By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
After winning on the road at LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne last Friday night, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul coach Sarunas Jasikevicius wondered out loud if there’s any team this early in the 2024-25 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season that is truly playing at the top of their game.
“I don’t know who’s playing really good basketball, probably expect Bayern [Munich], right now,” Jasikevicius said to EuroLeague TV.
That was quite a well-deserved recognition by Saras, who funnily enough is the next coach that Bayern will face. Results and numbers don’t often lie and, according to them, he could not be more right.
Almost 24 hours before that statement, FC Bayern Munich had defeated Zalgiris Kaunas to extend its league-best streak to 5-0 – the first-ever time the German team has won five straight games in the EuroLeague – and improve to 6-2 in the process. One of the main ways that these victories have been secured is through high-paced, pretty basketball.
In the lead-up to Round 9, Bayern is averaging a league-high 86.9 points. During its five-game winning run, Bayern has raised the bar to 90.8 points on an impressive offensive rating of 1.08 points per possession – a superior figure to all other teams in the competition.
So far, this is exactly how coach Gordon Herbert was planning to cook the ingredients he had at his disposal. “We want to be more aggressive and play faster, attacking basketball. We want to control the tempo in the half-court,” the reigning world champion with Germany said long before the season began.
Bayern has got off to a flying start this year after finishing 15th in 2023-24. The Munich-based team already has almost double the number of wins it achieved last campaign (13), and it has already played against – and beat– some of the league’s big shots and title contenders.
Comebacks against powerhouses
There are several things to admire about Bayern’s run so far. Arguably, it’s the performances of the team against Real Madrid and Olympiacos Piraeus that really stand out.
Back in the opening round of the season, Bayern made a statement by taking down the mighty Real 97-89 after trailing by 10 late in the third period. The Bavarian side dominated the last quarter 33-16, pushing back every effort the Los Blancos made to ensure that SAP Garden opened with a EuroLeague victory.
Some weeks later, Bayern would host Olympiacos in Round 5. The Reds were eager to bounce back from a road loss at Anadolu Efes and were up 39-47 early in the second half.
Driven by a spectacular Carsen Edwards, who netted 24 out of his 30 points after halftime, Bayern once more turned the game upside down. Big buckets by Edwards and Shabazz Napier down the stretch secured the hosts a win that proved that the dub over Madrid wasn’t just a flash in the pan.
This resilience in both of these games against squads that are far more experienced and are built to win the championship carries the markings of what defines not just a good but maybe even a great team.
Bayern went on to relish a successful road trip in the double-game week at Virtus Segafredo Bologna and ASVEL before repelling Zalgiris Kaunas’s comeback attempt last Thursday. Before that, Coach Herbert’s side had survived a firestorm of a game against Paris Basketball.
In fact, Bayern’s only two losses have come at Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade and Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, the latter being one of the most near-impregnable fortresses in the EuroLeague.
The Carsen Edwards effect
“I came back in the summer because I like Munich. The opportunity to return to a place where I feel people enjoy watching me play,” Edwards has said per Bayern.
The crowd inside SAP Garden doesn’t just “enjoy” watching Edwards; they are probably ecstatic with the show that the 26-year-old American guard is putting on the floor, particularly of late.
Edwards’s ability to steadily contribute on a high level was kind of an enigma after his first season with Bayern. While showing a visible improvement compared to an unremarkable rookie year with Fenerbahce, the American guard struggled to remain consistent, combining some glaring highs with a fair number of lows.
Eight rounds into this season, Edwards is far more than the EuroLeague’s leading scorer with 20.1 points and the only player in the competition who passes the 20.0 ppg. mark. He’s playing pure, winning basketball by putting on some exhilarating displays that are like an offense-friendly theme park: big-time shots from deep; majestic slashing actions; mid-range knockout punches; powerful finishing moves through traffic while enduring heavy contact; and lightning-fast transition attacks.
It was during a particular three-game stretch that Edwards was fully unleashed, dropping 26, 30 and 32 points against Virtus, Olympiacos and Paris, respectively, between Rounds 4 and 6.
Edwards is involved pretty much everywhere, though, with 3.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists. He’s shooting the ball well with 54.4% on two-pointers, 35% on threes and 96% on free throws.
“The thing with him is that he’s improving his overall game step by step,” Herbert said of Edwards after the win over Olympiacos. “He’s working hard, he’s listening, he’s coachable. He has a chance to be a hell of a basketball player.”
An exceptional EuroLeague return
The last time Gordon Herbert had coached a EuroLeague game prior to this season was back in March 2008 when he was at the helm of Greek club Aris Midea Thessaloniki. Now, more than 16 years later, the Canadian coach is back and making a difference for his team.
Herbert didn’t agree to an easy task when he accepted the head coach position at Bayern, especially as he had to step into the shoes of two-time EuroLeague champion Pablo Laso. What’s more, he hadn’t coached at club level since 2021 as he solely focused on his goals with the highly successful German national team.
Bayern has always been ambitious, yet it has failed to deliver the last couple of years. After making the playoffs in back-to-back years in 2021 and 2022, the German giant fell way below postseason contention in the following seasons with two straight 15th-placed finishes.
Under Herbert, Bayern is looking like a completely different team while relying more or less on the same core of players, with the additions of experienced guard Shabazz Napier and veteran big man Johannes Voigtmann paying dividends.
It’s quite early, sure, but Herbert’s impact has given Bayern the right to dream big. The coach himself certainly didn’t balk at setting big goals for himself and his team. “My vision is to qualify for the EuroLeague Final Four,” he said back in September.
Based on how Bayern is performing so far, he clearly knew what he was talking about.
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball