Triple fun with the Pireaus

I am sleepless, once again. So I just came up with something fun to write, just as I promised. This is something I want to explain to the basketball audience, in case this blog is ever read by somebody who knows friends who play basketball together. It is the best game in the world ever, the funniest one,and it is about three-pointers. We call it... the Pireaus.

The more people, the better. It is about shooting three-pointers. You have an order of players and you have to shoot. If you hit, you shoot again until you miss or until you reach 3. Once the first player reaches 3, you have to complete the round. Once the round is over, the player with less three-pointers made is eliminated and the remaining ones start a new round.

If there is a tie, players who are tied for the least three-pointers made have to play the tie-breaker. Shoot until one misses and the other hits, then the first one is out. You eliminate one player per round until the two survivors play the final.

It is fun as it can be. Centers who cannot hit three-pointers and lucky and stay alive in the competition longer than elite shooters. You shoot under pressure and you laugh a lot. It is the best basketball game in the world ever, the best basketball game other than basketball. And sometimes, much more fun than basketball itself.

And why the Pireaus, I hear you ask? Only because we created the game out of the blue, in a practice of a team called Papadopoulos All-Stars in the City League of my hometown Sevilla. Since we had a Greek name, the loser was sent "to the Pireaus (al Pireo)". The shouts of "AL PIREEOOOO!!!!!" when someone lost actually gave a name to this game. Al Pireo was an euphemism for Al Carajo (go and fuck off).

Some friends can't play basketball anymore. But we meet to play in just one hoop and then we play Pireaus all the time. It is something you can play at age 60. It is great.

And we all love it. Long life the Pireaus and the three-point line!

Javi

 

 

 

 

Ever had the feeling that your life...

...might just well be way different than the one you expected to live?

Just think about it: what did you want to be when you were a kid? What did you want to be 10 years ago? How was it 5 years ago, who did you want to be? Any many of the dreams you had when you had 15 actually came true? Life goes on and turns out to be just different - sometimes radically different - that it actually is.

I must say I have been lucky. Five years ago I was working for an engineering company, writing basketball articles just for fun, sometimes because I was in Asia and I didn't have anything better to do. Working 14 hours a day and visiting three Taiwanese basements was not the kind of work I wanted, being 10,000 Km away from home, no matter how much money I was making. Now I do exactly what I want, what I think I am best qualified for, and the kind of work I like the most. So I cannot complain.

The biggest regret I have in life, just sometimes, is that I try to please everyone. That shows best with my trips to Sevilla. I like to come here, but I also love to stay in Barcelona with Belen. I know my parents want me here and Belen wants me there, it is logical. And I try to keep everyone happy - family, friends, wife, co-workers, everyone. Sometime I have to lie - say I have a meeting in Barcelona, or that I made a mistake while writing my flights list - in order to keep everyone happy. I am trying not to do it anymore, but sometimes I am kind of forced to do so.

This should be an exciting summer for me. As every year, I will be on the beach for 15 days and will go to the world-famous FIB Benicassim music festival.

I love it. It is a great festival, very well-organized, and it is even better since I met my good friend Luis from Valencia. I sleep at his place after a whole night out watching gigs from 6pm to 6am, Thursday to Sunday (this year 19-22 July). We wake up at 1pm, have a shower, eat the biggest and best paella we have with a good wine, get into the car and go back to the festival. It is the best plan in the world, watching a good gig with the moon on your back with thousands of other souls and a big beer on your hand, surrounded by friends and knowing they are liking it as much as you do. The FIB bill so far is disappointing - Arctic Monkeys, Muse and Bright Eyes are the only bands I am interested about, and they confirmed like 20 already. Still, it is sometimes more about being there and discovering new bands, why not?

Still, it is a long way to go now. The basketball season is on its best part but I cannot stop myself from thinking that life is not always what you make it, and keeping everyone happy is very, very difficult sometimes, and that it is clear that my happiness depends on others. I am only happy if only all the people I care about are happy. And that happens to be the toughest task in the world - only sometimes.  

I will keep on trying to be a good man. It is the only way I managed to be happy in my entire life. Being a laid-back guy who tries to make his people happy. People around the world have their own way to find happiness - and this is what worked better for me.

So you thought this was a basketball blog... It is, sometimes. I should try to put together some Top 5 lists or just any stuff I find interesting to tell. After all, it is my blog, innit?

I ain't going out, and it is Saturday night. Hope you did, whoever you are. We all gotta enjoy after all.

Javi

 

 

Ermal Kuqo - how to bounce back from injustice

Hello everyone from Sevilla!

Well, here I am to watch - and broadcast - the big game tomorrow. CSF takes Barcelona in San Pablo with a chance to get back to playoff territory. The goal is tough to achieve, but this is basketball and we have a nice roster, featuring an improved Filip Videnov. I am optimistic about this one, I must say.

Anyway, I want to dedicate my blog to one of my favourite players - and a great guy indeed, Ermal Kuqo of Efes Pilsen.

Ermal was born and raised in Albania, where his father and uncle are basketball legends just like he will be once his career is over. he joined Fenerbahce in his teens and has also played for Fort Scott and Seminole State College in the US, Split in Croatia, Pivovarna Lasko in Slovenia before joining Efes Pilsen in summer 2003. He got to the Euroleague when I got there - 10 points and 5 rebounds in his opening game against Tau, helping Efes to get a road win in Vitoria. He has been in the league ever since, just like me, only that he was forced to sit out for 6 months due to an unbelievable doping issue. Ermal was fighting hair loss and that product forced him to miss an entire Euroleague regular season. And this is when he showed his fighting spirit.

Some people would have got depressed, or fat, or just wouldn't have cared about basketball, but Ermal is a one-of-a-kind player and human being, a player who gives all he has for basketball. Instead of just sitting out, Ermal improved his game. Worked on his turnaround jumper, on improving his defense or his post moves and extended his shooting range to the three-point line. He already showed playing for the Turkish national team in the 2006 World champs and is paying off this season in Efes Pilsen, too. He just turned 27 and is about to enter the prime of his career and I hope he opts to stay in Europe as long as he can, because he is a soon-to-be dominant player. In a defensive-minded team like Efes Pilsen, Kuqo averages 9.3 points and 3.7 rebounds playing less than 20 minutes per night. What could he do with more playing time?

Ermal is also a laid-back, cool guy who loves basketball but has other interests in life. You can check his nice website www.ermalkuqo.com to get an idea. He is fluent in at least five languages - Turkish, Albanian, English, Italian, Slovenian - and I believe he can speak some others, too. You don't often see a very privileged mind when it comes to basketball players. And if you don't believe me, just check out his blog in Euroleague.net at this address: http://www.euroleague.net/news/blog/ermal-kuqo

Now that Efes is out of the Top 16 race, it is the best moment  - so that people don't think I always praise those whose teams are doing well - to speak about Ermal, a big guy with big brains - hoping to reach big in the world basketball scene, making a whole country proud of what he is doing.

Keep up the good work, man.

 

 

A glamourous job - sometimes

Hello all,

Here I am, it's 2:40 am and I am still at least 2 hours away from finishing my Thursday job - already on Friday. The work at Euroleague Basketball is a cool one. I gave up everything I had in Madrid to come over here and work in basketball - a dream coming true to me. You get to know players, coaches, fans or legends, the people in the office are cool and I am happy to be around. But Thursday nights means that we have to update our own Euroleague Fantasy game - the Euroleague Basketball Fantasy Challenge.

It is not fair for me to say good things about the game because basicly, I put the players prices, I adapted the rules from other games and I manage it until deep at night sometimes, but it is a terrific game for all basketball fans out there. It might be too late now with just 2 games to go in the Top 16, but you all should try next season - even when that means I will go even more sleepless. We had over 65,000 teams this season and people don't complain too much about it - we even get some love mail from time to time and ideas - some quite good - to improve it. The fantasy fever will disappear in two weeks and people will be ready to do their teams next October.

I must say I love MySpace. I got to know that a lot of bands who never made it still exist in here, bands like Power of Dreams, Airhead, Thousand Yard Stare or Northside - who are even back and touring around the UK!

I am in the process of losing weight, which in my case means suffering. I wish I could be one of those guys losing weight just like that, but I am not. I will be flying to Sevilla tomorrow at 13:45 and I plan to go to the gym before going to the airport and after hitting the bed at 5am or so. If I make it, the scene will be pathetic - me falling asleep on a static bike or something. But if I don't want to look like a circus seal this summer, there's no other way.

The fantasy process just finished it's second phase - out of 12. I better say goodbye and make some coffee.

Have a nice weekend!

 

 

Hello everyone @ MySpace,

Well, here I am, fresh from a very exciting Euroleague game last night. CSKA beat Joventut in Badalona and I think it allowed 3-4 easy shots in the _entire_ game. That's the way CSKA wins game, as it is one of the best defensive teams in the world - you can ask the LA Clippers about it. CSKA was without David Vanterpool and superstar Theo Papaloukas did not have a good game, but Matjaz Smodis and J.R. Holden took care of business and their defense did the rest.

I got the chance to meet David Vanterpool before and after the game. He is a terrific guy and we know each other well since the 2004 Final Four in Tel Aviv when he played for Montepaschi Siena. If the Euroleague ever wants to promote the competition and try to attract a new group of fans, David is the man to do it. He's handsome, charismatic, outgoing and knows how to speak in public. Hope he gets well soon from his back injury and returns to court just in time to help CSKA in the most decisive phase of the season.

What else happened around the league? Luis Scola became the all-time Euroleague top scorer. A good prize for a hard-working, hard-nosed guy who deserves the Euroleague title like few others around. Tau beat Maccabi while Pau-Orthez got its first Top 16 win since 2004. Olympiacos had to battle hard to beat Partizan, too. And tonight we have a pivotal game between Benetton Treviso and Unicaja, plus three other games, including Efes - Panathinaikos. Nice!

Like I said, I will be going to see my family and check my team in Sevilla next week. I told Belén  - my wife - that she shouldn't go to Euroleague games that often, because then she will see Caja San Fernando and dislike it. Should be a nice weekend in Sevilla to go out, see some friends and luckily enough, smell some orange tree flowers. Sevilla is full of them and that smell shows Spring is almost here. With global warming around, I just hope flowers will be out there now and not in July...

Peace to everyone! And thanks to Fara for getting me introduced to MySpace. She is the one to blame for this blog, believe me.

Javi

First blog ever - and it was about time

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! I just decided to copy all MySpace blog entries in here - without any order. It is difficuly to know what to say, since this is my first-blog ever, so let's start with what's going on in my life this week. I am pretty excited because Euroleague Basketball is in its second phase now - the Top 16. We went down to 16 teams and only the best eight will survived. Tomorrow I will be working from Badalona to write the report of arguably one of the best games to be seen in Europe these days: Joventut vs. CSKA. Joventut is the most fun-to-watch team in European basketball right now, but they are without Lubos Barton, a key piece in the puzzle. CSKA is the current Euroleague champion and has been unbeaten in 14 straight games. So what can get better than that?

I got to see Kasabian last Sunday and it was one of the best gigs I have seen in the last couple of years. They opened with Shoot the Runner and Reason is Treason and most of the songs from their last album (Empire, the Stuntman, By My Side) sounded quite imporved live. "Old" classics like Club Foot or Processed Beats sounded great, too, and it was quite difficult, because they played in RazzMatazz 2. The sound in the bigger RazzMatazz 1 is quite good, but every gig I went to in RazzMatazz 2 had a terrible sound. It is supposed to be a dance place, and good live bands like The Darkness sounded terrible in there... but Kasabian did alright. They closed with LSF, the best song they have in my opinion, and the best way to finish a very good gig.

I will be in Sevilla next week checking my team, Caja San Fernando. We have a new coach, new ambitions and 11 games to go to see if we make the playoffs for the first time since 2000. We face Barcelona, so we will have to do really well to win that game. I have good friends in the Barcelona team, so having them around will be quite nice, too.

Will let you all know anytime soon. Tomorrow it will be time to meet David Vanterpool - who is injured - and CSKA Moscow. Check back often and send your comments, please!

I miss my man Hugo Bloch

Hello all,

Life in Barcelona is cool, I must admit. Living with Belén is the best thing that ever happened to me. But life would be even better if my good friend Hugo Bloch would be back in the city.

He was the frist true friend I had in Barcelona, many years before I actually moved in here. He likes basketball and has the same addiction to Toni Kukoc and Larry Bird that I have. And also the same sense of humour, even more absurd. The most important thing is that he is having the time of his life now. He used to work for a big company but oted to do something different.

Travel around the world.

He was single, didn't have any attachments and had the will to do it, so he decided to see some of the best hidden places in the world. I remember that he told me during the Final Four in Prague and I couldn't believe my ears, but he was determined to do it. Had a dream and went for ir. Ole sus cojones.

He has been to Brazil, Nepal, climbed the everest and saw some unbelievable views I can only dream to imagine.

Also went to Singapore, Indonesia, back to Brazil and then to Argentina. He could write a book with everything that happened to him lately, but he opted to have this amazing blog on http://hugobloch.blogspot.com that I strongly recommend to visit - even when it is in Spanish.

I miss him. I have met quite a lot of cool people in my life, but Hugo is the coolest guy I ever met, and well, I just hope he is back after such a long trip so that he can tell me everything about the trip. Until that moment, e-mail is what we have.

Y bien buena que está, por cierto. :)

Javi