By Panos Katsiroubas/ info@eurohoops.net
Having a break this week in Euroleague is helpful in order to make some conclusions about teams and players that reached the goal to advance in the second round after a 10 Match day battle through October, November and December.
One interesting category consists of freshmen players in the competition who were although very crucial for their teams achievements. In this category we include all the players that participate for the first time in Euroleague and some that had little participation and impact the previous years but were very important factors with a lot of impressive games and helped their team to advance in the second round.
Eurohoops already took a deep look in those kind of players, crowning Bryant Dunston as the MVP among them, but we had to make some additions after the thrilling finish of the regular season
The former NBADL MVP emerged near the top of this category. Without him the team from Kaunas would have been ready to prepare themselves for Eurocup, but Dentmon played some huge games and helped Zalgiris to go through to the 2nd round.
Even if he had a slow start scoring only 17 points in the first two games he improved his performances and in the final 8 games scored double digits in every game and finally finished with an average of 16,8 points, 3 rebounds and 4 asssists. He was named MVP in the 5th gameday when Zalgiris played against Brose baskets and that night he scored 24 points and also had 9 assists.
Delaney is not a rookie in the European courts…Last year was a player of Budivelnyk Kiev and had a great season in Eurocup. These performances lead him to be included in All Eurocup 1st team. This year he made his debut in Euroleague and was the most important factor of Bayern Munich success in the first round..
His numbers are really impressive, he shot almost 45% in field goals with 14,6 points per game and if you add 4,2 assists then its obvious that he made the biggest impact to Bayern’s attractive style of playing. The degree of consecration that Delaney had during the games appears also in another statistic category in which we can see that in 26 minutes per game he had almost only 1,5 turnovers number, one of the best ratio of all the guard players in the competition.
Hopson is also a rookie player in Euroleague that made a lot of noise with his great performances in many games. In a team that has great players and scorers like Planinic, Gordon, Savanovic, Vasileiadis, Scotty Hopson manage to be the MVP of the Turkish team in the 1st round.
With his unbelievable 68,7% in 2pts shots and 48% in 3pts it’s obvious that he was giving his team a lot of scoring without exaggerating in field goals attempted, a real example of economy player for Anadolu Efes and the most powerful weapon for the difficult 2nd round that is going to follow for the Turkish team.
The graduate of Xavier University is a well known player with a small career in the NBA.The previous season he was one of the stars of Lokomotiv Kuban, but he is also a freshman in Euroleague. He was named MVP of November averaging almost 19 points per game in that period and finished the first round with 14 points per game and an impressive over 60% in field goals.
Great athleticism make him a player very difficult to guard, In addition he is one of the best players in transition offense and also great defender. In our opinion his performance will be the key factor for Lokomotiv Kuban’s success or not in the second round.
It’s not easy for any player moving to the team that won the last 2 Euroleague titles to make such a quick adjustment and play so many great games as Matt Lojeski did in the first round helping Olympiakos to remain one of the two unbeaten teams in the competition.
An impressive shooter and also a player that helps in almost every aspect of the game was the surprise in a team which picked him as the only addition during the summer in the guard and small forward positions. Highlight of his good numbers is the 51,4% that Lojeski has in 3points shots.
Even though he is only 22 years of age he has already been champion in France with Chalon, in Serbia with Partizan and from the 22nd of September in Europe with the French National team. After so many trophies the first round of Euroleague was the place of his personal explosion in the European basketball.
Averaged almost double figures in both points and rebounds Lauvergne is the power of Partizan’s front line and one of the weapons of the Serbians in their successful effort to advance in the second round of the toughest group in the first round composed by teams like Fenerbahce/Ulker, CSKA Moscow and Barcelona.
Honorable mention goes also to some other players who can be added to this category and had an impact for their teams winning difficult and crucial games in order to advance in the second round of Euroleague like Lamont Hamilton of Laboral Kutxa, Jayson Granger of Unicaja Malaga and also Nikos Pappas of Panathinaikos.