Real brings in character and talent: Season Preview

Real Madrid brought in character veterans Adam Hanga and Thomas Heurtel and talents like Nigel Williams-Goss and Guerschon Yabusele to join Edy Tavares, Sergio Llull and Rudy Fernandez in a new run at greatness.

Maccabi revamps roster, keeps leader: Season Preview

Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv revamped with prime-time talents like Derrick Williams, Jalen Reynolds and James Nunnally to help scoring star Scottie Wilbekin try to catapult this team back to the playoffs. 

It is all about filling the baskets and a lot of great players in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague can do that. Only one of them, however, will take the Alphonso Ford EuroLeague Top Scorer Trophy home at the end of the 2021-22 campaign. This trophy is awarded annually to the EuroLeague player with the highest average of points scored per game. The list of former winners is a who's who of basketball greats. The trophy is named in memory of the late Alphonso Ford, who died of leukemia in September 2004 after a brilliant career in which he was the competition's leading scorer twice. The list of potential winners is long at the start of the season, but gets shorter as the season goes on. Here is a list of 10 potential scoring champs, in alphabetical order, which includes three former Ford Trophy winners and another who led the 2019-20 campaign in scoring when the competition was canceled.

### Wade Baldwin IV, Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz

Baldwin wowed a lot of observers in his second EuroLeague season by averaging 15.3 points, ninth-best in the EuroLeague, last season. Despite not being a great three-point shooter (28.5% 3FG last season), Baldwin always found many ways to score inside the arc, often by hitting mid-range shots with great effectiveness in pick-and-roll and stop-and-pop situations. He knows how to use his physicality and quickness to get past his defender, attack the rim and finish strong. Baldwin reached the 20-point mark seven times last season and at age 25, the best is yet to come for him.

### Nando De Colo, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul

De Colo already won the award in the 2015-16 season. In the last seven seasons, De Colo has scored more points (3,385) than any other player in the competition; Mike James is a distant second at 2,696. In the last two campaigns playing for Fenerbahce, De Colo amassed 1,390 points, ranking fourth overall. De Colo is a deadly free throw shooter, arguably the best in professional basketball history (94.0% FT, 872-of-928), and is also effective from beyond the arc (42.7% 3FG), off screens, going to the basket... a true scoring machine!

### Mario Hezonja, UNICS Kazan

In just eight EuroLeague games last season with Panathinaikos OPAP Athens, Hezonja proved that he is a serious candidate for the award. He averaged 14.4 points and showed that his off-the-charts self-confidence is still intact. Hezonja has unlimited shooting range, loves to take shots in transition and is tall, strong and talented enough to play one-on-one and challenge any defender. UNICS coach Velimir Perasovic knows him well and it should not be a surprise if Hezonja is his team's main scoring reference. Hezonja is ready for a breakout season that could take him to the scoring title.

### Mike James, AS Monaco

His unique combination of athleticism, explosiveness, self-confidence and talent is rare and James knows it. He was the EuroLeague's top scorer in the 2018-19 season when he averaged 19.8 points for AX Armani Exchange Milan. He scored even more (21.1 ppg.) in the 2019-20 campaign with CSKA Moscow. Last season, James was second in the scorers' charts (19.3 ppg.). He joined AS Monaco, where he will play a leading role and make things happen. Can he reclaim the Ford Scorer Trophy? It will be fun to find out.

### Shane Larkin, Anadolu Efes Istanbul

Everything clicked for Larkin in the 2019-20 season. Efes was rolling, leading the standings, and he led the competition in scoring with 22.2 points on 50.9% three-point shooting. Larkin set the EuroLeague's all-time scoring record with 49 points against FC Bayern Munich on November 29, 2019. Last season, Larkin did not score as much, averaging 15.1 points as the EuroLeague champions' second-best scorer behind Vasilije Micic. It looks to be just a matter of time before Larkin reaches his previous scoring level and becomes an almost unstoppable force.

### Jordan Loyd, Zenit St Petersburg

Loyd did it all for Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade last season; he drained pull-up jumpers in front of his defenders, three-point shots from way downtown, backdoor baskets, driving layups – and that allowed him to rank third overall among the league's scorers. He averaged 17.3 points and was accurate from the foul line (90.6%). Now playing for Zenit, Loyd should get even better shots with more talent around him and that only makes him even more dangerous.

### Nikola Mirotic, FC Barcelona

No other frontcourt player in the competition has his versatility, shooting range, experience and talent. Mirotic can use his footwork and post moves, highlighted by a deadly turnaround jumper, to beat his defenders. He is also an extremely good ballhandler for a player his size, which allows him to attack the basket and finish around the rim. Mirotic is also well-known for his deep range and can change any game with his three-pointers. He also gets to the foul line often with great effectiveness (84.8% FT last season), so expect Mirotic to challenge for the award.

### Emmanuel Mudiay, Zalgiris Kaunas

He is the only EuroLeague newcomer on this list, but Mudiay has a great opportunity in front of him and should make the most out of it. He is a very physical, athletic and explosive player. Mudiay uses that advantage in one-on-one situations due to his great ballhandling and an extremely quick first step. However, he is an up-and-down shooter, both from three-point range and from the free-throw line. Still, Mudiay is in the right environment to improve his shooting skills and if he does, not many teams will be able to stop him.

### Nemanja Nedovic, Panathinaikos OPAP Athens

Despite being troubled with injuries last season, Nemanja Nedovic proved he is a great scorer who can put the ball into the basket with consistency. Nedovic averaged 16.0 points in 25 games to rank fifth in the league. He took a lot of three-point shots, 7.2 per game, and 37.0% of them. Nedovic also found many ways to score around the basket thanks to his high basketball IQ. If Nedovic stays away from injuries and can find his scoring rhythm, it would not be a surprise to see him challenging for the award this season.

### Alexey Shved, CSKA Moscow

Last but not least, Shved won the Ford Trophy last season and also claimed it in the 2017-18 campaign. His unlimited range, outstanding one-on-one skills and incredible ability to create his own shots turn him into a natural contender for this award. Some may say that by playing for CSKA Moscow, Shved has more talented scorers around him, but he has always been surrounded by those throughout his career. The fact that he led the league in scoring (19.8 ppg.) and assists (7.7 apg.) last season says it all: Shved is unpredictable and dangerous.

De-Colo-2-002100.jpg

Here is a list of 10 top candidates to take the Alphonso Ford EuroLeague Top Scorer Trophy home at the end of the 2021-22 campaign.

Awards preview: Alphonso Ford EuroLeague Top Scorer Trophy

Milan out to make experience count: Season Preview 

AX Armani Exchange Milan, looking to return to the Final Four, added experienced forward Nicolo Melli to a roster that already included former champions Sergio Rodriguez, Gigi Datome and Kyle Hines.

Dogus Balbay was almost too young to remember – but remember he certainly does – how Anadolu Efes Istanbul won the hearts of Turkish basketball lovers.

Club president Tuncay Ozilhan had nurtured the club since taking over second-division Kadikoyspor in 1976 and renaming it for his family business's beer brand, Efes. Quickly promoted to the Turkish first division, where it has been ever since, Efes dabbled briefly in a second sport, table tennis, but otherwise retained a laser-like focus on basketball, its president's first love.

The first dream was realized in 1996, when Efes won the Korac Cup to become Turkey's first-ever continental trophy-winner in a team sport.

"This club, when it was founded, obviously it was very small, but our president, Mr. Ozilhan, he made a lot of investment in the club and he treated it as his baby," Balbay says now. "Winning the first European [trophy] in Turkey...was such a big thing that everybody became a basketball fan because of this cup, and this cup kind of united people in Turkey. All the young kids and everybody else, they just loved the sport of basketball and the way that Efes represented us in the European arena."

Efes would go on to become the first Turkish team to reach a Final Four, in 2000, under a young head coach named Ergin Ataman. But by the time Balbay came to the club in 2011, after several years in the United States, he would have heard about Efes having become somewhat snake-bitten in its quest for another Final Four.

Despite compiling an impressive 63.8% win rate (67-38) in the EuroLeague between 2001 and 2006, Efes kept falling agonizingly short of the EuroLeague's crowning event, once missing it by a single three-point shot and another time losing a last, tie-break game in the playoffs. In the next five years before Balbay joined Efes, its win rate had dropped to 43.4%, based on a 36-47 record, and no playoffs appearances.

But Balbay also would have known that the bond between Efes and its fans was unbreakable. That was exemplified by, of all things, a team excursion to a classical music concert in early 2013, during Balbay's second season there, video of which has become a classic in the genre of fan tributes to their clubs.

Efes kept fighting the good fight in the EuroLeague – but getting nothing for it but a pair of excruciating Game 5 road losses in 2015 and 2017, both times to Olympiacos Piraeus.

"Obviously, we got really close to reach our goals, especially the couple of times we reached Game 5 in the playoffs," Balbay recalls. "But, you know, it just didn't happen. I guess we didn't deserve it, or we didn't work really hard enough to get there. You know, maybe the other team deserved it more. There could be a lot of reasons, but we never gave up, and that's the most important thing."

Indeed, even when Efes hit rock bottom with a last-place finish in the 2017-18 regular season, the seeds of a revival were sown, first with Ataman returning to the bench for a third time with the club where had cut his teeth as a youth coach. The following season, Efes executed one of the greatest worst-to turnarounds in basketball history, going all the way to the EuroLeague Championship Game before losing to CSKA Moscow. Two seasons ago, Efes was dominating the EuroLeague until the pandemic hit. All of which set the stage for history-making in 2021, exactly 25 years after the inspirational first European trophy that Efes had won.

This time, no jinx, curse or snake-bite could stop a team that, since January of 2019, had been dominating the EuroLeague and thrilling fans well beyond Istanbul with a style of play and a band-of-brothers mentality that became infectious.

"We kept working, our management kept investing. We had new coaches, new players, and finally, in the last three or so years, we managed to keep our main 10 or 11 rotation players together year after year," Balbay summarizes. "And our coach's system really fit this group, so we've been doing an amazing job the last couple of years."

That amazing job culminated in a kid who was six years old when Efes created basketball fans throughout Turkey becoming the club's first player to lift the biggest trophy of them all, that of EuroLeague champion. Balbay had more than earned that privilege by playing more seasons (10) and more EuroLeague games (211) than any other Efes player this century.

"I still get chills," Balbay said in September. "I was dreaming to win the cup, but I never thought of raising or lifting the cup as a captain... Right before the final game, I was trying to imagine myself lifting the trophy, to be honest. Maybe if you watch how I lifted the trophy, I kissed it and I hugged it because I missed it so much. I was so hungry to get that cup."

Unlike all previous champions, Balbay and his teammates had to celebrate that hard-earned and long-awaited moment without their own or any fans in the arena. But now, that only makes them more of a threat to repeat, just to give the fans who have given Efes so much over the decades a chance to celebrate in person with them next time.

Dogus Balbay, Efes: 'I still get chills'

Bayern builds around its superstar: Season Preview

FC Bayern Munich has built around All-EuroLeague superstar Vladimir Lucic with plenty of frontcourt power and experience from Augustine Rubit, DeShaun Thomas and Othello Hunter. 

Panathinaikos, hungry to bounce back: Season Preview

Always proud and ambitious, Panathinaikos OPAP Athens relies on Ioannis Papapetrou, Nemanja Nedovic and Georgios Papagiannis to bounce back - it ranked 16th in the 2020-21 campaign.

A new Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season is upon us, but ordinary it is not.

Already, as opening day arrives, one shining reward is at hand:

The return of the world's best fans to their rightful place as sixth men and women in the stands of pulsating arenas in Europe's most vibrant cities.

Their renewed presence, at long last, reminds us that the EuroLeague is all about overcoming adversity, all about getting up after falling down, all about believing against all odds.

Just ask the reigning champions from Anadolu Efes Istanbul.

This competition is as full of adversity as any in sports. In the EuroLeague, like nowhere else in basketball, every game truly matters.

Just ask the 15 teams who fought into April last spring, six months after opening day, for playoffs spots or home-court advantage.

Now, again, the road that awaits them is full of challenges, demands and hurdles that must be overcome by effort, determination and tenacity.

Just ask Cory Higgins of FC Barcelona, Nicolo Melli of AX Armani Exchange Milan, Tornike Shengelia of CSKA Moscow and MVP Vasilije Micic of Efes.

They helped lift their teams to the Final Four teams in Cologne, Germany last May, but they rep their hundreds of peers on EuroLeague courts whose daily persistence and striving make this brand of basketball uniquely authentic.

And now, all are at the bottom of the same long, uphill road, with 320 games to be played, thousands of rebounds and loose balls to be lunged for, countless steps to be climbed.

This is the quest that they live for, the crucible they thrive in, the legacy they seek.

It's not just about winning it all. It's about getting up and making that journey again, starting over with one thing in mind: to push even higher.

Just ask their fans.

They are stretched out across nearly 5,000 kilometers from Russia in the east to Spain in the west, from Israel in the south to Lithuania in the north. All are ready to make their arenas – indeed, their whole cities – bounce again to the rhythm of this game.

They, too, are poised to push even higher. Than ever.

Welcome to the 2021-22 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.

#EveryGameMatters

CSKA adds fire power, keeps core: Season Preview

CSKA Moscow kept a core of players led by Will Clyburn, Nikola Milutinov, Daniel Hackett and Toko Shengelia, adding fire power with two great scorers: Alexey Shved and Marius Grigonis.