By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
Just six weeks after the tip off of this season, six players (Goudelock, Spanoulis, Carroll, Erceg, Heurtel, Mitrovic) have scored 30+ points in a game. From those players, we will focus on the Serbian forward who was born on March 1993 and has been a member of all the junior national teams of his country.
You ask why? Because is not that usual for players of this age to produce those kind of numbers in Euroleague. To be exact only four under 22 years old players have managed to score 30 points in the top European competition in the modern era of Euroleague .
The youngest of them all was Zoran Planinic, when he was still playing for Cibona in 40 minutes against Partizan. Back in November of 2001 Partizan had got the 81-76 win and the Croatian guard scored 30 points on 5/5 threes!
The same happened exactly after one year with Milos Vujanic being the scorer after 35 minutes on the court. The game was Partizan – Slask, the guest have won 86-85 and the Serb had 30 points on 7/15 shots.
The third member of this company wa Ersan Ilyasova in February 2009! He did it just in 25 minutes on 10/17 shots with Barcelona beating at home Alba Berlin.
Five years and 9 months after Luka Mitrovic joined this distinguished company in a game which was an instant Euroleague “classics”. He did it in 33 minutes, having 9/14 shots. So let’s see what the future will hold for him.