By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
The Turkish Airlines EuroLeague is a great league on every level and, as is the case in every top-class league, it’s full of beautiful stories! One of those stories, unfolding before our eyes in real time, is Sarunas Jasikevicius’s Zalgiris Kaunas!
When we evaluate a team’s progress, we have to take into account every piece of information: their budget, the quality of the roster, the amount of solutions the coach has at his disposal, the experience. On this very fair basis, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Zalgiris as a team and Jasikevicius as a coach have the most impressive results this season, the most transcendant journey so far, and that they’re exceeding the expectations of even the most loyal fans of the club from Kaunas!
And this is something that, to a large extent, was true last season as well. To take it one step further, there is evidence to prove that Zalgiris are capable of transcending common sense, in a competitive context!
If that sounds like an exaggeration, let’s focus on what Jasikevicius’s youthful and largely inexperienced team has achieved away from the Zalgirio Arena, on all the tough and inhospitable home courts of the EuroLeague.
No team has more away wins in the last two seasons!
The EuroLeague’s format changed in the 2016-17 season and so far it has had beneficial results on every level! Now, we have a brand new league with 30 rounds, where everyone plays against everyone else at home and away, until the eight teams that will proceed to the playoffs emerge.
Over such a long journey, nothing can be… hidden! The teams that have consistency, mental toughness, a winning spirit and quality will sooner or later stand out.
What is Zalgiris’s accomplishment that almost defies logic in a basketball sense? From the beginning of last season up to Round 12 of this season, no other team has taken more away wins than Zalgiris!
Even though they started with a 0-4 record last season, they have now climbed to 12 wins and 10 losses away from Kaunas from the beginning of last season up to now!
What are the teams that have similar records away from home in the same period of time? The European champions, Fenerbahce Dogus Istanbul, have the same road record of 12-10 as Zalgiris; CSKA Moscow is 12-8 away from home; Olympiacos Piraeus is 12-9; and Real Madrid is 11-10.
The magnitude of this accomplishment
Conclusion: In a very adequate sample of 42 games, no other team has more away wins than Zalgiris, and the four teams that have reached the same levels of efficiency and consistency are the ones that went all the way to the Final Four in Istanbul last season!
This fact says it all concerning the magnitude of the accomplishment of Jasikevicius’s team. The big difference, and something that adds tremendous value to this record, is that Zalgiris does not have the weapons of the aforementioned giants of the competition.
They have brought this off with very high levels of cohesion on the court, through perfect teamwork, without big stars in their lineup, and with Jasikevicius’s gift for getting more than 100% out of each of his players. The roster that is made up of eight native Lithuanian players and five foreigners, two of whom are American. The team has an average age of 25.2 years and a coach who was born in 1976. This record concerning games away from the “safety” of the Zalgirio Arena shows that Zalgiris has attained tremendous levels in terms of concentration, psychology and mental capacity!
It’s anything but a coincidence!
Such a successful course, and over such a long time, can be anything but random. Zalgiris plays modern basketball, has amazing chemistry, is one of the most automated teams in half-court situations, and one of the smartest in the league in the way they function on the court in general.
Let’s take a look at the numbers that confirm the quality of their game and the consistency they’ve shown so far this season. After 12 games, Zalgiris have the third-best offense in the competition with 82 points per game, behind only CSKA and Madrid!
They are second in true shooting percentages with 53.6% from the field, third in two-point field goals (54.7%), and third in three-point field goals (42%)! They occupy the same third place on the list of assists too, with 19.8 per game, ahead of so many teams that possess big names and charismatic creators!
Finally, they are sixth in rebounds (34.25 per game). All of these amazing records in a league with huge competition allows Zalgiris to overcome a susceptibility for turnovers. They commit 14.1 per game, the most in the EuroLeague.
A model team, with Jasikevicius building up his coaching legend!
The team from Kaunas deserves a lot of accolades for everything they have achieved and the most important thing is that they can function as a model organization and a guide competitively for other European clubs.
They have a state-of-the-art arena – one of the best in Europe – loyal fans, the know-how, a base made up of native players, and they are crazy for the sport, proving that a club can be perfectly competitive even though they can’t even get close to the budgets of teams that have a leading role each season in the EuroLeague.
Despite this, they find ways to be consistently competitive, a point of reference in the competition and, as of late, one of the greatest powers away from their base!
It goes without saying that all of this cannot be achieved without a charismatic general. Jasikevicius has already proven that he has the whole package to become one of the top coaches in the decades to come.
Following a career full of successes as a player – the only one who has won the EuroLeague four times with three different teams (FC Barcelona Lassa, Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv, Panathinaikos Superfoods Athens) – he’s building his legend as a coach too, from early on, on very solid ground!
The EuroLeague, which knows how to honor its leading men, made him a Legend and even allotted a special area for him in their offices in Barcelona. It seems that not only the EuroLeague, but history as well have made room for… Coach Jasikevicius!
The ultimate driver for the “Magic Bus” that is Zalgiris!