Interbasket

NBA Season Commences (International NBA Players Recap) - The NBA started it’s 2007-08 season last night with three games on the schedule.

The San Antonio Spurs received their 06-07 championship rings and defeated the Greg Oden-less Portland Trailblazers 106-97. The Spurs international players were huge in the win; Frenchman Tony Parker scored 19 points, Manu Ginobili (Argentina) had 16 points, 8 assists and 5 steals, and Francisco Elson (Netherlands) scored 9 points with 5 rebounds.

Argentine superstar Luis Scola made his debut with the reloaded Houston Rockets in their 95-93 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. The former Tau Ceramica superstar played only 8 minutes and accumulated 3 personal fouls, 3 rebounds and 1 turnover. “The court is different, the rules are different, the players, everything is different,” Scola said. “But at the end of the day, it’s just basketball.” I’m confident that Scola will find his way - after all he was the ACB MVP and Fiba America’s MVP in 2007. Source: Luis Scola Set for NBA Debut (FIBA)

Yao Ming scored two critical baskets towards the end of the game and finished with 25 points, 12 rebound, 3 assists and 3 blocks helping the Rockets to overcome 45 points from Kobe Bryant.

Andrei Kirilenko was back with the Utah Jazz and showed little effect from his publicized trade demands over the offseason. The Russian 2007 Eurobasket MVP put up a typical statline — 9 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists and 5 blocks in a 117-96 win over the Golden State Warriors.

This game also featured the debut of Marco Belinelli. The rookie from Italy had an eye-opening summer league for Golden State averaging 22.8 points (including a 37 point summer league debut), but Marco only saw 12 minutes in his NBA debut and scored 6 points. French hold-out Mickael Pietrus score 17 points and grab 5 rebounds for the Golden State Warriors.

With so many pre-season games occurring between the NBA and Euroleague teams this month, we opened a thread in our forum creating a list of every NBA-FIBA games that have been played since 1978 when Maccabi Tel-Aviv defeated the Washington Bullets (!). Check it out here. You’ll find the remaining Euroleague-NBA pre-season matches below:

Oct 13 - Panathinaikos vs. San Antonio, 8:30pm (ET)
Oct 15 - Zalgiris Kaunas vs. Golden State, 10:30pm (ET)
Oct 17 - Zalgiris Kaunas vs. Toronto, 7:00pm (ET)
Oct 19 - Zalgiris Kaunas vs. Washington, 7:00pm (ET)

The NBA has played seven European clubs in the last week; winning five of the games and losing two of them - Unicaja Malaga defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 102-99, and Real Madrid downing Toronto 104-103.

Related: List all NBA-FIBA basketball games, Unicaja defeats Toronto Raptors, Euroleague/NBA Games in 07/08

The Golden State Warriors and Sarunas Jasikevicius have officially parted ways after the Warriors waived Saras earlier today. This ends the Lithuanian guard’s short-tenure with Golden State after recently making his trade demands public.

Although Saras has insinuated that he would like to go to another NBA team, a team that fits his skill-set better, rumours are rampant that Jasikevicius will return to the league that made him a star outside the NBA, the Euroleague. One recurring rumour has the Golden Boy signing a contract with Panathinaikos BC of the Athens, Greece no later than Tuesday.

Be sure to check out the 10+ page 400+ posts thread all about the latest moves considering the former Euroleague superstar.

Related Thread: Šarunas Jasikevičius Signins and Rumours, Sources: Sarunas Jasikevicius Hopes to be Traded, Yahoo!

Sarunas Jasikevicius doesn’t see a future with the Golden State Warriors. And with NBA training camp starting up in less than a month, Jasikevicius is clearly frustrated that a move hasn’t been made.

“I’m really waiting for (Golden State) to trade me. It’s been going on since February, and nothing’s happening. I really don’t understand this franchise, to be honest with you. I know what kind of offers they got for me, and they’re not taking them. I know they’re not planning on using me, so I really don’t understand what they’re trying to do with me. In that league, absolutely nothing depends on me, so I’m sitting by the phone and waiting.”

The Warriors have fielded interest from other teams, but a deal has yet to be struck for the 31-year old point guard and Euroleague champion, “I’ve had my hopes up 10-12 times of getting out of there, and nothing happened.” Jasikevicius said.

The Lithuanian Golden Boy averaged nearly 21 minutes/game during the 05-06 season with Indiana. This last season, Jasikevicius’s minutes decreased to 18 minutes a game before being traded to Golden St. His playing time continued to shrink after the trade, to just barely 12 minutes per game. And when the Warriors found success in their run-and-gun offense last season, Jasikevicius found himself on the bench more and more often because his skills no longer fit in with the Warriors long term plans.

So Saras hopes to be traded, and his preference would be to a team that utilizes his ability to control the tempo in a half-court offense. “(A team) that plays more European. You know my style of basketball is more team-oriented, and I hope to find a team that actually passes the ball and plays team ball.”

Sources: ESPN, [Related Thread: Šarunas Jasikevičius Signins and Rumours]