By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Eurohoops presents the Top 100 EuroLeague Players ahead of the 2020-21 season. A list of players compiled with some specific criteria with the purpose of tracing and ranking those hoopers who are expected to define the upcoming EuroLeague season.
This Top 100 is unlike anything else before it for an obvious reason: The cancellation of the 2019-2020 EuroLeague season due to the coronavirus pandemic. In previous lists, some of the most important factors were the amount of a player’s contribution to club success or failing to help the team achieve its goals. This time – without a champion and not even the playoffs being held – this criterion is out of the picture but the overall run of the team up to the cancellation is still taken into account.
As always, there was a calculated risk with EuroLeague newcomers, especially those who are completely unfamiliar with European basketball. Hence why some players who will now take their first steps in EuroLeague have been omitted from the list or where placed in lower positions in comparison with “rookies” that already have considerable experience at a competitive level of European basketball. Experience in this level and type of game matters since we’ve seen no few quality players, even established NBAers, immensely struggle in their new surroundings simply because of their unfamiliarity with everything that European basketball encompasses.
A player of a team that is a title or Final Four contender automatically got a relative priority over another with possibly similar or equal, maybe even superior individual strengths. The higher the team’s projection for the upcoming season, the more boost a player got when it comes to his ranking and this is why you will find that there is an increased number of players from well-known powerhouses. Of course, there’s also the fact that these teams acquire of top talent.
The list was compiled based on the rosters and moves as are presented on the official EuroLeague website. It goes without saying that injuries (length of absence, seriousness) also played a part in picking and ranking the players, with a notable example being the complete absence of Maccabi Tel Aviv star Omri Casspi. While a healthy Casspi with numbers like the ones he had at the start of the previous season would probably make the Top 20, the fact that he is still rehabilitating (he’s not registered in EuroLeague’s website) after last playing in November 2019, has left him out.
There are a few cases where a player’s overall value and proven capacity to deliver big, counterbalanced numbers and stats as well as an age, that otherwise wouldn’t justify his position. Preseason/ early domestic competition games were also taken into account if they hinted towards an obvious significant positive shift in a player’s role and/or performance.
It should be noted that the place an “x player” gets in the list doesn’t necessarily mean that he is overall “better” than another player since there’s a multitude of factors that determine the ranking.
The most important ones are the following:
1) The individual quality of each player in combination with the prospect he carries for 2020-2021, plus the role and playing time we anticipate he will get with his team.
2) The strength of the club the player belongs to. The players of the teams that are usually playoff staples and are considered among the title contenders always have the edge because they combine individual quality with the club’s high aspirations.
3) Prior experience in EuroLeague/European basketball.
4) Numbers. How the player performed in 2019-2020.
A note regarding positions 51 to 100: Sometimes there’s a small or no real difference in the player’s positions. Especially the ranking of the spots between 51 to 100 is, more or less, typical and the differences between players can be negligible. Here are the players ranked between 100 to 76 and from 75 to 51.
30. Vassilis Spanoulis (Olympiacos Piraeus)
Year of birth: 1982
Position: Guard
Height: 1.93 m.
2019-2020 stats: 11.3 points, 1.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists in 24:38 minutes over 22 EuroLeague games
2020-2021 expectation: Load management. Just kidding, or maybe not. “Age is just a number” was Spanoulis’ mantra a couple of times in 2019-2020 prior to suffering a season-ending injury in February. Hey, he even had a 31-point, seven-assist game some months before turning 38; please, show me another EuroLeague guard who’s done that at that age. The fact, however, is that the years are catching up with his iron will. With Kostas Sloukas‘ arrival, a large amount of Spanoulis’ usual workload will be off his back and the goal for the competition’s scoring and assists king will be to remain as fresh, healthy, and ready to roll as possible when the season reaches peak heat.
29. Bryant Dunston (Anadolu Efes)
Year of birth: 1986
Position: Center
Height: 2.03 m.
2019-2020 stats: 10.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.3 blocks in 25:43 minutes over nine EuroLeague games
2020-2021 expectation: Reclaim what he missed in 2019-2020. And that was most of the regular season since he was out from November to March, suffering a foot injury when he was putting up strong numbers for Efes. Dunston, who signed a 2+1 extension this summer, will want to take it from there and be once again one of the team’s main characters on both ends of the floor, in the hunt for the EuroLeague title.
28. Rokas Giedraitis (Baskonia)
Year of birth: 1992
Position: Forward
Height: 2.00 m.
2019-2020 stats: 13.8 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.4 steals in 26:58 minutes over 25 EuroLeague games
2020-2021 expectation: They aren’t the same kind of players but essentially: Prove to be Tornike Shengelia’s worthy successor. Giedraitis set the bar really high last season with Alba Berlin, showing that he is nothing less than an ultra-dangerous, multifaceted scorer in the EuroLeague arena. Dusko Ivanovic won’t play at the same crazy tempo as Aito Reneses did so he might need to adapt a bit on that, something that he’s already shown to be doing that pretty well. It’s up to him to now carry that spark and, why not, emerge as Baskonia‘s leader in the post-Shengelia era.