By Antonis Stroggylakis / info@eurohoops.net
The unprecedented cancellation of the 2019-2020 EuroLeague didn’t just bring the season to an early end that no one wanted to see but was ultimately a necessity (hailed as such by the vast majority of the players) amid the coronavirus crisis. It was a conclusion that also abruptly terminated a couple of developing season storylines that could evolve into potentially Oscar-worthy basketball scripts.
Some of these scenarios had the power to grow into legendary material but were ultimately never meant to be. These are five 2019-2020 storylines that were left incomplete without a possibly glorious finale.
Shane Larkin’s MVP opus
There hasn’t been an American MVP in EuroLeague since the back-to-back crowning of Maccabi Tel Aviv great Anthony Parker in 2005 and 2006. A couple of U.S. players came close, performance-wise (Malcolm Delaney’s 2016 run with Lokomotiv Kuban being a notable example) but no one actually won the award.
It’s a rare thing to see in EuroLeague but then again, this last year Shane Larkin grew accustomed to making unique achievements look like the stuff of a day-to-day routine. And if the 2019-2020 season was completed and Anadolu Efes made the Final Four (which looked like the most probable outcome), then it would be shocking if Larkin wasn’t named the EuroLeague MVP.
One could easily argue that there has never been a stronger case for MVP in, well, ages. While his Efes was overlooking the rest of the teams from the 1st place in the standings, Larkin was transforming himself into a multi-megaton nuclear warhead each time he stepped on the court; a fireball that packed the heat of previously unseen offensive prowess in the competition this century. He was destroying scoring records, leaving everyone else behind in each weekly MVP race, single-handedly bending opposing defenses to his will and winning games by his own sheer determination.
Not only was Larkin the EuroLeague leader in PIR (25.8) and scoring (22.2 points while playing less than 30 minutes per game) while delivering dimes as well (4.1 assists) as the best player in the first-placed team, but he also exhibited a near-ridiculous potency, especially given his daring, confidence-oozing style. Despite taking all sorts of tough shots, releasing the ball over raised hands, making off-balance stepbacks, and slashing his way through seas of bodies to sometimes finish under pressure, he was ranked 15th overall in True Shooting and first among guards with 55.3%, including a superb 50.5% (88-173) on 3-pointers.
Jordi Bertomeu said that no individual awards will be given since there were so many games left in the season. It makes sense. To the eyes of many, Shane Larkin is the season MVP and no lack of the related silverware can steal from him the right to be considering himself as such.
Nikola Mirotic locked on a mission
Nikola Mirotic’s decision to leave the NBA world behind last summer and return to Europe by signing with Barcelona came as a shock, considering his age and the fact that he could be valuable to many teams in the league. It was a stunning development, something that no one saw coming, yet for the forward himself it was a call that arrived naturally. His ambition to re-establish himself somewhere with the role of a team leader and making what he considered to be the ideal choice for him and his family were reasons sufficient enough for him to ignore a lucrative, multiyear offer by the Utah Jazz and make his EuroLeague comeback after a five-year absence.
He was also searching for something else. An extra incentive. Motivation. And what more attractive goal than to carry an ever championship-aspiring club like Barcelona to the title?
While most couldn’t believe that Nikola Mirotic chose to exit the NBA, few were surprised by him dominating EuroLeague in his return. He scored in any way imaginable (19.0 points), rebounded the ball (6.9 boards) and contributed in other areas (1.6 assists, 1.1 steals) as well. It wasn’t just a blockbuster signing that Barcelona had made but a possibly franchise-altering move that could steer the team towards the much-sought EuroLeague success once again.
Mirotic produced big-time and hit a couple of remarkable game-winners (that one vs. CSKA was a thing of beauty) to bring Barcelona to a pole position for the playoffs battle and its first Final Four appearance since 2014. That was also Mirotic’s last season in EuroLeague before signing with the Chicago Bulls.
The only reason that Nikola Mirotic wasn’t considered the MVP favorite, was simply Shane Larkin’s otherworldly performances; the latter had the superior numbers, his team the best record and there were overall more arguments to make for being one step ahead in the MVP clash. Yet Mirotic was maybe even a close second and still looking like he hadn’t hit peak-level standards yet. We’ll never find out if he would do that in the playoffs, possibly the Final Four or a championship game this season. We will in the next.
Anadolu Efes hell-bent on lifting the trophy
A couple of months ago I had a chat with an executive of a EuroLeague club regarding which team plays the best basketball this season. “Efes,” he immediately said. “They are the best team. After debating about it a bit and throwing some other names in the discussion, he just pushed me back with an: “No, no, Efes is the best.”
Honestly, I was arguing mostly for argument’s sake. I knew he was right. Efes was winning more than any other team and they were doing it by producing a basketball spectacle to behold. The tandem of Shane Larkin’s defense-cremating mayhem and Vasilije Micic’s cerebral playmaking, along with the gluing agent provided by Krunoslav Simon created a beautiful and stout backbone on which coach Ergin Ataman build a fortress of a team that often looked near-impregnable. Indeed, Efes wasn’t only the first-placed team but also the top-performing (PIR-wise) and top-scoring squad in the competition.
On the other end, teams executed poorly and their production rates plummeted when facing Efes: The Turkish side had the sixth-best defense (77.7 points) and forced opponents to an average of 82.11 PIR (the fourth-best team in that area). Chris Singleton, playing his best defense in years, was a major factor in this.
There’s nothing that guarantees that a team will retain its regular-season form through the playoffs and especially during the knockout games of the Final Four, where anything can happen. Still, when the season was suspended, it looked like there wasn’t anything that could seriously ever hurt Efes’ momentum. They were already carrying the much-needed experience from making the 2019 Final and now, they were rightfully regarded as the top candidates to win the 2020 EuroLeague championship.
A fallen empire on the road to redemption
The last 2019-2020 memory that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans will now have from the team’s home games was snapping Anadolu Efes’ crazy 11-game winning streak. It was a result that secured the Israeli powerhouse’s return to the playoffs following a four-year absence. A period that looked like a century to the team’s supporters.
This win (earned in the last second thanks to a Deni Avdija defense on Shane Larkin) also served as a perfect example of how significantly improved this edition of Maccabi Tel Aviv has been in comparison with all the others of the second half of the decade. This team was playoffs-bound, a genuine Final-Four hopeful, and maybe something more than a dark horse to go all the way and win the whole thing.
Quite the contrast from the previous years.
Since 2015, Maccabi had been living one painful experience after the other in EuroLeague. The “Yellows” struggled to basically become relevant in some seasons and even got humiliated in others; each failure a wound in the team’s pride, every setback a punch in the gut of this decorated organization and its devoted fans.
2019-2020 was different. Under Giannis Sfairopoulos’ defense-first guidance and with a team-oriented philosophy dictating the squad’s modus operandi, Maccabi was fighting back, throwing swings and laying knockout hits the likes of which the team hasn’t seen since the championship run of 2014. Hope was blooming once again the yellow/blue-painted “Menora Mivtachim”, courtesy of an athletic group of players that was scrapping tooth and nail to get what they wanted at all costs, even if that meant that they would leave their bodies on the floor. They had the winner’s spark and a relentless fighting attitude to drive them.
It’s hard to predict how far this revamped Maccabi would go this season. Before the cancelation, they were tied with CSKA Moscow at the fourth spot in the standings and competing for homecourt advantage in the quarterfinals. If they had grabbed that, you wouldn’t easily bet against them in the playoffs, no matter their opponent.
Fenerbahce Beko’s turnaround effort
There was a moment halfway through the season when Fenerbahce‘s future in 2019-2020 looked bleak, if not pitch black. It was after the home loss to Valencia in overtime, a major upset that sank the championship-aspiring Turkish powerhouse to 5-11 and well below the playoff spots.
Optimism regarding Fenerbahce making the postseason was scarce since, despite the injection of star-power during the summer (most notably former MVP Nando De Colo’s addition), the team was severely and, perhaps, unexpectedly underperforming. The root of the problem was an enigma; in November, coach Zeljko Obradovic was saying that he doesn’t see any of his players having any motivation.
Some days after that defeat to Valencia, Fenerbahce registered its first win in a month by easily beating Olympiacos at Piraeus. “I hope this game can be the turn of the season,” Gigi Datome said after the match. And so it was since he and his teammates proceeded to win the five out of their next six matches, seriously improved their position in the standings and launch a major turnaround effort.
Despite some upsets (including a blowout to Real Madrid) and inconsistency issues still plaguing the team, when the season was suspended, Fener had managed to climb at 13-15. A serious improvement from that 5-11 they had at the end of 2019.
Sure, Fener never actually looked to be carrying the spunk of previous seasons. Yet the overall quality, championship pedigree and potential to once again perform with a machine-like efficiency were elements that were still there. The 2017 champions were fighting for a postseason spot and if they made it there, they had the know-how and skill to overcome and possibly reach yet another Final Four. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that an Obradovic-coached team would gel late in the regular season, get its motor seriously going in the playoffs and then win the title.