with Panathinaikos and also his premature release by the club. The extension of Giorgos Printezis with Olympiacos during the summer of 2012 and also the first “trade” in Euroleague history between Unicaja and Panathinaikos for James Gist and Andy Panko.
You want more? The transfers of Adam Hanga and David Jelinek to Laboral Kutxa, the deal between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Zaragoza when he was still an unknown, the decision of Nikos Zisis to join Bilbao and also the many absences that the Serbian national team was going to have in Eurobasket 2013, a post that produced a denial by Dusan Ivkovic but in the end was confirmed by the team’s roster in Slovenia.
Our mistakes
We presented you with our biggest exclusives, but we also searched and found our reports – and they are very few – that in the end weren’t confirmed bu the facts.
Our most important blunder was the post about Andrei Kirilenko remaining in CSKA Moscow for a second year. When we posted our report, the NBA out clause in his contract had already expired, but then came the offer from Minnesota and CSKA was kind enough to let him go. Also in the same post we “buried” an other exclusive which was confirmed some days ago, the fact that Nenad Krstic didn’t used his NBA out.
We also reported as a fact the signing of Cartier Martin to Olympiacos, but, boy, were we wrong. In the summer of 2012 we reported that Kostas Vasileiadis was ready to sign with Fenerbahce/ Ulker but he stayed in Bilbao. Also in the start of last summer we reported that Zoran Planinic was one inch away from CSKA Moscow… That was also wrong, but we recovered with the exclusive of Zoran’s signing with Efes. We also had first hand information about the talks between Pooh Jeter and Fenerbahce/ Ulker, but Zeljko Obradovic chose Pierre Jackson.
One on one in Εurohoops
From the first day of our life, we wanted to give the word to the stars of the show and that’s the players, coaches and contributors to the sport. We are always interested on hearing them and in two years you have read exclusive interviews by Euroleague CEO Jordi Bertomeu, the head of German BBL Jan Pommer, CSKA’s president Andrey Vatutin, Cantu’s owner Anna Cremascoli, Zaragoza’s sports director Willy Villar, the owner of Rethimnon and former boss of London Towers Kostis Zombanakis and of course Turkish Airlines CEO Temel Kotil.
We have given the speech to legends of the sport like Blade Divac, Sasha Volkov, Nick Galis, Doron Jamchy, Nikola Vujcic, Mirsad Turkcan, J.R.Holden, Igniaki De Miguel, Rasho Nesterovic, Eythimis Rentzias and Paolo Morreti.
And also quite a few top coaches have been interviewed by Eurohoops. Those are Zeljko Obradovic, Pini Gherson, David Blatt, Svetislav Pesic, Giorgos Bartzokas, Fotis Katsikaris, Andrea Trinchieri, Luca Banchi, Jonas Kazlauskas, Joan Plaza, Dirk Bauermann, Dimitris Itoudis, Sergio Scariolo, Evgeni Pashutin, Chris Fleming, Rimas Kurtinaitis, Jure Zdovc, Erman Kunter, Michael Koch and Chris Finch.
However the real protagonists of the sports are the players and the best of them have talked to us. The list is long: Vasilis Spanoulis, Dimitris Diamantidis, Sarunas Jasikevicus, Rudy Fernandez, Linas Kleiza, Milos Teodosic, Bostjan Nachbar, Andres Nocioni, Erazem Lorbek, Ante Tomic, Giannis Bourousis, Kostas Papanikolaou, Yogev Ohayon, Alex Abrines, Felipe Reyes, Nikos Zisis, Giorgi Shermadini, Nikolo Melli, Jaka Blazic, Lukas Mavrokefalisi, Jaycee Carroll, Alessando Gentile, Sergi Vidal, Krunoslav Simon, Kostas Vasileiadis, Adam Hanga, Nikos Pappas, Ali Traore, Mickael Gelabale, David Andersen, Matjas Smodis, Luca Vitalli and also American players who have made their mark in the old continent like Mike Batiste, Kyle Hines, Jeremy Pargo, James Gist, Keith Langford, Pete Mickael, Bo McCalebb, Derrick Brown, Gani Lawal, Acie Law, Henry Domercant, Bobby Brown, Jamon Gordon, Joey Dorsey, Andy Panko, Shawn James, John Bryant, Ibrahim Jaaber, Derwin Kitchen, C.J. Wallace, John Diebler, Thomas Kelati, Paul Davis, James White, Andre Smith and Angelo Coloiraro.
We also interested about the future, that why we have already interviewed Dario Saric, Lovro Mazalin and the head of Barcelona’s youth teams, Jordi Ardevol.
NBA under European perspective
We are focused in Europe and also means Europeans in the NBA. Players who are now across the pond like Andrei Kirilenko, Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic, Jan Vesely, Jonas Valanciunas, Kostas Koyfos, Gigi Datome, Lior Eliyahu, Evan Fournier, Sasha Vujacic and Pero Antic have spoken to us. Add to that Jordan Farmar who return to the NBA. David Vanterpool and Trajan Langton, former players building a career in the states as coaches, and key personalities of the American league like George Karl, Mauricio Gherardini, Pete Philo and of course our question to Lebron James which produced his now famous opinion about Drazen Petrovic.