Fenerbahce’s Euroleague triumph affirms their stars’ careers

Fenerbahce won the 2017 Euroleague title yesterday, beating Olympiacos, 80-64. It was the Turkish club’s first Euroleague title, coming after falling short in the 2016 final against CSKA Moscow. This time, Fener was in their home city of Istanbul, and with the support of the hometown fans, their dominance was never in question — the Turkish side hit a 19-point lead late in the 4th quarter to seal the deal.

Leading the charge for Fenerbahce were two former top-10 NBA draft picks. Ekpe Udoh, selected 6th in the 2010 NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors, won MVP, dominating both sides of the ball against a threatening Olympiacos front line with 10 points, nine rebounds, four assists and five blocks. He was supplemented by Jan Vesely, who had eight points and eight rebounds. The 2011 NBA Draft’s 6th overall pick set the tone off the opening tip, hitting this brilliant dunk off an Udoh assist:

This was Udoh and Vesely playing at the peak of their powers — they grabbed eight offensive rebounds, held Olympiacos star Georgios Printezis to 3-of-9 shooting and generally shut down Olympiacos’s frontcourt, negating the biggest strength for the Greek squad. Udoh captured Final 4 MVP for his efforts, but that didn’t stop NBA fans from getting jabs in about their lot in life.

Vesely and Udoh both unceremoniously left the NBA despite their draft positions. Vesely struggled to break in with a bad Wizards team from 2011-2014, and Udoh was never more than a reserve big in four years with the Warriors, Bucks and Clippers. Neither ended up in Europe by choice — they were in this game because they couldn’t find opportunities as NBA free agents despite being 23 and 27, respectively. This game was the culmination of a championship season, yes, but it also could represent the failure of their NBA careers.

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However, that viewpoint ignores a lot of context, and frankly is short-sighted. Vesely and Udoh flamed out despite being top-10 picks, but look at the situations those players got placed in. The 2010-2011 Warriors that Udoh was introduced to hadn’t made the playoffs since 2007 and was in the middle of an ownership change, while deciding whether to go with Monta Ellis or Stephen Curry as their franchise building block. He was already a rookie coming off a season as a 5th-year senior — his upside was limited, and he had been tossed into a less-than-optimal situation and not given the minutes that would help him learn at the NBA level. Traded halfway through his second season to the Bucks (another less-than-optimal development roster), his fate was basically sealed.

Meanwhile, Vesely was picked up by the Wizards. He got to play with John Wall as a rookie, but he also played on a team that featured Nick Young, Jordan Crawford, JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche. Compounding that combination of icons of positive basketball culture was Randy Wittman, the head coach who spent three years trying to force Vesely into playing as a swing forward, playing on the perimeter, handling the ball and trying to defend perimeter players.

Contrast both of those roles to what they do for Fenerbahce. Udoh was cast as a screen-setter, rebounder and rim protector, not trusted to have the ball in offenses dominated by volume scorers. Given the chance to work on his post game in Turkey, Udoh now is a commanding hub for Fenerbahce’s offense, able to score or pass out of the post at a high level.

Vesely, meanwhile, gets to play the five at the Euroleague level, rather than trying to get forced in as a small-ball four. Here, he has to focus less on play-making and awareness, and more on using his mobility and strength to impact the game out of the pick-and-roll and on the offensive glass.

Udoh and Vesely have been unlocked at Fenerbahce in ways that they didn’t have the chance to in the NBA. Vesely gets to play as a small-ball five, using his strength and mobility to compensate for his lack of size, while Udoh gets to impact the game with his passing and offensive IQ like a skinny version of Greg Monroe. They can each be the anchor of Fenerbahce’s lethal small-ball units that feature another former NBA forward, Gigi Datome, at power forward. They can also play together, with Vesely operating as a screener in four-out looks build around the hub of Udoh’s threat from the post. Together, they give Fenerbahce two versatile fives, who consistently wreck shop against Euroleague’s more traditional two-big units and have even given NBA teams problems in exhibition games.

The Euroleague final was a perfect example, as the trio of Khem Birch, Georgios Printezis and Nikola Milutinov (All NBA-level bigs in their own right) couldn’t handle Fener’s small lineups combining elite play at the five with four shooters and slashers surrounding them.

Yes, the talent level is lower in Euroleague — Olympiacos’s front line is elite in Euroleague, but at best that trio is a group of reserves at the NBA level. That allows Udoh and Vesely to look better than they ever could in the NBA. But the fact that both players have found success in roles completely different from their pigeon-holed NBA fits is telling. Both guys were asked to play away from their strengths at the NBA level and struggled while finding fits in two situations widely viewed among the worst in the NBA in the early 2010s. That they found immediate success at Fenerbahce, unlocked by Zeljko Obradovic (who has won nine Euroleague titles since 1992) is telling. It points to the idea that perhaps they could have performed better at the NBA level if placed into a more stable situation.

Vesely and Udoh were vital to Fenerbahce’s win over Olympiacos, and now they’re Euroleague champions. Their basketball primes have turned out differently than they would have hoped, but success at the Euroleague level shouldn’t be viewed lesser than finding a role in the NBA. It’s just as difficult to find ultimate success at this level, as evidenced by the eight different champions in Euroleague over the past nine years. These two are at the top of European basketball, and they’re vital to their team’s success in roles their first NBA coaches and front offices didn’t allow them to pursue. Now that they’re champions, it’s an affirmation that they didn’t fail in the NBA, as much as the NBA failed them. They don’t have NBA contracts for now, but they have Euroleague rings and immortal status in Turkey, Europe’s premier basketball hotbed.

I think they’re okay with that.