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Opening game: A giant returns
The 2006-07 Euroleague could not have a more significant starting place than Palau Olimpic de Badalona, where DKV Joventut hosts Panathinaikos on Tuesday at 20:45 CET in regular season Group B. While Joventut rejoins the continent's top competition just in time to celebrate the club's 75th anniversary, fans from the world over recognize the Palau Olimpic as the scene of the historic 1992 Olympic men's basketball tournament. That tournament is remembered as a pivot point in which professional players from all over the world came face to face for the first time, marking a path that since then has seen increased international competitiveness like few would have predicted at the time. The return of Euroleague Basketball to the Palau Olimpic is another symbol of incredible progress that no one can argue with as the ball goes up on Tuesday for the first tipoff of the 2006-07 season. Joventut - or La Penya, as the club is known throughout Spain - started its incredible tradition in 1930 and grew little by little. The club's reputation from the start was based on its faith in homegrown players even as it became a top team in Spain and later one of the best teams on the continent in the mid-1990s. Even when things didn't go well, Joventut gave fans in Badalona something to be proud of. Joventut is back at the top and its future again looks bright thanks to legendary head coach Aito Garcia Reneses, and a balanced, deep roster of homegrown talents like Rudy Fernandez and Ricky Rubio, who are ready to join the long list of Badalona greats. That list includes Jordi Villacampa, who's now the team president, the Margall brothers, the Jofresa brothers, Nino Buscato, Lluis Cortes and foreigners like Moka Slavnic, Joe Galvin, Reggie Johnson and Corny Thompson, who etched his name in the history books with the game-winning three-pointer when Joventut won the Euroleague title in 1994. Joventut emerged as a national power by winning four Spanish Cup titles between 1948 and 1958. The Spanish League was created in 1957, but Joventut had to wait a decade to lift its first national title. In the era before playoffs, that happened after Estudiantes the most dominant team in Europe at the time, Real Madrid, with a dramatic buzzer-beater on the season's final day. Joventut would add two more cup titles in 1969 and 1976, but it was not until Slavnic arrived in Badalona that the team would claim its second league title in 1978. That year, Slavnic, Josep Maria Margall and Luis Miguel Santillana led Joventut on another memorable run. The club stamped its name in the minds of European fans in 1981, when it defeated Carrera Venezia, led by Hall of Famer Drazen Dalipagic, in the final of the Korac Cup. Galvin became the game hero by hitting an eight-meter shot to force overtime, and Joventut ended up winning 105-104 in front of its fans in Badalona. Joventut would add a second Korac Cup title in 1990, sweeping the two-way finals against Scavolini Pesaro. Villacampa led Joventut with 29 points in the first leg, which Joventut won 98-99, while Jose Montero had 28 points in a 96-86 home win in the second leg. Soon after moving to Palau Olimpic, Joventut won consecutive Spanish League titles in 1991 and 1992, with a solid roster featuring Villacampa, Rafa and Tomas Jofresa, Ferran Martinez, Thompson and Harold Pressley. Arguably the club's toughest day came when it was preparing for its crowning moment. After a back-and-forth game against Partizan in the 1992 Euroleague final, Tomas Jofresa found space for a driving basket to give Joventut a 70-68 edge with 15 seconds to go. However, Aleksandar Djordejvic ran the court and stopped to fire in the game-winning triple in the final seconds, enough for Partizan to claim its only Euroleague title. Joventut would only wait two more years to lift the crown, however. In 1994, with the former Partizan coach Zeljko Obradovic now in Badalona, the team went against all odds and defeated Real Madrid in the quarterfinals to reach the Final Four in Tel Aviv. Once there, it downed arch rival Barcelona 79-65 in the semifinals. In the title game, Joventut trailed Olympiacos 53-57 with under seven minutes to go, but held the Reds scoreless until the final buzzer as Villacampa and Thompson hit crucial three-pointers to win the Euroleague title in come-from-behind fashion. Joventut went on to add a Spanish King's Cup title in 1997 behind Andre Turner, Andy Toolson and Tanoka Beard, but a downturn followed as the team missed the Spanish League playoffs for four consecutive seasons between 1999 and 2002. Joventut started to shine again in the newborn ULEB Cup, reaching the semifinals in 2003 and the quarterfinals in 2004. The team continued to work hard with its young players over the years, developing talents like Raul Lopez, Alex Mumbru and Rudy Fernandez, who is now the heart and soul of the team, not to mention a world champion with the Spanish national team. Joventut had its breakout season last year, in which the team advanced to the Spanish League semifinals for the first time since 1997 and again won a European trophy, the 2006 FIBA Europe League, downing BC Khimki in the title game. The future looks brighter than ever for Joventut, a giant ready to get back to its glory days with players like Fernandez and Rubio, another world-class prospect with unlimited potential who will becomes the first Euroleague player born in the 1990s when he steps on the floor. It will mark another historical moment for club that is ready to bring itself, its arena and its fans back to the world basketball stage.
Monday, October 23, 2006 Euroleague.net
