Get ready for a new champ
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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.
It's official: The 2009-10 Euroleague will have a new champion. The last one, Panathinaikos, left the throne up for grabs after four straight losses in the Top 16, something new in its Euroleague history, and even more rare in the career of its legendary coach, Zeljko Obradovic. Since the Split teams of 1989 to 1991 ended their three-year reign, only one club in amost 20 years has been able to repeat as European champion, Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2004 and 2005, which needed a miracle shot to reach the first of those titles. All of which shows very clearly that the Euroleague is a strong, balanced and umpredictale competition. In other words: the competition we all want.
On the other hand, it's not the first time that a title defense doesn't even reach the playoffs of the next season. The same thing happened in 2007-08 when the same Panathinaikos, the defending 2006-07 champ, was third in its Top 16 group. Another curiosity: that year, as this, the key loss for Panathinikos was against Partizan, the team that Obradovic led at the start of his coaching career. They won their first Euroleague title together in 1992 in Istanbul. Obradovic proceeded to add six more with three different teams. Partizan is still gunning for its second title.
I will not analyze the reasons for the bad results of Panathinaikos in a season in which it has already lost two of the three titles it plays for. But I will say what I expect we'll see Obradovic, whose contract needs renewing, to remain on the Panathinaikos bench. I do not have any tips from any close sources, just my own intuition. Knowing him, his relationship with the club owners and the fans and also the atypical situation of Panathinaikos as a family club, with a new project and a new team, it looks like the most logical option to me.
Generations on the bench
Most of the Top 16 clubs are under the orders of coaches at the top of their game, but also with many years of good work behind them. The fact that it looks like they are "lasting so long" on the bench has two explanations: first, that they are good, very good; and second, that they had big opportunities when they were really young. Who remembers, for instance, that Partizan head coach Dusko Vujosevic, who turns 50 next week, was barely 28 when he won his first Yugoslav League title in 1987 and led the Belgrade team in 1988 to the first Final Four in Ghent with players like Vlade Divac, Zarko Paspalj, Sasha Djordjevic and Obradovic himself? Or that BC Khimki head coach Sergio Scariolo, now 48, was 29 when he won the Italian League with Scavolini in 1990? Real Madrid boss Ettore Messina, now 50, celebrated his first title with Kinder Bologna in 1993, when he was only 33. Zeljko Obradovic, turning 50 next week, won the triple crown with Partizan (Euroleague, Yugoslav league and cup) at age 32, as a rookie head coach. Also part of that same generation are Dusko Ivanovic (52) of Caja Laboral and Panagiotis Giannakis (51) of Olympiacos.
Ahead of this golden generation of coaches we find respected vets like Aito Garcia Reneses (63) and Pini Gershon (58). Behind them comes a wave of young and talented coaches who guarantee quality replacements for the future. Asseco Prokom head coach Tomas Pacesas (38) is aiming his club towards its first Euroleague playoffs qualification ever. Xavi Pascual (37) has already won several titles with a Regal FC Barcelona team considered by some the favorite to take the newly vacant Euroleague title. Simone Pianigiani (40) has simply dominated Italian Basketball and made a Final Four since taking the helm Montepaschi Siena. Evgeniy Pashutin (41) has managed a giant like CSKA Moscow to the brink of the playoffs in his second season. Georgios Bartzokas (44) of Maroussi has got nothing but compliments in his first Euroleague season. Ergin Ataman (44) of Efes Pilsen has been to two Final Fours already, while Velimir Perasovic (45) has Cibona competing against all odds. Each of them has many years ahead of them to accomplish plenty more.
Just as it is for the players, the Euroleague is the biggest challenge and the best school also for the coaches.
Stars or team?
A quick look at the list of this week's individual statistical leaders brings back the issue that we have already mentioned here: the big numbers of some players and the losses of their teams. Jamont Gordon of Cibona is the MVP of the Week, followed by Khimki's Keith Langford and Trajan Langdon of CSKA. Gordon has also been the best scorer this week with 32 points, followed by Langford. Terrell McIntyre of Montepaschi dished 7 assits and Unicaja's Omar Cook, 6. The common thing among them this week was that their teams lost. Only in the rebounding category do we find leaders from winning teams: Mario Kasun, Kaya Peker, Erazem Lorbek, Ante Tomic and Lawrence Roberts. Of course, there is nothing wrong in having a star in the team who likes to take responsibility and who stands out because of his numbers, but that often ends up with the team being too dependent on its best player. The solution? More stars if the budget allows it, or next year we will see the stars on the strongest teams. It's the law of the market.
The numbers
The week was marked by Barcelona's Juan Carlos Navarro scoring 15 points against Panathinaikos to become the second all-time best scorer in the Euroleague with 2,307 points - just one more than Nikola Vujcic of Olympiacos. The undisputed leader still is Zalgiris's Marcus Brown and his 2,668 points. CSKA's Langdon, seventh in the rankings, needs 17 more points to enter the 2,000-point club, which currently has six members: Brown, Navarro, Vujcic, J.R. Holden (2,254), Jaka Lakovic (2,206), Luis Scola (2,054)). Meanwhile, Igor Rakocevic of Efes Pilsen, 10th in the ranking, needs just one more point to reach 1,900...Vujcic is only 20 rebounds away from reaching the 1,000 mark and becoming the second player to ever achieve that feat. The leader is, of course, Mirsad Turkcan of Fenerbahce Ulker, with 1,151...Holden is 2 three-point shots short of making it 250, a category that Barca's Gianluca Basile leads with 370.
POSTED BY
Vladimir Stankovic, Euroleague.net
DATE:
Saturday, February 27, 2010