Euroleague Round-up, Round 1: Bender struggles, Gentile does everything, Spain disappoints
The 2015-16 Euroleague regular season kicked off this weekend, with the 24 teams involved squaring off in their first games around Europe. Several Draft Express top 100 players and formerly stashed draft picks are involved in this competition, including elite 2016 prospect Dragan Bender of Maccabi Tel Aviv and 2014 Philadelphia 76ers 1st-round pick Dario Saric of Anadolu Efes.
Each week, we’ll be doing a round-up of all the action, tracking how the best NBA prospects in Europe are fairing. Already, there’s plenty to break down from the first weekend of games overseas, including a surprising upset in Group C, a disappointing opening weekend for a top prospect and a major injury to a stashed player.
Group A
Group A was definitely the most interesting group over the weekend, with Khimki Moscow upsetting Real Madrid 84-70, and Fenerbahce needing a huge late rally to knock off Bayern Munich, 74-67. Khimki, a Russian side led by former New York Knick Alexey Shved and Illinois big man James Augustine, controlled the game on the road against Madrid, which was fairly surprising. Khimki is a relative wild card in this year’s tournament, and got off to a great start behind a solid 15-point, 8-rebound effort from Houston Rockets stash prospect Marko Todorovic off the bench. Sergio Llull led Madrid with 20 points in the loss.
In the Fenerbahce-Bayern game, former Suns 1st-round pick Bogdan Bogdanovic looked solid with eight points, six rebounds and three assists as he helped drive Ulker’s late charge back into the game. Power forward Paul Zipser (No. 45 in the DX top 100) scored eight points on 3-5 shooting for Bayern, and had a very good game overall playing inside and out, getting time guarding Bogdanovic and fairing rather well on that assignment.
Crvena Zvezda of Serbia beat Strasbourg 81-59 in the final group A game, but they had the biggest news from the weekend, losing captain and 2015 Philadelphia 76ers draft pick Luka Mitrovic to a serious knee injury in domestic competition. Mitrovic had 13 points, six rebounds and two blocks in the Strasbourg game, so this is a huge blow to Crvena’s chances of competing in the group. It’s also a bit of a blow to the Sixers — while he was the final pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, it’s never a good thing to lose a Euro-stash player to a knee injury so early in the season, setting back development and eliminating chances he’ll risk jumping to the NBA.
Group B
Group B saw their conventional powers win, with Olympiacos and Anadolu Efes both controlling their games and the contest between Olimpia Milano and Laboral Kutxa going down to the wire.
Olympiacos never had an issue with Cedevita, earning a comfortable 76-61 win. Unfortunately, their NBA prospects didn’t get a chance to show much, as San Antonio Spurs prospect Nikola Milutinov didn’t play and Hawks prospect Dimitrios Agravanis was fairly ineffective in limited minutes. Former Florida and New Orleans Pelicans power forward Patric Young, however, registered 16 points, six rebounds and four blocks in an impressive performance. Marko Arapovic, the DX No. 98 prospect, started but had little impact for Cedevita, outside of being a pylon for Young and Georgis Printezis to score on.
Similarly, Anadolu Efes didn’t give their young prospects much of a chance to show their stuff in an 89-77 win over French side Limogues. Dario Saric showed off his all-around game with an 11-point, five rebound, two assist effort, and he even hit both of his 3-point attempts, which is great to see from the big name who’s struggled with shooting in the past. However, Furkan Korkmaz (No. 13 on DX) and Cedi Osman (Cavaliers prospect) didn’t play.
Milano-Laboral was the game of the weekend, as Milano held off a vicious 30-point fourth quarter from Laboral to win 78-76. Rockets prospect Alessandro Gentile was instrumental in the win for the Italians, posting 12/6/6 and getting Milano off to their hot start in the first half that Laboral couldn’t overcome.
Group C
The biggest upset of the weekend occurred in Spain, with Turkish side Pinar Karsiyaka Izmir beating Barcelona 71-62. Barcelona is loaded with NBA prospects, but got very little from any of them in the loss. Tomas Satoransky (Wizards) had three points; Alex Abrines (Thunder) had two points on 1-7 shooting; and Aleksandar Vezenkov (No. 38 at DX) had two points in seven minutes. Karsiyaka did a great job to capitalize on these poor performances, led by their lone NBA prospect, Colton Iverson (Celtics), who had 16/8 to finish off a very bad weekend for the ACB — three teams lost at home to start the competition.
Panathinaikos lost to Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar 81-70, in another contest that was disappointing for draft scouts due to Vasilis Charalampopoulos (No. 35 at DX) not playing. Krasnodar got big games from their three former NBA players, as Chris Singleton, Victor Claver and Krylylo Fesenko combined for 37 points, and torched Panathinaikos from the 3-point line on 8-17 shooting. In the final game, Jazz prospect Olivier Hanlan showed off his scoring skill in a 66-62 win over Zielona Gora, scoring 14 points (albeit on 14 shots) in the win for Lithuanian side Zalgiris.
Group D
It was a disappointing Euroleague opener for Dragan Bender, as Maccabi Tel Aviv got flattened by titans CSKA Moscow 100-69. Bender struggled to get involved in the Tel Aviv offense, scoring seven points on 3-7 shooting, and looked poor on the defensive end, though this was a team-wide trend. CSKA shot an absurd 67.4 percent on 2-point shots in the win, and had five players in double figures. CSKA is probably the toughest opponent Maccabi will play in this competition, but it would have been nice to see Bender play better against a strong opponent.
Malaga was the lone Spanish team to win this weekend, as they beat Brose Baskets of Germany 76-71. The only players of note here were Blazers draft pick Daniel Diez, who hit two 3s, and Warriors prospect Nemanja Nedovic, who had a very big 7-point, 3-assist third quarter to help push Malaga into a comfortable lead.
Finally was Darussafaka, who dismantled Sassari in overtime to win 83-74. Neither team has a notable NBA prospect, but this game did give us Luke Harangody, Semih Erden and Christian Eyenga together, which gives this Cavs fan a sense of great joy.
Prospect of the Week: Alessandro Gentile, Olimpia Milano
Gentile’s performance against Laboral was notable because he showed some growth in his offensive game, which will be important if he wants to come over to the NBA. Selected 53rd by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2014 and subsequently traded to the Houston Rockets in last year’s Corey Brewer deal, Gentile has always been a talented scorer from the shooting guard position. Against Laboral, though, it was less his scoring touch that was big, but more his ability to produce out of the pick-and-roll.
Milano ran Gentile off of many high screens and into areas where he had multiple options, and he was effective in both getting inside to convert layups and setting up teammates on rolls and kick-outs. This has been an area of his game where Gentile has shown potential but never produced consistency, and this weekend’s performance hinted at distributing becoming a more fundamental part of his game.
It was also nice to see Gentile come away with a couple of steals, because defense is far from Gentile’s strong suit, primarily due to apathy. It’ll be very interesting to see if Gentile, who will see an increased role this year with the departure of Saardo Samuels and reduced playing time of Gani Lawal, can keep this type of production up and make Milano a competitive player in this year’s competition.
Next Week
Round two should be a little more entertaining, giving us several intriguing matchups that look more interesting given this week’s results. Real Madrid tries to bounce back against Crvena Zvedza in Group A as that hexagonal’s power structure continues to get pounded out. Group B pits Anadolu Efes at Milano, which will be fun because it gives us Saric vs. Gentile. Group C gives us Barca trying to hammer out its frustrations on lowly Zielona Gora, and we get to see if Karsiyaka is for real against Panathinaikos. And in Group D, Maccabi-Malaga might be the game of the week.