The Euroleague in… simulation

Βy Stelios Toromanidis/ info@eurohoops.net

The Euroleague is changing form in order to become even more exciting. But what would the point table look like these past four years if we factored the regular period and the Top 16 in a unified point system? Eurohoops has the answers.

This year it’s the seventh different way of conducting the top club competition in Europe since the 2000-01 season, when it entered its modern era. Of course, the purpose of every change is upgrading the product and raising the level of competitiveness.

From the 2012-13 season up until last year the tournament was divided in four stages. The regular season (4 groups of 6 teams), the Top 16 (2 groups of 8 teams), the playoffs (best of 5 series), and the Final Four. Starting this year, the first two stages are turning into one, which will consist of a championship of 30 game days in which everyone will play with everyone else. The last two stages will remain as they are.

Eurohoops tries to put you in the mood of the new situation by presenting to you how the Euroleague would turn out in the last four years if the regular season and the Top 16 merged in one common point system and what the playoff pairs would be. Of course, this comparison is being done taking under consideration the considerable differences that exist compared with the new model:

With the old system there were six fewer game days (24 compared with 30).

In the regular season, the teams that secured their advancement to the Top 16 from early on would perhaps loosen up in the last games because the outcome wouldn’t be transferred into the next stage, something that cannot happen with the new system.

With the old system, a team wouldn’t face all the others but only those that were in their group during the regular season and the Top 16.

From the “hypothetical” results that came out of the last four years (2012-2016), the following facts are worth mentioning:

Out of the total of 16 pairs in the playoffs that would have been formed, only two coincided with reality (a rate of just 12,5%):

Laboral Kutxa-Panathinaikos (2015-16)

Lokomotiv Kuban-Barcelona (2015-16)

Five of the 32 teams that would have qualified for the quarterfinals didn’t make it in reality (a rate of 15,6%):

Malaga, Zalgiris Kaunas (2012-13)

Fenerbahce (2013-14)

Olympiacos, Efes (2015-16)

In the hypothetical conducting system, 14 different teams were the ones that managed to grab the total of 32 available places in the playoffs, while in reality they were one less (13).

From the hypothetical conducting system, there were 18 double ties and one triple in just four years (!), a fact that betrays how exciting the new model is going to be.

So let’s begin our wandering…

2012-13 Malaga and Zalgiris Kaunas the winners!

If the Euroleague operated with the new conducting system in the 2012-13 season, the winners would have been Malaga as well as Zalgiris Kaunas, both thanks to the very good regular season that they had. It’s worth mentioning the fact that both teams did not play in the Euroleague playoffs in the four years between 2012-2016. The first one would have taken Caja Laboral’s place and the second Efes’s in the quarterfinals of that season.

As for the teams that would have gotten the home advantage, those are the same as those that actually resulted. Of course, no playoff pair corresponds to reality.

Important ties: Real Madrid would prevail over Olympiacos because of the better record in the Top 16, while Malaga over Panathinaikos because of their prevalence in the games between them, as would have happened with the Zalgiris Kaunas-Efes pair.

Play offs pairs (hypothetical)

Play offs pairs (real)

2013-14 Fenerbahce and Olympiacos against Panathinaikos and Armani Milano respectively!

In the 2013-14 season, Zeljko Obradovic would have led Fenerbahce to the quarterfinals, instead of Panathinaikos who would have finished in tenth place.

A differentiation would have resulted with the home court advantage as well, where Olympiacos – who had the amazing 10-0 run in the regular season – would have taken Armani Milano’s place in the top four of the final ranking and thus would have had an easier task in the playoffs.

Here too, no intersections in the stage of 8 coincided with reality.

Important ties: CSKA Moscow would have finished in second place as they prevailed over Barcelona in their games, while Galatasaray would have snatched the eighth and last ticket to the quarterfinals because of their higher ranking in the Top 16.

Play offs pairs (hypothetical)

Play offs pairs (real)

2014-15 The big difference between the top six and… the rest!

The interesting element that comes out of the 2014-15 season is that the results of the top six in the ranking were quite different from those of the rest, a fact that is revealed by Maccabi Tel Aviv’s (6th place) four extra wins compared with Panathinaikos (7th place). For the same reason, two teams with the same win-defeat ratio (Panathinaikos, Efes) would have qualified for the playoffs.

Aside from them, the eight who got the qualification (in reality) for the quarterfinals, were those who would have stood out with the new system as well. The same is true regarding the home court advantage, despite the fact that none of the pairs of the quarterfinal stage coincided with reality in this case either.

Important ties: The “joust” between Real Madrid and Fenerbahce would have produced the first team as winners because of their higher ranking in the Top 16. As for Panathinaikos’s dominance over Efes, this would have resulted, because of the more wins the Greeks got in the Top 16.

Play offs pairs (hypothetical)

Play offs pairs (real)

2015-16 Qualification for Olympiacos and Efes, Real Madrid and Crvena Zvezda way behind!

Last season we would have had an exciting battle in the current conducting system. After all, this is what the total of five ties (four double and one triple) reveal. The ones who would have been favored are Olympiacos and Efes, who would have taken the place of Real Madrid and Crvena Zvezda (11th and 12th place), who didn’t have a good harvest at all during the regular season.

Regarding the home court advantage, there wouldn’t have been any differentiation with what really happened, while two of the four pairs of the quarterfinal stage coincided with reality.

Important ties: Fenerbahce would have gotten to the top because of the more wins they had in the Top 16 against CSKA Moscow. In the tie between Panathinaikos and Laboral Kutxa, the latter would have gotten the advantage because of their higher ranking in the Top 16. Olympiacos would have been disadvantaged compared to Barcelona based on the games between them, and finally, Efes would have stolen the last ticket from Bamberg marginally, since they finished higher in the Top 16.

Play offs pairs (hypothetical)

Play offs pairs (real)