I’ve been so busy I missed the pre-season games in the European leagues, so I just now caught this article about Ilian Evtimov’s re-match with former NCSU teammate Marcus Melvin two months ago, when his team, Frankfurt, Germany’s Deutsche Bank Skyliners, beat up on Antalya (Turkey) 76-60. Evtimov has apparently expanded his trick shot repertoire with a running hook that caught Melvin by surprise:
“I don’t remember him using that at North Carolina State. He must of practiced that shot in the last year”, said Melvin.
Of course, to Germans, all North Carolina basketball players went to UNC, according to the writeup of that game; you’ll find in a lot of the translated articles NCSU gets confused with UNC pretty frequently. It’s a good read (in English!). From the Web site I learned that Evtimov is now playing with Anthony King, late of Miami, and that he seems to be continuing to impress there. I’m interested to see if he can continue to put up a solid 15 to 21 points a game, like he did at his peak last year; Ilian is really turning into a solid threat in Frankfurt and all indications are that he really likes playing there. Good for him. If you bookmark the DB team Web site, they’ll reward you with lots of pictures from the games; it’s probably the best European basketball Web site I’ve come across for news and fan material.
The Skyliners are doing pretty well out of the gate; the latest article posted in English has a nice overview of the team, although the translations might drive you a little batty (I’m quite sure “creating havoc like a new meteor” makes perfect sense in German and might even translate better, but I’ll bet that rendition came straight out of Google). Stick with it though. I immediately noticed Ilian’s wrapped knee in this picture, too, but let’s face it, he really did a number on that knee and he’ll probably be dealing with it the rest of his career.
It’s going to be an interesting year for the Wolfpack in FIBA teams this year, as so many of our former players will have chances to match up against one another on the court. I’m going to try to stay better informed for the rest of the year. Luckily FIBA games only happen once or twice a week, mostly on the weekends, which makes it easier to keep up with them.
