Βy Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
It was not a surprise, as Tony Parker got the gold medal in the recent Eurobasket and led the Spurs to the NBA finals, but now it’s official. The French guard was voted as FIBA Europe’s player of the year for 2013. The surprise is that Euroleague champion and MVP Vassilis Spanoulis beat NBA defensive player of the year Marc Gasol and finished in the second place, while the Spanish center is third.
The 31 years old Parker received a total of 24976 fan votes and 987 points in the experts’ voting, while Spanoulis had 15162 fan votes and 356 points, beating Gasol in both categories (10951 faν votes, 263 points).
The announcement of Parker as the 2013 FIBA Europe Men’s Player of the Year rounds out the awards with Astou Ndour winning Young Women’s Player of the Year, Dario Saric winning Young Men’s Player of the Year and Sancho Lyttle winning Women’s Player of the Year.