Well... the good news is he started and his team won... I think that's the only game they've played, because the Greek league was "locked out" for a while, too.
Big day in the Euroleague tomorrow (Thursday): Freeland's Unicaja play German team Brose Baskets who have, er, Casey Jacobson (notable for having a girlfriend much ogled when the Suns drafted him) and OKC Thunder draftee Tibor Pleiss (Unicaja should win), and Batum's Nancy play Turkish team Fenerbahce Ulker, who have, as yuyuza1 noted above, Thabo Sefelosha, but also Turkish national PG Omer Onan (teehee) and Raptor draftee Roko Ukic, along with Nets draftee Bojan Bodganovic. Fenerbahce has underachieved, but should win. Also" Sergio and Rudy's Real Madrid against a stacked Maccabi Electra (top Israeli team) with Big Sofo, Jordan Farmar and aging Euroleague legend Theo Papaloukas. Real should win, but it should be fun to see Big Sofo run over Serge Ibaka. Here's a (subjective) ranking of the Euroleague teams, done before today's games, where CSKA dominated, and Caja Laboral won a squeaker over Olympiakos, among others.
Batum's team lost (they were getting blown out by 20+ in Turkey, but made something of a comeback) but he got 22/6/6 with 9 turnovers, 4 steals and 11 fouls drawn. Freeland's team JUST won over a weak German team, albeit in Germany, and Freeland got 18/7 BUT: Jordan Farmar made a mockery of the Euroleague by getting a 35 ranking in Maccabi's big win over Real Madrid. So much for Ibaka transforming Madrid into an unstoppable powerhouse...
Thanks for the updates! Btw, Jason Filipi is attending Freeland's games. Though, he can't talk to him via the lockout. [hoopshype]
Check out the highlights on the Euroleague homepage. The best game was probably the Maccabi-Real game. If you combined those two teams, you'd have a pretty solid NBA team. And with David Blatt (the Maccabi coach) you'd have a very good NBA coach. That whole game will probably appear here pretty soon.
All Nic highlights: Post moves against a legit NBA defender in Thabo! [video=youtube;Wk4UVAkzsvY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk4UVAkzsvY[/video]
Nic's stats through 3 Euroleague games : 20.3pts (2nd in league), 7.3asts (2nd in league), 6.7rebs, 2stls in 39mins. However, he is averaging 6+ turnovers per game. His FG% is not so hot either. Don't see Nate letting him make that many mistakes even if Nic is producing a net positive.
Lots of very nice passes. If Raymond Felton becomes a blimp, or is a free agent before we have basketball again, maybe Nic can be our PG!
He's Not a PG but his Assist-Numbers compared to European basketball are amazing, Of course some of this is also playing 39MPG (In a 40MPG league). Too many turnovers, though.
Blazer connections in the top 4 Euroleague players ranked by efficiency per minute for 2010-11. http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/eurobasketball/euroleague/players/stats/11/rkg-1-0-3
Euroleague week 3 highlights: [video=youtube;1MgUCbAaJuU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MgUCbAaJuU&feature=player_embedded[/video]
Freeland probably won't get much burn in this one. Unicaja is playing scrubs and running away with it.
