It's been a while since you have heard from me, but I am a professional basketball player who has been suffering from a more than annoying injury and am not the best example of discipline.  I broke my foot in early October and was supposed to return to playing within three months, but the fracture didn't heal as fast as expected.

Now it’s early March and for the first time I see some light again at the end of the tunnel and of course this has boosted my mood. In the end, no matter at what point in your career you are that is all we want. We want to play the game. So, hopefully in some weeks I will be back on the court trying to help the team in making a run to win the Belgian League.

While writing this, I am watching the ACC tournament.  For basketball lovers like myself the upcoming month is one of the most exciting periods of the year: March Madness, baby.

Thank God for subtitles.

Ever since EuroBasket 2011 concluded in September, a host of foreign national filmmakers have brought about some of the most compelling and behind-the-scenes documentaries of the European Championship in Lithuania.

"Euro Star" brings to life the basketball journey of the French National Team thanks to director Benoit Dujardin. The 52-minute film recreates France's path from the first game of the tournament to the EuroBasket Final against eventual winner Spain. Complete with footage and feature interviews with Tony Parker, Nicolas Batum, Joakim Noah, Boris Diaw and the rest of Les Bleus, the flick is another chance to step inside EuroBasket for a team heading to the 2012 London Olympics. 

While you are at it, also make sure to check out "The Belgian Lions - A Locker Room Story", by producer-director Johan Dirkx and Robin Vandenbergh, in what Dirkx calls "a fly-on-the-wall chronicle of the Belgian Lions' struggles" at EuroBasket 2011 (trailier available here).

Hat tip to EuroStep who has the complete run down of hoops documentaries going down right now.

A lot has been going on since my last column.

The NBA is back which is a good thing.  I couldn't imagine a whole season without it, and while I like watching European basketball I still need to see some NBA games here and there. Over here in Czech we get two games a week. I know all the guys that were playing overseas had opt out clauses in their contracts and are happy to be back.  So congratulations to the NBA and Player's Union for reaching a deal.

As for me, my season is in full swing.

Okay, so maybe Rudy Fernandez throwing no look over the head lobs to Kenneth Faried in Denver is still dunk of the year thus far in the NBA. But when it comes to the Euroleague, Fernadez comes in at #7 for Real Madrid with Serge Ibaka on the receiving end.

In my second year as a pro in the season 1996-97, playing for Okapi Aalst, we started out the season with two American imports players.

One was our star player Daren Queenan (Lehigh 1984-88 and one of NCAA all time leading scorers), the other was Brian Reese (UNC 1990-94 and now an assistant coach at Monmouth). 

Scouting and recruiting 15 years ago wasn't at the level it is today and quite early in the season Reese didn't turn out to be the guy our team was looking for.  Management instead decided to add another legendary scoring ace to the roster: Borislav 'Boro' Vucevic had been leading the Belgian league in scoring for quite some years averaging 30-plus points per game.  

He was a legend also in his native Montenegro, part of former Yugoslavia, for having won several European and Yugoslavian trophies. Although Boro (#15 in above photo) was already in his late thirties at the time he still had the love for the game.  He was still athletic, dunking the ball in many ways and running the floor like a youngster. He always took great care of his body, claiming he had never missed a game, and if it was not for his hair that was starting to turn grey no one would have guessed his age right after seeing him play.