From: michael seium (michael.seium@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Apr 19 2010 - 15:53:19 EDT
*A European Championship for Kelati and Valencia.*
Just a few months ago, fans of Eritrean born Thomas Kelati
overwhelmingly showed their happiness as he was selected to play for the NBA
world champions the Los Angeles Lakers. Thomas made the first two cuts but
eventually got released by the Lakers. He still to this day continues to be
the only Eritrean player to play for an NBA team. Once he was waived by the
lakers, he immediately signed with a strong European team that needed a
boost to win a championship. The team located on the beautiful coast of
Spain in Valencia is known by its sponsor Power Electronics. It was not
going to be easy for Kelati to start on an already established team, however
he knew his role and kept working hard to contribute to the team. In the end
the fruit of his labor helped his team win the coveted European
Championship.
<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Y6IJspzYcjk/S8yxUbWfLrI/AAAAAAAAAZw/lbPgEjqVt6I/s1600/18954_10.jpg>
POWER ELECTRONICS VALENCIA won the EUROCUP championship for the second time
in club history on Sunday April 18th, 2010. It beat ALBA BERLIN 67-44 in
the title game in Vitoria, Spain. Valencia, who won the first championship
in 2003, set a new record by allowing only 22 points in both halves, a great
defensive accomplishment especially against a strong team like Alba of
Berlin.
With a big home field advantage, Valencia used outstanding defense to
control the tempo of the game long before the final buzzer and denied Alba
the chance to win its first European club title since 1995.
Eritrean-American THOMAS KELATI made 13 points and had 5 rebounds to
contribute in a big way as a second leading scorer for his team and the
whole game.
Kelati was deadly as usual from downtown with his shooting to give Valencia
a 19-10 lead early in the second quarter. The German team tried to make a
comeback but Kelati and his teammates kept the score at 36-22 during half
time breaking a record for allowing the least amount of points in a
championship game.
Valencia kept Alba-Berlin to just 22 points in the second half as well as
they won the game by the score of 67-44. Just the day before in the
semi-finals Thomas had 14 points to help his team advance to the
championship game. Thomas is a hardworking team player that an NBA team can
benefit from and hopefully this year he will get a shot at making it to the
NBA. As European basketball grows he also has secured his professional
career by showing that he is a great shooter and will always be welcome in
Europe. Infact Valencia and his former team Unicaja are two top-notch teams
that he has been very happy to play for.
As a new player coming into a new team Thomas had only a couple of months to
adjust to the style of play but he knew coming in to Valencia that his role
was to help his team win a championship. Once he got his groove Thomas was
contributing heavily to his team. Whether he plays in the NBA or the EURO
league Thomas will go down in history as a solid athlete and a good role
model to all youth. As far as Eritrean youth they can learn so much from him
and become disciplined to make it to the professional level by working hard.
Congratulations to Thomas on his championship victory with Power Electronics
Valencia and good luck in the year to come.
For Eri-International sports blog
http://eri-internationalsports.blogspot.com/
Mike Seium
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