Wednesday, August 09, 2006

BASKETBALL: Argentina to play in Singapore

BASKETBALL TEAM WILL PLAY THE MERLION CUP IN SINGAPORE

The next and final step in Argentina's warm up period before the World Championships in Japan will take place in Singapore. After a series of friendlies in Argentina and a friendly tournament in Spain (beating Lithuania and losing to Spain in the final), Manu GINOBILI and his team-mates will visit Singapore and will face Serbia & Montenegro this Friday in the start of the Merlion Cup. The game is scheduled for 6:15 PM local time (7:15 AM Buenos Aires).

Slovenia and Spain are the other two teams taking part of this four-team tournament.


In other news, in a poll conducted by FIBA in their official website (www.fiba.com), 54% of the 13.000 voters said that France have no chance of beating Argentina in both teams' debut in the World Championships. 41% said France will win it narrowly while the remaining 5% said they will win it easily.


HERRMANN BECOMES THE FIFTH ARGENTINE IN THE NBA

With Michael JORDAN's approval, the Charlotte Bobcats will announce sometime during the World Championships in Japan, the signing of small forward Walter HERRMANN for one season. He will have to fight for a place with rookie sensation Adam MORRISON and with Bernard ROBINSON and he will be lucky if he plays some quality time this season.

He joins Manu GINOBILI and Fabricio OBERTO (San Antonio Spurs); Andres NOCIONI (Chicago Bulls) and Carlos DELFINO (Detroit Pistons). But I feel particularly happy for Walter after all his personal tragedies in the past (his mother, his sister and his girlfriend die in a car accident on their way to watching him play in a match. That terrible tragedy happened just one year after his dad's death). Despite these horrible things, he kept fighting in every game. He shone in Spain's ACB and now he has his reward in joining the best league in the World. He is a true warrior (like his nickname in Spanish suggests: EL GUERRERO). So I'm sure he will keep it up!

VAMOS WALTER! Congratulations!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seba,

This is great news regarding Walter Hermann transfer. Yes I've read about the tragedy that happened to him from an interview on the FIBA website.

I have this great feeling that, with Luis Scola most likely heading to the NBA soon, one day Argentina could be the first nation (beside team USA) to have an entire squad of NBA based players.

You have spoken to us so much about Messi and Kun. I would like to know is their any young basketball star from Argentina.

John
Malaysia

Seba said...

Well, there is Carlos DELFINO. He is very young and he is already playing in the NBA.

Juan GUTIERREZ was left out of the World Cup squad but he has time on his side. He is a great prospect for the future of our interior game. Big, strong and good scorer in the paint.

I'll look around and ask some friends about other young players that could shine in the future for Argentina.

Anonymous said...

Seba, Delfino is a very good player. Saw him play last night when Argentina lost to Serbia. Argentina was clearly the crowd favourite but unfortuately after a good start, did not do very well for the rest of the game. Let see how Argentina perform tonight against Slovenia.