Go vote!

[by Julien Debove] - On Sunday people here in France will decide who will run the country for the next 5 years. Before I had to choose between left and right, I decided to go for the center.

The first election of last week was indeed the vote of the Euroleague MVP. But that was an easy call really. I had as much hesitation as, say, Igor Rakocevic being open just outside the arch. I went for the center of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Nikola Vujcic. Just like 60 % of the people.

Vujcic was terrific this year. While everyone thought Maccabi would struggle this year after all their Americans left, including former MVP Anthony Parker. And after Tal Burstein faced long-term injury. But the Croatian big man just took over and responded with a statistical orgy. When was the last time you saw a guy make a triple-double in 26 minutes ?

He scored from any range and pass the ball like he was the illegitimate child of Vlade Divac and Arvydas Sabonis. He hit hundreds of big shots. He even managed to defeat CSKA Moscow once in the play-offs. He is Brad Miller without a headband. With more quickness and more defense too. I'm just very happy I'm not the only one having a great time watching him play.

PS : I had a look on the early results of this MVP poll. And found out Siskauskas got 13 % freaking percent of the votes. For those who don't know him, the Lithuanian forward is a great player, often nicknamed the « Baltic Scottie Pippen ». But he was hurt several times during the season and while he played great in the play-offs, he still averaged a little10 ppg this season. Which leads me to think a lot of Lithuanian fans browse around the Internet. Lithuanian fans are for the Euroleague what Chinese fans are for the NBA and the NBA All-Star Game. Don't be surprised to see 5 Lithuanians start the Euroleague All-Star Game would they organize such a thing next year...