By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Lenovo Tenerife won the first-ever Basketball Champions League trophy back in 2017, they did it again last year and now they have the chance for back-to-back titles which will seal their dominance in the competition.
It’s already the seventh season of the Basketball Champions League with Tenerife hosting and winning the first-ever Final Four. Since then, the Spanish club has established itself as one of the pillars of the competition, and this year, they have a huge challenge ahead of them.
They will have to defend their title at Malaga against Unicaja, which recently won the prestigious Spanish Copa Del Rey and has the chance to win more at home.
And yes, San Pablo Burgos has already won back-to-back titles in the Basketball Champions League, but this happened when the 2019-20 season ended due to COVID with a Final8 in September, with a tournament that was practically the start of the 2020-21 season.
Burgos did win both trophies and also an Intercontinental Cup in between, it was a great team, but you can also argue that they practically won all those titles in one season.
For Tenerife, the stakes are higher and the path is much more difficult. You can even make a case for the level of the competition reason, especially in this year’s Final Four with Bonn having the German BBL MVP in their ranks, in TJ Shorts, and also Hapoel Jerusalem under coach Aleksander Dzikic winning recently the 7th Israeli Cup in their history.
Yes, Tenerife seems to be the favorite, mainly because of the continuity and the experience of the roster, especially of the duo of Marcelinho Huertas and Giorgi Sermandini, but they will be tested.
And even if an All-Spanish final seems inevitable, facing the hosts who are having an amazing season will make Tenerife, in case they prevail more than what they are already, the golden standard of the Basketball Champions League.