By Stelios Toromanidis/ info@eurohoops.net
Eurohoops presents the Top 10 of those signings, in what might be the most interesting transfer market period in recent years in the competition.
Big players decided either to change sides within the competition or to leave the NBA and the opportunity for big contracts in order to play in Europe’s top club competition. For a hefty fee, of course, but at any rate, when basketball players with a very good run in the NBA and at an ideal age in their career leave the USA in order to take part in the EuroLeague, that’s newsworthy. Some have left the best basketball league in the world for the first time and others have returned to the old continent after a long presence in the USA.
The champions of the summer transfer period are without a doubt Barcelona, who strengthened their roster amazingly well, though several other teams did the same, most of them improving the quality of their manpower, something they will still have to prove on the court as well.
Eurohoops picked out the Top 10 signings of the summer in the competition and presents them here in random order. As you can understand, it took us a while to come up with the Top 10, since the excellent moves that were made by the clubs were far more!
This is why players like Nik Stauskas (KIROLBET Baskonia), Quincy Acy (Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv), Brandon Davies (Barcelona), Kostas Koufos (CSKA Moscow), Cory Higgins (Barcelona) and Alex Abrines (Barcelona) didn’t make our final choices.
Nando de Colo
Nationality: French
Position: Combo guard
Left: CSKA Moscow (2014-2019)
Joined: Fenerbahce Βeko (2+1 year contract)
Seasons in the EuroLeague: 6 (2010-2011, 2014-ongoing)
EuroLeague trophies: 2 (2016, 2019)
Nando de Colo, who started out his career in the EuroLeague from Valencia and had a brief stint in the NBA in the two years between 2012 and 2014, for the last five years belonged to CSKA Moscow, where he did splendidly well, winning two EuroLeague trophies (2016 and 2019), while also appearing in five Final Fours.
In the summer, the competition’s MVP in 2016 and member of three All-EuroLeague First Teams (2016, 2017 and 2018) decided to leave the Muscovites and join Zeljko Obradovic’s Fenerbahce. There, together with Kostas Sloukas, they can create one of the highest quality guard duos in the EuroLeague and lead Fenerbahce to another title, albeit in a competition that has many favorites.