Thabo vs Luol

[From the Diaries. Thanks to Swiss correspondent Diabolo for this report. -Matt]

Well, I promised I would give you guys an update on what's happening this offseason for Thabo.

Turns out, both Switzerland and England won the final game of their respective groups last night (Thabo had 27 points for Switzerland against Romania, Luol had ... guess what ... 27 points for England on the same night), won their respective group final standings, and will face each other next week (first game in the UK on Tuesday, second in Switzerland on Saturday) for a spot on the highest level of country team basketball in Europe in the next two years (and the opportunity to play against the big guns France, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, etc).

Luol and Thabo are good friends on the Bulls roster, but I bet they didn't plan to see each other again this soon in September.

Will be fun to see the two go at each other, maybe Thabo will be assigned some of the defense duties on Luol. Probably not the opposite, but you never know.

I would say England are slightly the favourites, but I don't know much about their roster besides Luol. If I were from England, I probably would not know any other Swiss player besides Thabo (and I may not even know Thabo either).

Last night, Thabo had a complete game, although his jump shot is still behind the rest of his game. He nailed a couple of 3 point shots, but also missed many others against the Romanian zone defense (for most of the game Romania used a zone because Thabo could penetrate and score almost at will when guarded one on one in the individual defense scheme). Help defense did not prove helpful either (some crossover dribbles and great moves from Thabo to get rid of the both his defender and the help) so they went most of the game with the zone. Unfortunately for them, the Swiss also have reliable long distance shot makers that were happy to be fed by Thabo out of his triple teamed efforts.

At one point, Thabo could penetrate in the middle of the Romanian defense (getting rid of two of three guys), and was left with shooting over the center (which he couldn't). He then had a stroke of genius and shot below the arms of the center with a little scoop shot, not to score directly, but to hit the backboard and then go around the center, jump and slam the ball in the hoop on the rebound. In that action, he got rid of three defenders, got one assist and one dunk for himself without any other player touching the ball at any time. Let's hope Ziv can come up with the Youtube video once again, you have to see it to believe it (Well, it's also possible that he just missed his desperate below the arm of the center shot, and had the quick decision of following up and dunking it).

All in all, lots of fun, and I am looking forward to watching those games next week (can you imagine, 30 years of zero minutes of basketball on swiss TV and this summer 4 or 5 games televised LIVE on swiss TV, I am in heaven).