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China’s already slim chances in men’s basketball just took a serious blow when star forward Yi Jianlian went down with a knee injury.
Yi appeared to twist his right knee late in a loss to Australia on Thursday.
Yi had to be helped off the floor by teammates and he was still limping badly when the game was over.
— Reported by Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press
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Brose Baskets Bamberg added size and experience to its roster by inking versatile forward Bostjan Nachbar to a one-year deal, the club announced Tuesday. Nachbar (2.06 meters, 31 years old) arrives from Unics, where he averaged 4 points and 2.4 rebounds in 7 Turkish Airlines Euroleague games last season. He helped Unics to reach the Euroleague Quarterfinals and the VTB League title game. Nachbar had previously played for Efes Pilsen, where he averaged 8.3 points and 2.8 rebounds in 15 Turkish Airlines Euroleague games in 2010-11. Before that, Nachbar had a terrific 2008-09 Eurocup season with Dynamo Moscow. He averaged 16.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 13 games, finishing fourth in the competition in scoring and third in free-throw shooting at on 91.2%.
— Reported by Euroleague.net
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Unicaja Malaga kept building its roster for the new Turkish Airlines Euroleague season by announcing Monday the addition of point guard, Marcus Williams, who signed a two-year contract with the Spanish club. Williams (1.91 meters, 26 years old) arrives to Unicaja from a season spent in China with the Jiangsu Dragons, with whom he averaged 11.1 points, 3.8 assists and 3.2 rebounds. Unicaja will become the second European club for Williams, who played the 2010-11 season with Enisey Krasnoyarsk of the Russian League. In Krasnoyarsk, he averaged 15.3 points, 6.8 assists and 3.6 rebounds over 28 games.
— Reported by Euroleague.net
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Kevin Durant, the scoring champ in question, has not played in an Olympics before. Like any newcomer, he wants to be liked. So time and again during the U.S. team’s brief time together this year, Durant has passed up the sort of open shots that he drills with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“I told KD (Durant) to just be himself,” LeBron James said Sunday after Durant led the U.S. with 22 points and added nine rebounds in a game that was only close for one quarter. “On a team like this you can kind of shy away because there are so many great players here. But KD’s on this team for a reason. He’s one of the best players the world has and he’s a three-time scoring champ. So we don’t want the KD that defers. We want the KD that he is in Oklahoma City.”
James seemed determined to make that KD show up on Sunday. He threw the ball to Durant every time he could, passing up one open shot after another to get the ball to Durant. It was a bit ironic, considering that Durant and James went head-to-head in the NBA Finals this season when the Miami Heat defeated the Thunder.
— Reported by Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer
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Moments after Team USA’s men’s basketball team fried the French yesterday, 98-71, in its Olympic opener yesterday before 12,000 at Olympic Park’s basketball arena, Nicolas Batum wasn’t convinced.
The Frenchman and rising NBA star said the American juggernaut can be beaten — not by only one Olympic club, but several.
“You have to play a 40-minute game [to do it],’’ said Batum, who plays for the Trail Blazers. “Rebound, take care of the ball and play good defense. Some team can do it. I think some team can beat them, really. Spain, Argentina, Brazil. A lot of teams can beat them.’’
Oh those French. USA looked invincible after the first quarter as it forced France into 18 turnovers and outrebounded it, 56-40, to get off to an Olympic start as sweet as fresh French pastry.
But a 27-point win against a good French club wasn’t good enough for Batum, who may want to watch when the Americans face Tunisia tomorrow in what will be the Olympics’ biggest mismatch.
— Reported by Marc Berman of the New York Post
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Slashing to the rim, blocking shots and getting out in transition in Russia’s first game of the Olympics, Andrei Kirilenko looked every bit the all-around force he was as a young man with the Utah Jazz.
“I feel great,” Kirilenko said after scoring 35 points on 14-for-17 shooting against Britain on Sunday. “Look at me. I’m running like a young deer.”
The only people happier with his performance than the Russians had to be the Minnesota Timberwolves. After skipping last season to play in his native Moscow, Kirilenko signed a two-year, $20 million contract with the Wolves on Friday.
Kirilenko will be bringing Russian teammate Alexey Shved with him to the Timberwolves next season. Shved had 16 points and 13 assists against overmatched Britain.
“If I’m the Minnesota Timberwolves, I have a big, fat smile on my face,” Russian coach David Blatt said.
— Reported by the Associated Press
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One of the competition’s most productive wing players last season switched Turkish Airlines Euroleague clubs on Monday when CSKA Moscow announced the arrival of small forward Sonny Weems, who inked a three-year deal with his new team. Weems (1.98 meters, 26 years old) arrives from Zalgiris Kaunas, where he averaged 15.5 points and 5 rebounds in 15 Euroleague games last season, his first in the competition. He was the third-best scorer in the 2011-12 Euroleague, trailing only Alphonso Ford Top Scoring Trophy winner Bo McCalebb and Final Four MVP Vassilis Spanoulis. Weems came to Kaunas from Toronto of the NBA, where he averaged 9.2 points and 2.6 rebounds in 59 games in 2010-11.
— Reported by Euroleague.net
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Luol Deng always knew this Olympic experience would be about more than final scores.
So minutes after Great Britain opened preliminary round play at a raucous Basketball Arena Sunday night with a 95-75 loss to Russia, the All-Star Bulls’ forward offered as much postgame eloquence as he had in-game sweat while playing all but 63 seconds.
“It was a special moment,” Deng said after his 26-point effort. “For us growing up, basketball didn’t get much attention. We’re playing against the world where basketball is everything in their country. We have dreams. We want to develop the game. Hopefully, we have youngsters watching and following our footsteps.”
This is Great Britain’s first Olympic basketball appearance since 1964. It’s Deng’s first Games. He is playing in with a torn ligament in his left wrist as some way to repay the country that offered his family political asylum from war-torn Sudan.
“This is why I chose to do this,” Deng said.
— Reported by K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune
Deng led Great Britain with 26 points, but was unusually inefficient, shooting 8-of-27 from the field, including 2-of-11 from beyond the arc. Deng, one of only two NBA players on the national team (Joel Freeland), was forced to shoot early and often to try and keep pace with the Russians. He also played a team-high 39 minutes in the loss.
Last year Deng’s shooting percentage dropped nearly five percentage points, from 46.0 to 41.2 percent. It’s unknown whether Deng will require wrist surgery or opt to have it after the Olympics, which would cause him to miss 3-4 months.
— Reported by CSN Chicago
Olympic organizers scrambled on Sunday to quell a backlash over depressing TV images of half-empty stands at the London Olympics as a government minister said an urgent inquiry had been launched to identify just who had failed to show up and why.
Sports fans from all over Britain who had been charmed by the Olympic publicity offensive but let down by a complex ballot system for the 8.8 million tickets, have been outraged by footage of empty seats at key venues including Wimbledon, one of the hottest tickets in world tennis.
Chairman Sebastian Coe, who threatened to name and shame sponsors that did not fill their seats, said missing spectators were mostly officials from international sports federations, other Olympic officials, their families and friends.
“It doesn’t obviously appear to be a sponsorship issue at the moment,” Coe said, after Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt said he thought the vacant seats had belonged to sponsors.
Coe, a former Olympic gold medalist on the track, said that only eight percent of allocated tickets went to big corporate sponsors such as Visa and Coca-Cola and that 75 percent of tickets were in the hands of the public.
— Reported by Karolos Grohmann and Paul Casciato of Reuters
Hardly dreamy, still dominant.
Kevin Durant scored 22 points, LeBron James added eight assists and the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team opened tournament play with a rough-and-ragged 98-71 win over France on Sunday.
Seeking a second straight gold medal to match the one they won in Beijing four years ago, the Americans expected a tough test from a French team featuring San Antonio guard Tony Parker and five other NBA players.
The U.S. was never in real trouble, and after overcoming some major foul issues and sloppy play, the superstar-laden squad finally put France away in the second half…
With first lady Michelle Obama on hand to cheer on the U.S., Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler added nine rebounds apiece and Kevin Love finished with 14 points for the Americans. The U.S. will next play Tuesday against Tunisia, beaten 60-56 by Nigeria in the tournament opener.
As they left the floor, the U.S. players stopped to hug the first lady.
— Reported by Tom Withers of the Associated Press
A full recap will appear on the InsideHoops USA Basketball page later today.