The frontrunners for the BCL Best Young Player award

By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net Who will be named Best Young Player in the 2019-20 Basketball Champions League? Only six games into the Regular Season but it has already become apparent that are several worthy contenders and championsleague.basketball presents the list of contenders. Last year it was Tamir Blatt of Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem to take the award home, but is no longer eligible at 22, so he will have to pass on the torch to one of the following players: Carlos Alocen - Zaragoza Carlos Alocen is well on his way to becoming a special player. At 18 he’s already won the Spanish Liga Endesa Best Young Player award and he is already the lead point guard on a Casademont Zaragoza team with a 7-3 record in the Liga Endesa (3rd on the table), as well as sitting at 3-3 in Group D. To add some context to this, there isn’t a long list of players under the age of 19 to play more than 20 minutes per game in the Liga Endesa. The list includes the likes of Ricky Rubio, Sergio Rodriguez, Rudy Fernandez and most recently, Luka Doncic. Esteemed company, to say the least. Alocen’s stats in the BCL also hint at a player that has the potential to be much more than the average point guard: 6.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists are those of a player that impacts the game in a variety of ways. Sehmus Hazer - Bandirma Hazer is not afraid of contact, and he's been on an upward trajectory over the last three seasons. The kid who had 3.6 points per game in 2017-18 and 7.5 points per game last season is now scoring in double digits, or thereabouts, all the time. His 17-point outing against Jerusalem showed he knows how to score, even if he's just a 28 percent three-point shooter. And that's the next step for him - just imagine the possibilities if he can open up the floor with a reliable outside shot. Arturs Kurucs - VEF Riga Kurucs, who won’t turn 20 years old until January 19, has played the second-most minutes and scored the second-most points for VEF, averaging 11.7 points - including a team-leading 21 points against ERA Nymburk and 19 points versus Gaziantep - while shooting a strong 40.7 percent from three-point range. The young Latvian, who is with VEF on loan from Spanish club Baskonia, is also averaging 3.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals. The one clear negative on his resumé is that he is averaging 2.5 turnovers - for a 0.9 assist-to-turnover ratio - but Kurucs has played at least 31 minutes the last four games. And he has become a leader on the team. Amar Sylla - Oostende Sylla starts for Oostende and gets the necessary playing time to polish the skills needed to eventually evolve into a stretch-4. He possesses impressive length and vertical leap, he runs the floor well and his exceptional timing allows him to block shots even though he is not a full-time rim protector. How high is his ceiling? We should get a better feel once he gains a bit more muscle, a more consistent three-point shot and the handle to allow him to attack off the dribble. For now, he is averaging 6.8 points, 6 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game in the BCL and 8.8 points, 5.8 boards and 0.5 blocks in the Belgian EuroMillions Basketball League. Source/photos: championsleague.basketball