Summertime blues and news

Paris (The Monday International Show) - Hi there, I'm in the beautiful Luberon region of France on vacation which hasn't stopped me from breaking my world record for backwards free-throws in one minute at a basketball camp I sponsored in Digne-les Bains.

The new record is seven if you want to try and break it in your backyard and you can see it on youtube.

I did commentate a few games of Eurobasket Women in Poland and regretted that France played so timidly against a smart Turkish team in the semi-finals.

Russia, as usual, started off slowly but got stronger as the games became more important and simply dominated the elimination phase.

I always tell people that you can't compare the women's game to the men's game.

You can appreciate the teamwork, the abnegation, the technique (see the beautiful shooting mechanics of Katerina Elhotova for example), the tactical and collective excellence of the women's game if you love basketball.

Don't expect high scores, high shooting percentages or dunks though, it's more of a defensive purists' type spectacle but in the end you DO have to score baskets to win!

Moving on to the lockout which gives me the blues and some good remarks by Tony Parker and Ray Allen.

Parker says the lockout is a complex problem between rich people that the ordinary fan can't relate to and Allen feels that the money the players make is almost embarrassing!

Allen encourages his elderly team-mates to stay in shape like him to avoid what happened in 1999 when some stars came back in January out of shape and that led to early retirement!

He says don't forget what past NBA generations did to set the table for today's multi-millionaires because the goose didn't always lay so many golden eggs for NBA players.

If the lockout drags on, it's seems more and more likely that top European clubs will benefit from the services of elite NBA stars like Deron Williams for several months or more which could shed a new light on European basketball next season for many fans.

Another major issue is whether national teams will be able to insure the NBA players with the biggest contracts so they can participate in this summer's Eurobasket.

Mutualising the risk through FIBA Europe will lower the bill but insuring, for example, the 50-60 million dollar contracts of Parker and Joakim Noah will cost the French federation several hundred thousand dollars which is a bitter pill to swallow.

Who knows, some players may even pay some of their own money to play as Boris Diaw and others did a while back!

I'll finish this article by reminding you how many times I predicted Ettore Messina would end up in the NBA over the last few years and this has finally come to pass.

He points out that many of the winning teams and coaches in the NBA in the last few years have shown increased interest in the methods of European coaches.

However, his new job with the storied Lakers franchise will be to create a different technical format after years of Phil Jackson, Tex Winter and the Triangle offence.

I think Mike Brown made a great, revolutionary choice by opting to give Messina an assistant-consultant role but don't forget that Jackson's philosophy was all about spacing, team work and sharing the ball which should be a good foundation to build upon in the future!

George Eddy