By Lefteris Moutis / moutis@eurohoops.net
Which players are most recognizable symbols of their Euroleague teams? In an era of continuous transfers, Eurohoops.net has compiled a list of players who boast the most appearances in Euroleague games with only one team.
Transfers from one team to another are now very common and it’s very rare to find players and teams who stay together very long. That’s true no just throughout their entire careers, but even throughout their terms in the Euroleague.
And yet, there are still several players who have spent a dozen years with only one team and who have worn the colors of just one Euroleague team at least 100 times.
In this list, many more players whose names are associated with a single team could have been included, but lost this “privilege” because they played in the competition for at least one season with another team. For example, Kostas Tsartsaris played 11 seasons and 214 Euroleague games with Panathinaikos Athens, but also two seasons and 25 games for Peristeri. Or his former teammate, Mike Batiste; he was identified with Panathinaikos for 10 years and 204 games, but made his Euroleague debut with Charleroi for one year and 10 games and later played for Fenerbahce Istanbul in 23 games in the 2012-13 season.
Paulius Jankunas broke the run he had with Zalgiris Kaunas from 2003-04 until today for a total of 12 seasons and 204 games, because of his participation with Khimki Moscow Region in 16 games in the Euroleague in the 2009-10 season. Likewise, J.R. Holden, who had 189 games in a total of nine seasons with CSKA Moscow, made his debut in the Euroleague with AEK for one year and 20 games.
Luis Scola
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz
144 appearances
Scola last played in the Euroleague in 2007 and yet he’s still among the top ten players with the most appearances with only one team. That’s because in the first seven seasons of the competition, the Argentinian big man was one a symbolic player for the Euroleague and for Tau Ceramica (now Laboral Kutxa). Scola began his career with the club at the age of 17 in 1997, but starting in 2000 he became one of the leading players of the team, finishing his career in the Euroleague with an average of 14.3 points and 5.6 rebounds! He participated in three Final Fours plus the 2000-01 finals. Twice he was a member of the All-Euroleague First Team and once of the second team.
Andrey Vorontsevich
CSKA Moscow
153 appearances
He’s by far the youngest player on this list. Vorontsevich signed with CSKA in the summer of 2006 and he’s been a permanent member of the team ever since. In 2008, he won the Euroleague title, and since then has gradually acquired a bigger and bigger role in the Russian team. In the last few years, he’s the team’s main power forward. He has participated in a total of eight Final Fours, and at just 28 years old, he can definitely add to his status as a player-symbol for CSKA for several years to come.
Victor Sada
FC Barcelona Lassa
166 appearances
Sada is yet another product of Barcelona’s academies and was for many years a fixture on the team. The native guard played for Barcelona for a total of nine seasons, but he had an important role only after he returned from Girona in 2008. Sada was for many years the point guard who regularly undertook mostly defensive and creative assignments. When Barcelona won its first European trophy in 2003, he was still on the club’s B-team, but by 2010 he was a core member of the team and celebrated reaching the top. In the summer of 2014 he left from Barcelona but he still has the second-most Euroleague appearance in the famous Barcelona colors.
Berni Rodriguez
Unicaja Malaga
169 appearances
Rodriguez is Unicaja! He grew up in Malaga and began his professional career in the city’s biggest team in the 1999-2000 season. He proceeded to play a total of 169 Euroleague games with Unicaja. From 2001-02 onwards, Rodriguez was a key member of Unicaja for 11 straight years, eventually departing in the 2011-12 season. He was a backcourt player who could perform a lot of tasks on the court and was always a bulwark for Unicaja’s coaches. He’s 35 years old now and still plays on non-Euroleague teams in Spain.
Tal Burstein
Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv
178 appearances
He’s one of Maccabi‘s players-symbols after having worn the team’s yellow jersey for 10 Euroleague seasons! Burstein participated in the top competition in the 2001-02 period and retired at the age of 32 in 2011-12 after a full decade with the Israelis. He only left Maccabi once, for the 2009-10 season, when he played for Spanish club Fuenlabrada. The crowning moment of his career was, of course, winning the two back-to-back Euroleague trophies in 2004 and ‘05. The Israeli guard was for years an ideal addendum to Maccabi along the perimeter and a reference point in the locker room.
Victor Khryapa
CSKA Moscow
184 appearances
One of the oldest Euroleague players now, Khryapa has had many injury problems, but he managed to play in two games this year and thereby declare his Euroleague presence for the 11th season in his career, all of them with CSKA! After the 2002-03 season, the Russian forward was away from the team for three-and-a-half years, when he played in the NBA. Khryapa was the captain of the team for years, won the Euroleague title in 2008, was once a member of the All-Euroleague First Team and two times of the second team. He also won the Best Defender Trophy one season.
Sergio Llull
Real Madrid
189 appearances
He made his debut in professional basketball with Manresa, but since the summer of 2007 and the age of 20, Llull belongs to Madrid and is one of the players-symbols in the incredible last five years of the current European champions. The Spanish guard is now in his ninth season in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and already counts 189 appearances due to his team’s long seasons of successes. Llull finally celebrated the title in last year’s Final Four in Madrid, after having appeared in three previous Final Fours and reached the championship game two other times.
Derrick Sharp
Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv
195 appearances
Following his college graduation in the USA in 1993, he got a transfer to Israel and from the 1996-97 season onwards became a permanent member and legend of Maccabi. Sharp played for Maccabi for 14 consecutive years, with 195 appearances in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague from 2001-02 onwards! The ingenious guard celebrated two consecutive Euroleague trophies with Maccabi, in 2004 and 2005, and is remembered as the spark of those back-to-back titles. The highlight of his Euroleague career is, of course, the game-tying three-pointer he scored on the buzzer against Zalgiris Kaunas in 2004 to force overtime and save what would become the first of Maccabi’s two seasons reigning as the Euroleague’s best team.
Dimitris Diamantidis
Panathinaikos Athens
246 appearances
Panathinaikos‘s captain for the last seven years has announced that he is going to retire in the summer, but he has already placed his name very high on the list of the biggest and most enduring flagship names in European basketball. Diamantidis made his debut in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague at the age of 24, coming from Iraklis Thessaloniki, and has remained loyal to the Greens ever since. He’s currently in his 12th season in the Euroleague with Panathinaikos and has already played in 264 games. Diamantidis won the Euroleague title three times, emerged twice as the MVP of the Final Fours in 2007 and 2011, and once was also the season MVP, in 2011, when he and Panathinaikos won their last title together. Furthermore, Diamantidis was voted by head coaches as the Best Defender Trophy winner six times and was a member of the All-Euroleague First Team for four years. 3D is a symbol for Panathinaikos, but also for Greek and European basketball in general.
Juan Carlos Navarro
FC Barcelona Lassa
288 appearances
He’s the record holder in appearances in the history of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and, of course, a born-and-bred Barcelona player. Navarro rose to prominence, matured, was established, glorified and became a legend in the colors of the “blaugrana”. He has been playing for his city’s team from 1997-98 to this day, with the only exception being the 2007-08 season when he played in the NBA with Memphis. Barcelona’s leader has won two Euroleague titles, in 2003 and 2010, and is the all-time top scorer of the competition. Navarro was voted MVP of the Final Four in 2010 and of the full seasons in 2009. He was voted five times to the All-Euroleague First Team and twice to the second team.