By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
Sergio Rodriguez announced the Most Valuable Player in the regular season of the Euroleague and on Thursday he was the happiest man in Milan. But is there maybe something to worry about? The tradition!
Euroleague established the MVP award of the regular season in 2005 (until then there was only MVP award for the Final Four) and since then only two players have won also the MVP award of the Final Four and only four have celebrated the Euroleague trophy…
The two only players who won both MVP awards are the two Greek stars, Dimitris Diamantidis in 2011 and Vassilis Spanoulis in 2013. Apart from Panathinaikos in 2011 and Olympiacos last year, only the MVPs of 2005 (Anthony Parker) and 2008 (Ramunas Siskauskas) made it. Five of the nine previous years the MVP of the regular season failed to win the Euroleague, four them lost the final (only Barcelona of Navarro lost the semifinal in 2009).
Will this jinx make troubles to Sergio Rodriguez and Real Madrid?
| Season | Regular Season MVP | Final Four MVP |
| 2004-05 | Anthony Parker (Maccabi) | Sarunas Jasikevicius (Maccabi) |
| 2005-06 | Anthony Parker (Maccabi) | Teo Papaloukas (CSKA) |
| 2006-07 | Teo Papaloukas (CSKA) | Dimitris Diamantidis (Panathinaikos) |
| 2007-08 | Ramunas Siskauskas (CSKA) | Trajan Langton (CSKA) |
| 2008-09 | Juan Carlos Navarro (Barcelona) | Vassilis Spanoulis (Panathinaikos) |
| 2009-10 | Milos Teodosic (Olympiacos) | Juan Carlos Navarro (Barcelona) |
| 2010-11 | Dimitris Diamantidis (Panathinaikos) | Dimitris Diamantidis (Panathinaikos) |
| 2011-12 | Andrei Kirilenko (CSKA) | Vassilis Spanoulis (Olympiacos) |
| 2012-13 | Vassilis Spanoulis (Olympiacos) | Vassilis Spanoulis (Olympiacos) |