By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Former Baskonia, Barcelona, and Real Madrid player and Hungarian national team member Adam Hanga is a new member of Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet, the club officially announced.
Hanga, the current winner of the Euroleague with Real Madrid, signed a two-year contract with the Red and Whites of Belgrade on Wednesday.
Adam Hanga is the third reinforcement of Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet this season after the arrivals of Dejan Davidovac, Milos Teodosic, and Marko Simonovic, while Luka Mitrović extended his contract with the club.
Per EuroLeague’s press release: Hanga (34 years old, 2.00 meters) heads to Serbia for the first time in his career, having come off a season in which he averaged 4.2 points, 1.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists and a 4.1 PIR in 27 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague appearances for Real Madrid last season.
In May, Hanga became a EuroLeague champion for the first time in his career after Real defeated Olympiacos Piraeus in the championship game, with the Hungarian having played 30:40 minutes at the Final Four in Kaunas.
Hanga arrives at Zvezda with a plethora of experience in the EuroLeague, having played 255 games and posted career averages of 6.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists and an 8.3 PIR.
Of his 255 appearances in the EuroLeague, 75 came with Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz, 122 were with FC Barcelona and 58 were in the jersey of Real. Despite only winning his first EuroLeague title in 2023, Hanga reached the championship game in both 2021 and 2022 with Barca and Real, respectively.
The Budapest-born player began his career with Alba Fehervar in his native Hungary in 2009, where he remained for two years and established himself as one of the top prospects in Europe. Hanga agreed to join Spanish team Manresa in the summer of 2011 and he also stayed there for two years, before earning himself a move to Baskonia. He spent the 2013-14 campaign with Baskonia, but the following season he played on loan at Avellino in Italy.
Hanga returned to Baskonia ahead of the 2015-16 season and soon began to make a bigger impact in the EuroLeague, averaging a double-digit number of points (10.5 ppg.) for the first time in 2016-17. He was named the 2016-17 EuroLeague Best Defender thanks to his work on the other end of the floor in that season, too. At the end of that campaign, he signed for Barca, where he stayed for four years and became a EuroLeague runner-up in 2021. After joining Real in the summer of 2021, Hanga reached back-to-back championship games, losing the first and winning the second. Now, he takes his talents to Serbia for the first time in his career.