By Vangelis Papadimitriou/ info@eurohoops.net
Eurohoops will attempt to pick out the ten most characteristic cases of players, who, even though they had the necessary individual potential to be crowned European champions, their choices or their teams did not allow them to!
As you will see on our list, there are players who didn’t stay to try because the NBA came calling, and there is one case of someone who, even though he played in Europe for a very short time, he came closer to the ultimate goal than any of the others!
Alphonso Ford
Team: Peristeri (2000-2001, 12 games), Olympiacos (2001-2002, 20 games), Siena (2002-2003, 22 games)
EuroLeague stats: 22.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.5 steals
We begin our list with the top American scorer. Alphonso Ford was the epitome of the… ‘machine gun’ and he couldn’t be missing from the top ten. A huge scorer and a teammate who inspired confidence in his team!
Ford never got to the top of the EuroLeague and this is because he only had one chance to play for the trophy. In the 2002/03 season, he and Siena qualified for the Final Four in Barcelona but couldn’t emerge victorious from the “civil war” against Benetton and made do with third place.
All this took place just one year before Ford’s tragic loss, at 32 years of age. The American gave in to leukemia but left behind a great legacy in basketball. In fact, to honor him, the EuroLeague named the award for each season’s top scorer after him!
Marcus Brown
Team: Benetton (2000-2001, 10 games), Efes Pilsen (2001-2003, 38 games), CSKA Moscow (2003-2005, 45 games), Unicaja Malaga (2005-2007, 28 games), Zalgiris Kaunas (2007-2008 and 2009-2011, 42 games), Maccabi Tel Aviv (2008-2009, 16 games)
EuroLeague stats: 15.3 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 1.0 steals
For almost 11 years, Marcus Brown was one of the best players in the EuroLeague. An amazing scorer, the three-point shot being his weapon of choice, Brown played in several teams and always did what he knew best: put the ball in the basket.
He was never able to reach the top, even though he played in teams that had big goals. From 2003 to 2005 he was in CSKA Moscow, but the only thing he holds on to from that stint was his presence in the All-EuroLeague First Team in the 2003/04 season.
Like we said, Brown was unstoppable in the offense. It’s telling that he was also the top scorer of the EuroLeague for a while, and even though he retired 7 years ago, he’s still among the top ten scorers, in sixth place with 2.739 points!
Igor Rakocevic
Team: Buducnost (2000-2002, 25 games), Real Madrid (2005-2006, 20 games), Tau Ceramica (2006-2009, 65 games), Efes Pilsen (2009-2011, 30 games), Siena (2011-2012, 19 games)
EuroLeague stats: 14.6 points, 2.3 rebounds, 2 assists, 0.8 steals
Another great shooter and scorer. The Serbian guard was an oasis and a basket-producing machine. We’ll only mention that he has received the Alphonso Ford award three times as the top scorer in the competition! No one has more such awards than the now 40-year-old Rakocevic.
In spite of what he did on the court, he never got a trophy. Rakocevic had the chance to be crowned European champion twice, but Tau, who made 4 Final Fours in a row, always encountered obstacles on the road to success.
In 2007, they lost to subsequent European champions, Panathinaikos, while they couldn’t qualify for the final the next season either, as CSKA Moscow defeated them in the semifinal and eventually won the EuroLeague trophy in Madrid.
Pablo Prigioni
Team: Tau Ceramica – Caja Laboral – Baskonia (2003-2009, 2011-2012, 2016-2017, 148 games), Real Madrid (2009-2011, 38 games)
EuroLeague stats: 6.1 points, 2.5 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.7 steals
One of the players of Baskonia’s golden generation. Tau, as they were called then, had four consecutive appearances in the Final Four, with Pablo Prigioni being a key factor in those successes. They were incomplete successes though since the Basques were never able to be crowned champions and this is why the Argentinian never got to win the European champion’s medal.
Maybe he would have done so if he hadn’t left for the NBA after 2011 and the two seasons in Real. He played with the Knicks, the Rockets and the Clippers, but his career ended in Baskonia in 2017. In fact, at the start of this season, he sat on the Spaniards’ bench as head coach, a move that turned out to be catastrophic for the team, after consecutive negative results. A move that also shows Prigioni’s great insight and love for basketball, which is why we couldn’t leave him out of the top ten.
Arvydas Macijauskas
Team: Tau Ceramica (2003-2005, 42 games), Olympiacos (2006-2008, 14 games)
EuroLeague stats: 17.4 points, 2.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.6 steals
The feats of that amazing Tau team are included here as well. Arvydas Macijauskas is another player who competed in the colors of this team but who couldn’t conquer the EuroLeague, either with them or any other team.
The Lithuanian was present in the final of 2005 but Maccabi got in the way and won the trophy, leaving Macijauskas and his teammates in second place. Macijauskas was selected to the All-EuroLeague First Team that season.
He’s not the first player who didn’t make it in the NBA, but he is one of the few who seemed to regret going there so fast. Perhaps because of great expectations or because he was used to being the first fiddle and he ended up being limited to a complementary role (19 games, 2.3 points), the Lithuanian returned to Europe a just one year after signing with the Hornets in 2005.
From 2006 to 2008 he was in Olympiacos, where he only played in 14 games, with his serious Achilles tendon injury and dozens of other complications essentially putting an end to a career that was left unfinished. In 2010, Macijauskas announced his retirement at the age of 30.
Luis Scola
Team: Tau Ceramica (2000-2007, 144 games)
EuroLeague stats: 14.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.2 steals, 0.5 blocks
Another Argentinian of the country’s golden generation, one who was a protagonist in all competitions. Luis Scola, before making the big leap to the NBA, had played in Europe’s top competition for 6 seasons, all of them with Tau. In fact, he experienced 3 of the Spaniards’ 4 failed Final Fours in a row (2005-2008) before moving to Houston in 2007.
He stayed in the NBA for 10 years and in 2017 played in the Chinese league. Indicatively, we’ll mention that, on his track record, he has 743 games and an average of 12 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.6 assists. A real fighter.
Mirsad Turkcan
Team: CSKA Moscow (2001-2002 and 2003-2004, 37 games), Siena (2002-2003, 21 games), Fenerbahce (2005-2012, 81 games)
EuroLeague stats: 11.8 points, 10 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.1 steals
A complete big man who could do everything on the court. His ability in rebounding was what made him stand out. His high average is no coincidence in the 10 years he spent on the courts of the EuroLeague!
And while it was easy for him to get rebounds, he was never able to get… the EuroLeague. The Turk is yet another example that, no matter how good you are, it’s the team that will decide the outcome. His presence at Fenerbahce for many years did not allow him to get a real chance at playing for the trophy.
Tiago Splitter
Team: Tau Ceramica (2003-2010, 137 games)
EuroLeague Stats: 10.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 0.9 steals, 1 assist
His retirement came a few months ago. His consecutive injuries did not allow him to show again what he was capable of since he hadn’t played basketball since last March.
The Brazilian, the first from his country to get an NBA championship ring, left behind an impressive career in the top league in the world. In 355 games, he had 7.9 points, 5 rebounds and 1.2 assists.
In the… second best league in the world, the EuroLeague, he did as good a job in the colors of Tau Ceramica. Of the players on our list, he’s the one who had the most opportunities for a title (4 Final Fours), none of which brought the desired result.
Andrei Kirilenko
EuroLeague stats: 11.9 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals, 1.9 assists, 1.6 blocks
He’s the player on our list with the fewest games in the EuroLeague. But he’s the one who got closer than anyone else to winning the title. Of course, we’re talking about the Final Four of 2012, when the Russian and CSKA got within sight from the trophy. Olympiacos, however, had something to say about that and achieved the biggest upset we’ve ever seen in a final of the competition. The consolation for him that season was the MVP of the season award.
In any case, Kirilenko was an important player in the history of Russian basketball, mainly thanks to his notable career in the NBA. He was in an All-Star Game (2004), he played for the Jazz, the Timberwolves and the Nets, and he counted 11.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.8 blocks in 797 games! His averages were more than satisfactory…
Now, he’s the commissioner of his country’s Basketball Federation.
Jose Calderon
Team: Tau Ceramica (2002-2005, 58 games)
EuroLeague stats: 9 points, 2.1 assists, 2.5 rebounds
The Final Four of 2005 was Jose Calderon’s only chance at a the biggest European title. Tau Ceramica, however, (now Baskonia) did not defeat Maccabi in the final and the Spaniard left the Old Continent to continue his career in the NBA!
And what a career it is! The Spaniard is playing in the NBA for the 13th season and the Cavaliers are his 7th team. We’re talking about a guard who has won everything with his country’s national team and his permanent place in the best league is proof of his worth.
As for his numbers there: 9.2 points, 2.5 rebounds and 6 assists in 844 games!
