By Antonis Stroggylakis / info@eurohoops.net
“Of course I believe I can play at the highest level, which is the EuroLeague. If you ask me if I’m a EuroLeague player, I definitely believe that and I know in the future my time is coming”
That’s what Paris Basketball guard TJ Shorts told Eurohoops in January 2024. Back then, he wasn’t a EuroLeague player and was only speaking in semantic terms. Shorts had every right to feel that way and the actual game to back up his claims.
Paris Basketball was rolling over the competition in the BKT EuroCup behind Shorts’s leadership on the floor. The French side was looking so unstoppable that winning the title and with it the ticket to the 2024-25 EuroLeague seemed to be just a formality, waiting to be stamped and sealed.
A few months later, that is pretty much what happened. Paris won the EuroCup, Shorts added the EuroCup Finals MVP award to his trophy case next to the EuroCup MVP he had already claimed and was EuroLeague-bound, together with his club.
Turning doubters into fans
While European basketball fans were quite aware of what Shorts was capable of from his MVP exploits in both the FIBA Basketball Champions League and the BKT EuroCup, there were some questions being raised on whether the American leftie would be able to translate his dominance into productive play in the EuroLeague.
Shorts finished the previous season with a fantastic combination of numbers: 18.0 points, 7.3 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.9 steals. The EuroLeague is a very different kind of wild animal though, that Shorts had to tame.
The start of the 2024-25 season brought Shorts’s Paris against Crvena Zvezda at home. An experienced team, featuring a multiskilled backcourt lineup of diversely dangerous players. Paris was more than competitive and was actually leading Zvezda halfway through the fourth quarter before falling 77-80 in crunch time. Shorts made a notable introduction to the EuroLeague crowd with 16 points, 4 assists and 3 steals.
Those stats may not look particularly eye-catching but Shorts’s overall presence on the floor surely caught the attention of his peers.
“TJ Shorts is a legit EuroLeague player. It was very tough against him,” declared Zvezda guard Nemanja Nedovic after pouring 21 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field.
That game was just a prelude for what Shorts had in his sleeve for the following week, a display that showed he’s more than “legit.”
Paris was facing EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, a team infused with strong defensive principles by the great Ettore Messina. A team feeling pressure to win at home after dropping Game 1 against AS Monaco on the road.
After a slow first half scoring-wise, Shorts unleashed the full might of his arsenal after the break. He manipulated the Milan defense and used his speed to get to the spots he wanted to make a basket, hit some of his favorite mid-range jumpers and connected high-arcing, near-impossible shots over much taller defenders. Four minutes into the fourth quarter, he had 13 points in the second half and 17 in total, along with 8 assists as his team led 60-67.
All the ingredients for an upset were there but Milan’s experience and the quality of players like Shavon Shields had the final say. Nevertheless, this was another statement performance by Shorts and another EuroLeague arena in which he left his mark.
If there were any fans in the Forum who didn’t know who Shorts was before the game, they surely did by the final buzzer.
After the game, Paris head coach Tiago Splitter praised his starting point guard. He emphasized specifically the fact that Shorts is able to work his magic on the floor, regardless of the competition he’s facing.
“TJ is a beast,” Splitter said in the post-game presser. “This guy is one of the most talented point guards I’ve ever seen. He knows the game, he reads the game, can score, can pass, can lead. He has been doing this at all levels. I don’t think there is any difference for him with the level he’s playing against.”
Splitter, a former All-EuroLeague center as player, has several demanding tasks in his first assignment as head coach after starting his career as an assistant on NBA clubs. He had to take over a team that delivered acclaimed basketball and operated like a well-oiled machine under former coach Tuomas Iisalo and make the players buy into his system. He has to lead a quite ambitious organization in their first-ever appearance in the EuroLeague stage. A quest for Paris to show the European basketball world that this is the competition they deserve to be part of.
On a more personal level, Splitter wants to establish himself as a EuroLeague head coach. It’s the kind of goal that Shorts perfectly relates to and has a created an additional bond, a mutual understanding between the two.
“He’s a player’s coach,” Shorts said of Splitter in an interview he gave before the start of the season. “He’s a very young coach, very ambitious, a guy that wants to prove that he belongs as well.”
The ultimate challenge until the next one
Of course, putting up remarkable numbers and stat lines alone can’t be satisfactory for Shorts. Throughout his career, he’s been accustomed to winning and winning big. So, he’s now looking to start converting the fine individual performances into actual victories.
Shorts’s and Paris’s first two-game EuroLeague week begins with the biggest fight they could have: A clash against reigning champion Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens at home. Shorts, who will turn 27 the day after the game, couldn’t have asked for a most formidable challenge. He will face such players like Kendrick Nunn, Kostas Sloukas, Lorenzo Brown and Jerian Grant in another opportunity to show everyone that he means some serious business in the EuroLeague.