While we wait for the playoff positions to shake out and the next exciting phase in the development of this Blazers team to begin, how about a short European roadtrip: In about two weeks on the weekend of May 1-3, the Euroleague, the most prestigious team tournament among the top European basketball leagues, will see its Final Four to be held in the recently completed state-of-the-art O2 World arena in Berlin seating 16,000+ fans.

It could become a great event, with 4 former championship teams fighting it out. CSKA Moscow is the defending champ that qualified again fairly easily. A team that features solid players like naturalized point guard J.R. Holden (European national champion with Russia beating Rudy, Pau & Co. with a huge three in the final seconds), last year's MVP Trajan Langdon (formerly with the Cavs), Sasha Kaun (2008 NCAA champ with Kansas), former NBA combo guard Zoran Planinic (Nets), Erazem Lorbek, and even an old Blazers friend: Viktor Khryapa.

Then there will be the two best teams from Greece, local rivals Panathinaikos (Jasikevicius, Batiste, Greek stars Spanoulis and Diamantidis, etc.) and Olympiacos Athens (recent NBA players Josh Childress - who has a good but not outstanding season both at home and in the Euroleage - and Jannero Pargo, but also veteran Lynn Greer and Greek standouts Papaloukas and Printezis - could play for the Raptors one day - and Sofoklis "Baby Shaq" Shortsanitis off the bench). They eliminated Italian club Montepaschi and Real Madrid in the semi-finals best of five series. And to close things out, Spanish powerhouse Regal FC Barcelona (J.C. Navarro, Fran Vazquez who Orlando is still hoping to see one day, Ersan Ilyasova, Jaka Lakovic) joins them after eliminating their countrymen from Tau Ceramica.

Pretty good players, huh? In parallel there will also be a stacked Nike International Junior Tournament with top European clubs. Will I be there to watch the games? According to my current travel plans I will be in the region, but rather unlikely I will actually attend it live (and I didn't buy tickets yet). Maybe some other Blazer's Edge reader will. Watching it on TV sounds good to me since I'm not a particular fan of any of the qualified teams and in general follow European basketball about as much as the NCAA - interested but not so that I have to see every good game. And then there is a dark shadow looming over the tournament that has nothing to do with basketball - or shouldn't.

Unfortunately, you can expect something with a pretty high certainty that is all but unknown in the NBA and NCAA: Hooliganism. Violent clashes between fans in the stands and streets, not just mocking each other on some Internet forum, booing opposing fans and players, or in what could already be considered extreme behavior throwing food and plastic cups after a player. It is swapping over from soccer into other sports of the clubs.

It was not very fortunate to select holding this tournament in Berlin on this weekend to begin with, and with those teams several factors come together to form what could turn out to be a "perfect storm" in a negative sense:

On the long weekend of May 1st, you can expect riots in one or two certain districts in Berlin (and other cities) anyway between the police, disillusioned locals and a few hundred members of mostly left-wing groups, protesting for and against everything from capitalism to neo-nationalism to free booze and party for everyone. There are regular peaceful demonstrations during the day organized by unions and NGOs (like also in many US cities on that day), yet especially at night it comes to clashes almost every year in varying severity. It's a very small but violent minority, often masked hoping to avoid identification (black bloc). Think WTO protests in Seattle, only with some people just out there to build barricades and have a "good fight" with police forces and not so much to protest for a good cause.

(Note: Before someone makes stupid comments about Nazism, Germany does not allow the use of military within its own borders unless there is a natural disaster, and the police forces while wearing "riot gear" when trying to dissolve violent demonstrations are only very lightly armed and mostly relying on water throwers and in dangerous situations tear gas and rubber bullets. In the overwhelming majority the police is not the agressor in these fights, but their large presence can also cause escalations. And you can see similar events in several European cities at various times of the year.)

Riots in Berlin with barricades put on fire from 2005. DPA via www.spiegel.de. Similar scenes in Hamburg May 1st 2008, via www.welt.de

Then you potentially add some angry basketball fans to this after their team has lost. While of course most are peaceful and just want a great athmosphere, a significant number of fans of the two Greek teams Panathinaikos (green colors, arena image, myspace of a fan) and Olympiacos (red colors, arena during semi-finals) hate each other despite being from the same city! Really. Not just "Boo L*kers", it's almost religious. There have been violent clashes in Athens between militant wings of those clubs.

Add the Russian fans of CSKA Moscow to the mix, some of whom are also not known to be the most friendly guys. And Barcelona, a huge club with many fans who at least in soccer are also infamous for having some "ultras" in their rows that the police is watching closely around games. If all those guys go on a field trip to Berlin with the intention of mashing up some opposing fans, watch out. It could get ugly.

The organizers of course want to downplay it and have implemented strict security controls entering the arena, but the police in Berlin is concerned. See this article on BallinEurope.com citing/translating from an article in a Berlin newspaper (a new affiliate of the TrueHoop Network, still a small blog compared to BE but looks very nice so far, and their writers are very experienced). 

While Russian fans of CSKA Moscow are a cause for alarm for the German police, the biggest concern for police is Olympiacos facing fierce rivals Panathinaikos in the semifinals on May 1. Panathinaikos was fined 14,500 euros last weekend after fans lit flares inside the arena, used laser pointers and threw objects onto the court. Tagesspiegel noted that supporters of the opposing teams have not been allowed into the arenas of the rivals for security reasons for years, and that a fan died during a game between the two clubs’ women’s volleyball teams in 2007.

(Note: Apparently the fan was killed away from the game in a pre-arranged fight between "fan" groups. But still it is disturbing that things like that happen around a sporting event.)

It's a form of fanatic escalation we don't really know in the NBA (or even the NHL where fights between players are common). Fear of fights in the stands and streets between fans of the Clippers and Lakers? The Nets and Knicks? The Mavs, Spurs and Rockets? East and West coast teams? Or formerly the Blazers and Sonics not allowed into the opposing arena? Unheard of. David Stern would panic that visitors would keep their families away first, and then stay away themselves. The Malice in the Palace is probably the closest thing I can think of in the NBA. You might want to keep those extreme forms of fandom in mind when speaking about "hating" an opposing team. Or when especially Rudy but also Sergio and Nic talk about "European atmosphere". NBA fans are not nearly that rabid, and regarding those extreme forms that is a good thing.

I'll try to keep you updated about how the tournament went, and if there happened to be any violent clashes. I really hope those dark clouds go away, and there are maybe just the usual yearly skirmishes between police and some guys out for trouble away from the games. While the real fans of the different teams celebrate a big peaceful multi-national basketball party, as Berlin and many other cities in Germany saw them on a large scale during the soccer World Championships 2006 (I think Ben attended a game and can attest to that). This event featuring many great basketball players would deserve to be in the news for the right reasons.

Berlin 2008 and Frankfurt am Main 2006