Caught a bit of the Euroleague final four game this morning between CSKA Moscow and Unicaja Malaga, a.k.a. Jorge Garbajosa's old team.

Little guy zipping around big guys

The drop in skill level from the NBA to Euroleague is very, very, very obvious.  Defending champs CSKA (pronounced "cheska") is a Euroleague powerhouse, making the Final Four for the past five season.  The announcers kept going on and on about how big, talented, and skilled they are.  I saw the big part, as they had several seven footers while Unicaja were mostly a bunch of 6'8" guys.  I didn't see the talented and skilled part, though.  Play was very scrappy, not a lot of flow, and the couple not-quite-nba-level athletes that were in the game were able to fly around everyone due to the huge disparity in athleticism.  Imagine a couple Nesterovic's at the 4 and 5, Garbajosa at the 3, Stojakovic at the 2, and TJ Ford at the point.  Now take the skill level down about 7 notches.  You have big oafish centers banging into everything in the paint, a player making savvy, veteran plays on the perimeter (ie. non-athletic but very smart), a big big shooter on the outside, and a little athletic guy zipping around all the stiffs.  Lots of bad turnovers, hot potato rebounds, zone defense, and manic dribbling/passing on every play.  It was basically NCAA play, except that nobody misses free throws.

One other thing that was stopping me from respecting it as high level, world-class professional basketball: the numbers on the jersey looked cheaply ironed on and all the logos reminded me of summer 3-on-3 tournament t-shirts.  If not for the amazing crowd, I might have thought it was a pick up game.