Today, I want to present a truly innovating service to follow Youth Basketball in Europe. A German development team has created BallSide, a basketball team and statistics community and management website dedicated in particular to Youth Basketball. The goal of BallSide is the publication of statistics normally not available to the mass media as they don’t follow smaller leagues or youth championships.

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Today, ratiopharm Ulm, the team of Robin Benzing played on the road in Frankfurt in front of the cameras of DSF so that I had the chance to see the progress of the German prospect since my last report.

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What counted for the 1992 generation is also valid for the 1993 born players. Because of the limited number of times I could scout these players, the Ranking will only feature 15 teams. This generation will play the U17 World Championship this summer in Hambourg (Germany).

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The 1992 generation has a lot of very talented players, especially on the inside positions. Lithuania is clearly the strongest country here though, so it is not a big surprise to see the Baltics organize the U18 European Championship this summer. Beforehand, several nations will already compete in the highly regarded Albert Schweitzer Tournament in April. Because of the limited number of players and nations I could scout of this age group so far, I limit the ranking to a Top 15.

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The 1991 generation features a very dominant Serbian team that had no competition for the first spot. The nations behind are all having strong 1992 born players that helped them to reach their respective Medals in the different European Championships.

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The 1990 born players, who will compete this summer in Croatia for the U20 European Championship, are dominated of course by one stellar talent: Ricky Rubio. If you take him out, you have a very interesting group of players and nations that are on the same level, and the competition in Zadar will probably be highly interesting.

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The German All-Star Day 2010 was on the schedule this Saturday in Bonn. With the move from Mannheim to the Telekom Dome, the BEKO BBL has made an excellent decision as the arena was sold out and a great atmosphere throughout the event confirmed the popularity of the sport in Bonn. Even Euroleague CEO Jordi Bertomeu flew in for the day to check the situation of the Bundesliga (and eventually check the Telekom Dome as a potential EuroCup Final 4 arena, who knows?).

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After the 1988 born generation, we take a look today at the 1989 born players. In general, it is one of the poorer generations in Europe over the last years, so  the number of outstanding players is limited. However, several players have already reached a very good level in Senior basketball which gave their respective nations a good boost in the Ranking.

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A new article series on Europeanprospects.com starts today with the Generation Rankings. These rankings have been established including the results of the specific generation in the different youth tournaments and championships as well as the current level of its players. Additionally, I took into account how the generation performed in relation with the general level of the country in Youth Basketball. These rankings will of course be updated in the future, especially those of the younger generations. Today, we start with the 1988 born generation of players, which are those normally atomically eligible for the 2010 NBA Draft, unless they have been drafted already.

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The German Bundesliga is still a US-dominated League but more and more young players are earning their minutes and showing good progress. Today, I discuss two young Shooting Guards that come from very different backgrounds. Both are having their first real impact season on the highest professional level and both are set for improving in the next years.

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The regular season of the Euroleague is over and it was about time to speak about Ricky Rubio, even if I nearly never discuss drafted players on my blog. But what the young Spaniard showed this week against Montepaschi Siena was simply amazing.

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After the review of the main prospects of the first NIJT Qualification tournament, I decided to put online also a report on the next generation players. I took into account prospects born in 1994 which means players eligible for the U16 European Championships this summer. Most of these players have not seen major minutes, so the scoutings are not too extended.

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The organization comitee of the International Rho Basketball tournament has announced the participants for the 2010 edition. The tournament will be played from the 20th to the 25th of April in Rho/Italy. The age category will be Under-17 (born in 1993) players.

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The second part of the report on Città di Roma features players from the teams placed 3 to 8.

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The first tournament of the 2009/2010 edition of the NIJT Qualification phase has been played once again in Rome. This year, Zalgiris Kaunas totally dominated this first stage of the competition as they won every game by at least 15 points. Here we go for the first part of the detailed analysis of the main players of the tournament.

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After a long night at the restaurant (thank you Germano) and a sightseeing and foodtasting trip through Rome yesterday, I arrived save back home only late so that the report on the Final day of the tournament is only online now.

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I arrived this morning in Rome to cover the first NIJT Qualification Tournament of the season. The tournament organized by Stella Azzurra Roma features 8 teams that compete for one spot at NIJT to be played in May in Paris. After Day 1 updated through Twitter, here is my short report on what happened on Day 2 of the tournament.

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With the year 2009 coming to an end, it is time to look back at what happened during the last months. The EuroCup season is quite shorter than the Euroleague but the teams playing here are stuffed with interesting talent. So it is time to take a quick look at those players that are emerging in the 2nd best European competition.

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After having talked about the current rise of Tibor Pleiss, today’s article will focus on Tim Ohlbrecht, the 1988 born German player who is already on the radar of many scouts for several years. In the year of his automatic NBA Draft eligibility, Ohlbrecht is playing the best season of his career.

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Tim Ohlbrecht and Tibor Pleiss played with the German National Team this summer during the Eurobasket 2009 in Poland. Both changed their Club teams this summer too so that it was time to take a closer look at them how they have adapted to their new environment in a year that can already decisive in terms of NBA Draft for one of them.

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