By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Eurohoops presents the Top 100 EuroLeague Players ahead of the 2019-2020 season. A list of players compiled with some specific criteria with the purpose of tracing and ranking those hoopers that are expected to define the upcoming EuroLeague season.
While there are some objective and factual elements/data that were taken into consideration when choosing the 100 players and then ranking them, the final result is, inevitably, subjective.
As always, there was a calculated risk with EuroLeague newcomers, especially those who are completely unfamiliar with European basketball. Hence why some players who will now take their first steps in EuroLeague have been omitted from the list or where placed in lower positions in comparison with “rookies” that already have considerable experience at a competitive level of European basketball. Experience in this level and type of game matters since we’ve seen no few quality players, even established NBAers, immensely struggle in their new surroundings simply because of their unfamiliarity with everything that European basketball encompasses.
What should be noted is that a player of a team that is a title or Final Four contender automatically got a relative priority over another with possibly similar or equal, maybe even superior individual strengths. This is why you will find that there is an increased number of players from well-known powerhouses. Of course, there’s also the fact that these teams usually sign a lot of top talent.
It goes without saying that injuries also played a part in picking and ranking the players.
This year there is a slight change in the usual Eurohoops Top 100 Players ranking criteria. Past achievements (individual awards/team titles) are no longer considered or taken into account with the same gravity they used to carry in previous Top 100 features.
It should also be noted that the place an “x player” gets in the list doesn’t necessarily mean that he is overall “better” than another player since there’s a multitude of factors that determine the ranking.
The most important ones are the following:
1) The individual quality of each player in combination with the prospect he carries for 2019-2020, plus the role and playing time we anticipate he will get with his team.
2) The strength of the club the player belongs to. The players of the teams that are usually playoff staples and are considered among the title contenders always have the edge because they combine individual quality with the club’s high aspirations.
3) Prior experience in EuroLeague/European basketball.
4) How the player performed in 2018-2019 and his contribution to his team reaching its goals.
Here are the picks from 100 to 91, 90 to 81, 80 to 71 and 70 – 61.
40. Thomas Heurtel (Barcelona)
Year of birth: 1989
Position: Guard
Height: 1.89 m.
2018-2019 stats: 10.4 points, 4.8 assists, 1.9 rebounds in 21:07 minutes over 35 EuroLeague games with Barcelona.
Thomas Heurtel is expected to miss half of the EuroLeague regular season and return to action in January, following a knee injury he suffered during the French national team’s training camp. It’s the main reason he’s not as high as you would expect in our Top 100.
After all, Heurtel played some of his best, more mature and refined basketball of his career last season with Barcelona, under Svetislav Pesic. The French guard emerged as a leader of the squad in numerous occasions in EuroLeague with either his scoring or playmaking action to help the Blaugrana return to the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
This season’s edition of Barcelona looks to be the more powerful one of this decade and it will be intriguing to see how Heurtel will fit the puzzle once he gets back to courts.
39. Janis Strelnieks (CSKA Moscow)
Year of birth: 1989
Position: Guard
Height: 1.91 m.
2018-2019 stats: 8.8, 2.0 assists, 1.9 rebounds in 20:46 minutes over 20 EuroLeague games Olympiacos.
The 2018-2019 season ended in a somewhat less than glorious fashion for Janis Strelnieks. He got injured in a World Cup Qualifiers game in February and was then sidelined for the remainder of the season.
Regardless, Strelnieks was acquired by defending EuroLeague champion CSKA Moscow to cover the empty vacancy on the roster due to the departures of such stars as Nando De Colo and Sergio Rodriguez. Thus the new season begins with one major challenge for the Latvian combo guard who has the capability of initiating offense in multiple ways for his team.
He just needs to kick it up a notch a bit, particularly in critical moments of big games.
38. Adrien Moerman (Anadolu Efes)
Year of birth: 1988
Position: Forward
Height: 2.02 m.
2018-2019 stats: 12.0 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.1 steals in 29:04 minutes over 37 EuroLeague games with Anadolu Efes.
If long-term injuries weren’t a factor in the players’ ranking, then Adrien Moerman would possibly be in the Top 20. That’s how good he was in the previous season.
It was actually what can be considered a “breakthrough” campaign for Moerman given not only his best-ever individual numbers but also the fact that he made the EuroLeague Final for the first time in his career.
Moerman was the ultimate forward, a scorer who made buckets by pulling triples from the weak side, aggressively posting up his opponents, by taking advantage the multiple rifts, Vasilije Micic and Shane Larkin created to cut off the ball and, of course, after the offensive rebound. Getting boards is a specialty for Moerman who has an often wondrous kind of ability to slip through the opposing defense, fight for the loose ball and grab the rebound against a sea of bodies.
37. Jimmer Fredette (Panathinaikos)
Year of birth: 1989
Position: Guard
Height: 1.88 m.
2018-2019 stats: 36.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.6 steals in 40.4 minutes over 45 Chinese League games with the Shanghai Sharks.
Panathinaikos wanted to add a scoring-first guard who can be the ideal partner of Nick Calathes on the court. The “Greens” did so by completing one of the top transfers of the clubs in recent seasons by bringing Jimmer Fredette to Europe for the first time in the player’s career.
Fredette is a nuclear warhead-kind of a scorer and Panathinaikos expects from him a lot of buckets from all ranges, plus someone who can more than distract opposing defenses while Calathes sets the tone with his playmaking.
The only question is how Fredette will adapt to the physicality and tactics of EuroLeague level defense, especially after spending the last couple of years mostly in China.
36. Bryant Dunston (Anadolu Efes)
Year of birth: 1986
Position: Center
Height: 2.03 m.
2018-2019 stats: 8.9 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.3 assists in 36 EuroLeague games with Anadolu Efes.
Bryant Dunston comes off his most successful campaign with Anadolu Efes since, in his fourth season on the team, he helped the squad reach the EuroLeague Final for the first time in the history of the club.
Dunston once again delivered what has made him one of the strongest centers in EuroLeague since he debuted in the competition with Olympiacos in 2013: Powerful pick n’ roll action that combines hard screens, fast rolls to the basket and dynamic finishers plus diverse work on defense that includes shot-blocking and hustle all over the place.
Efes will look to a Final Four return and so will Dunston, now one a constant of the Turkish side.
35. Scottie Wilbekin (Maccabi Tel Aviv)
Year of birth: 1993
Position: Guard
Height: 1.88 m.
2018-2019 stats: 12.9 points, 3.1 assists in 24:47 minutes over 29 EuroLeague games.
Scottie Wilbekin had some brilliant displays in his return to EuroLeague and debut season with Maccabi following a “win-all” EuroCup campaign in 2017-2018. However, he also had a couple of games that were shooting nightmares for the otherwise highly efficient American scorer.
Maccabi will need Wilbekin to take charge and show his capacity to lead an aspiring squad to some sort of EuroLeague success that has eluded the club for years. If he stabilizes his game, he may become the leader Maccabi needs to make that much-sought playoff return.