Unbeaten Barcelona, for how long?
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| Vladimir Stankovic, Euroleague.net |
Veteran sportswriter and Euroleague.net collaborator Vladimir Stankovic has been following the best basketball on the continent longer than almost anyone journalist, writing for decades about the sport in major publications in both Serbia and Spain. For the new 2009-10 season, he offers a series of opinion blogs about what's happening on and off the court in the Euroleague.
Well, we've got ourselves the first Top 16 team of the season. An unstoppable Regal FC Barcelona reached its first goal, but the way the team is playing and looking ahead at the schedule, their second goal should be finishing the regular season undefeated. And I think they can do it, because they play like a real team. Looking at the accumulated stats of this team, we can see that the scoring leader is November MVP Pete Mickeal, averaging 16 points, followed by Juan Carlos Navarro with 12.6. After those two come Terence Morris (8.7), Boni N'Dong (8.3), Jaka Lakovic (8.2), Erazem Lorbek (8.0) and Fran Vazquez (7.8). The rebounding also shows that Barcelona has as many as eight players averaging between 2.5 and 5.3 boards per game. Those are the signs of unselfishness and self-sacrifice that mark a true winner. No team has gone undefeated through the entire regular season since Panathinaikos did so in 2006-07 - and eventually became that season's champion.
Pass the ball
Speaking of unselfishness, the best player of the week according to the numbers was Dainius Salenga of Zalgiris Kaunas with an index rating of 28 and 25 points scored. Too bad that his team lost. The best rebounder of the week was Union Olimpija's Vladimir Golubovic with 13 boards, but his team also lost at home to Maccabi Electra. We can also see that the ranking and scoring leader of the season is Matt Walsh, also of Olimpija. His numbers are great: 23.4 index and 22.0 points, but the numbers for Olimpija are pretty poor, 1-5 in Group C. The rebounding leader is Travis Watson of Zalgiris with a 9.5 average but Zalgiris is also 1-5. On the other hand, looking at assists we have Theo Papaloukas of Olympiacos leading the way (7.2) and his team with a 4-2 record. Second in line is UInicaja's Omar Cook (6.0) as his team stands tall at 5-1, just like Montepaschi Siena's Terrell McIntyre, who ranks third in assists. Following them is Bojan Popovic of Lietuvos Rytas (5.7 asssits per game for him, a 3-3 record for his team) and fifth is Ricky Rubio of Barcelona (5.2 and 6-0 for the team).
My point, I believe, makes itself. I am not accusing anyone of being too individualistic. I simply want to put an emphasis on the global vision of a team. Depending too much on one or two players is always dangerous. I have remarked before that "statistics are the exact sum of wrong data", but we have to admit that many times they help us to understand what's really going on.
A starring role
The role of the stars on great teams has a lot to do with what we witnessed in Week 6: solving the game in the critical moments. Entente Orleanaise is still the only winless team in the Euroleague, but was very close to defeating mighty Olympiacos. The upset of the week would have been served if Linas Kleiza had not appeared to take over in the final quarter for the Reds. To be more precise, Kleiza took over in the last 8 minutes, during which he scored all of his 19 points and saved his team. Something similar happened in Istanbul, where veteran center Daniel Santiago scored 17 points in 13 minutes to propel Efes Pilsen past Lietuvos Rytas. Against Olimpija on the road in Ljubljana, Doron Perkins scored 9 points, pulled 3 rebounds and dished an assist on a three-pointer as Maccabi's lead stretched from 61-63 to 65-79 in the last quarter. Perkins had already shined late in Maccabi's previous road victory, in overtime against Lottomatica Roma. In Athens, when Armani Jeans Milano drew within 6 points of Panathinaikos in the fourth quarter, the champs turned to Mike Batiste, Nikola Pekovic and Vassilis Spanoulis to seal the victory...the role of the stars, as I say, is to resolve difficult matters at the end.
A coach's trust, part II
Last week, I talked about Aleksandar Rasic's great performance in Partizan against Olympiacos, as he scored 25 points (after having totalled just 13 in the four previous weeks combined) and had a 31 index ranking (compared to 3 overall until then). The conclusion was simple: the trust of his coach gave Rasic the confidence to come out of his funk. While Rasic was rising in Week 5, Justas Sinica of Lietuvos Rytas was going 0 for 7 from three-point distance during his team's loss to Unicaja in Malaga. A week later, in Istanbul against Efes, he climbed off the bench in the second quarter clearly with the permission of coacch Rimas Kurtinaitis, a legendary shooter himself, to let fly his favorite shot. This time, Sinica hit his first 3 attempts from downtown to help L. Rytas take a 32-34 halftime lead. OK, he missed his next four and L. Rytas lost in the end, but be assured that Kurtinaitis knows what it takes to build the confidence of a shooter. Watch for Sinica to give back some of that trust to his coach in the next games.
Talking numbers
Talking about numbers, the man of the week was Theo Papaloukas of Olympiacos. His 14 assists in Orleans tied the long-time record of Tyus Edney from 2004, when he played for Benetton Basket, precisely against Olympiacos. Papaloukas is the absolute leader in Euroleague assists, with 778 for his career (4.3 average), and steals (271 overall, 1.48 per game). He also shares the lead for most games played, 183, with Gianluca Basile and J.R. Holden.
Juan Carlos Navarro of Regal FCB this week entered the 300 club for triples made. He is now fourth with Zalgiri's Marcus Brown with 301 each, and they are on the chase of the three leaders: Basile (364), Holden (331), and Jaka Lakovic (314). Next in line for the 300 club is CSKA Moscow's Trajan Langdon (295). More milestones in Week 6 came from Drew Nicholas of Panathinaikos, who buried his 200th three-points, Real Madrid's Jorge Garbajosa, who now has 151, and Salenga of Zalgiris, who crossed the 100-mark to 102.
POSTED BY
Vladimir Stankovic, Euroleague.net
DATE:
Saturday, December 05, 2009