Onward and upward to the Top 16!

May 25, 2012

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 reached the Top 16 of the tenth edition of the Euroleague. After ten intense weeks we have 16 teams who will enter the draw Monday and eight who say goodbye to their European adventure this season. As always, there were some surprises, positive and negative, on more proof that in the Euroleague, anything can happen - and probably will! A small analysis of the teams that made the Top 16 in the last seven years, since when the playoff round was included in the competition format, reveals that only five teams have been there every year: Regal FC Barcelona, Panathinaikos, CSKA Moscow, Caja Laboral and Maccabi Electra. One year each were missed by Olympiacos, Real Madrid and Unicaja, two years by Efes Pilsen - which just barely made it this time. If we add Partizan, Asseco Prokom, Cibona and Zalgiris, the teams with four Top 16 appearances in the last seven years, we have 13 teams that consistently advance. Among this season's best 16 there are two debutantes: BC Khimki of Russia - which was expected to advance- and Maroussi BC of Greece - which wasn't. The Greek team had a 1-5 start to the regular season, but they regrouped and won their way into the Top 16 for the club's biggest success to date. With a modest budget, playing to small crowds at huge OAKA Arena because its own arena doesn't fulfill the Euroleague minimum-seating criteria, Maroussi did what many thought impossible by qualifying to the Top 16. Congratulations.

Barca's perfect 10

Since the 2004-05 season, when CSKA Moscow had a 14-0 record because regular season groups featured eight teams, no team has showed such domination as Regal FC Barcelona in this season's first phase. This 10-0 deserves all the respect those numbers indicate. Barça stormed through Group A with no trouble in any game. It won with authority and earned everyone's respect, but as Juan Carlos Navarro said after the game with Montepaschi Siena "the most important things are yet to come." In basketball, as in any other sport, it's better to play well at the end of the season, when titles are decided. In that 2004-05 season, playing the Final Four at home in Moscow, CSKA didn't manage to succeed and the team that played better at that point, Maccabi Electra, took the title.

Teamwork make individual leaders

There were moments during the regular season in which players from losing teams dominated the individual stats rankings. But at the end of the first phase - with few exceptions - the top eight players in all statistal categories come from teams that made the Top 16. For instance, among the top eight players in performance index rating, led by Partizan's Aleks Maric with an average of 24.56 per game, only Union Olimpija's Matt Walsh is from an eliminated team. He is also the only player from a non-Top 16 team to be featured among the eight best scorers of the regular season, ranking third in a category that Linas Kleiza of Olympiacos led with 17.6 points on average. Among the eight best rebounders, led by Travis Watson of Zalgiris with 10.7 per game, there is no Top 16 outsider. The same thing happens with the best shot-blockers, led by Partizan's Slavko Vranes with 1.9 per game. Among the best eight passers only Lietuvos Rytas guard Bojan Popovic, who ranked third, and Entente Orleanaise's veteran Laurent Sciarra, who was seventh, made the top eight, which were led by Omar Cook of Unicaja with 6 assists per game. (Theo Papaloukas of Olympiacos averaged 7.6 through the seven games he played, not enough for the games-played minimum to be considered regular season leader.) The lesson: good teams make good players even better.

The numbers

This week, Fran Vazquez of Regal FC Barcelona, made history by becoming the player with the most blocks in the Euroleague all decade. His three against Montepaschi make for a total 128, which are 2 more than previous leader Denis Marconato of Montepaschi, who, curiosuly enough, was a direct rival in the game...Marcus Brown of Zalgiris, the best scorer in Euroleague history with 2,638 points, showed that he will keep adding to his outstanding numbers when he scored 17 to help his team advance to the Top 16 in Istanbul. With nine drawn fouls he accumulates a total 8.51 (5.13 per game) and, of course, he also leads the free throws rankings with 676 converted shots (or 4.07 per game) and also the attempted shots with 790 (or 4.76 per game). Marcus Brown, a Euroleague living legend...Against Caja Laboral, CSKA Moscow had its 80th home win in 95 games, and it still is the team with the highest winning percentage all decade, 78.23% based on 151 wins in 193 games.

POSTED BY

Vladimir Stankovic, Euroleague.net

DATE:

Sunday, January 17, 2010