On Wednesday, Zenit St Petersburg made official that big man Alex Poythress will stay in the team for one more season. Poythress (2.06 meters, 30 years old) was one of Zenit's best players last season, in which the team made the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague playoffs for the first time. Poythress played 32 games, and averaged 8.6 points and 4.3 rebounds in almost 19 minutes on court in his EuroLeague debut season.



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">1⃣+ <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexTheGreat22?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AlexTheGreat22</a> .<br>Keep crushing the boards and defending the paint. <a href="https://t.co/Wws8xjg1rC">pic.twitter.com/Wws8xjg1rC</a></p>&mdash; Basketball club Zenit (@zenitbasket) <a href="https://twitter.com/zenitbasket/status/1405088243784245248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Poythress previously played for Galatasaray Istanbul in Turkey, Jilin Northeast Tigers in China, Philadelphia, Indiana and Atlanta in the NBA, as well as Fort Wayne and Erie in the G-League. He played college basketball at the University of Kentucky and reached back-to-back NCAA Final Fours in 2014 and 2015.

Zenit, Poythress stay together

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The 50-40-90 club is an exclusive one with membership reserved only for the best shooters in the game. To be able to count oneself in, a player must shoot at least 50% on two-point shots, 40% on three-pointers and 90% on free throws. To put that in perspective, the league average this season was 53.6% on twos, 37.8% on threes and 79.4% on free throws.

Joining the club is traditionally quite tough since so few big men shoot well enough from downtown to qualify, so few perimeter players shoot as well on their twos and among the remaining elite who meet those criteria, there were only 20 players who made 90% of their free throws this season! However, the 2020-21 season was like no season before with eight players claiming membership in the 50-40-90 club.

graphic by Darius Garuolis

Alec Peters of TD Systems Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Real Madrid duo of Jaycee Carroll and Trey Thompkins, Valencia Basket swingman Klemen Prepelic, Kyle Kuric of FC Barcelona, Marius Grigonis of Zalgiris Kaunas, Nando de Colo of Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and Rodrigue Beaubois of Anadolu Efes Istanbul made history with their fantastic shooting.

Most of the aforementioned players easily passed the 50-40-90 marks. Six of them made at least 55% of their two-pointers, including the Real pair, which each made 60% of their twos. Four of them shot better than 44% on threes, including Kuric, who led the league at 56.2%. Kuric also led the league in free throw accuracy, with Thompkins second, Grigonis third, Carroll, fourth and De Colo sixth.

De Colo's presence in the 50-40-club should be of little surprise. It was the seventh time he has had such a season among his eight in the EuroLeague. In fact, not only is he 50-40-90 for his career (54.3-42.7-94.0), but his career field-goal shooting percentage is also above 50 (50.3%).

Only five players have ever recorded multiple 50-40-90 seasons before and only two have ever done so with different teams. Sarunas Jasikevicius had his first with Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2003-40 and his second with Panathinaikos Athens four years later. De Colo has done so with CSKA Moscow and Fenerbahce. This season, Carroll joined De Colo as the only two players to ever have at least three 50-40-90 seasons.

The players mentioned here and their shooting numbers shine a bright light both on the elite shooting EuroLeague stars have given fans over the years and their historic efforts in 2020-21.

The 2020-21 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season was like none before with eight players claiming membership in the 50-40-90 club.

Eight players shot 50-40-90 in 2020-21

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One of the best scorers in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague last season has found a new home with Zenit St Petersburg signing Jordan Loyd to a two-year deal on Monday. Loyd (1.93 meters, 27 years old) arrives from Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade, where he averaged 17.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 29 EuroLeague games last season. He was third in scoring in the 2020-21 EuroLeague campaign, only trailing Alexey Shved of Khimki Moscow Region (19.8 ppg.) and Mike James of CSKA Moscow (19.3 ppg.). Loyd also helped Zvezda win the Adriatic League, Serbian League and Serbian Cup titles.

Zenit will be Loyd's third EuroLeague stop. He made his EuroLeague debut with Valencia Basket in the 2019-20 campaign, when he averaged 11.1 points on 42.9% three-point shooting plus 2.4 assists in 18 appearances. The season before, Loyd helped Toronto win the NBA championship. He started his professional career in the 2016-17 season in the D-League with Fort Wayne before debuting in Europe with Hapoel Eilat in the Israel League. Loyd then split a season between Toronto and its D-League affiliate team Raptors 905, before joining Valencia in 2019.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">💥 <a href="https://twitter.com/mrjloyd?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mrjloyd</a> , welcome!<br>2 years with BC Zenit. <a href="https://t.co/c2EjkBb99u">pic.twitter.com/c2EjkBb99u</a></p>&mdash; Basketball club Zenit (@zenitbasket) <a href="https://twitter.com/zenitbasket/status/1404393537668517894?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Zenit lands scoring ace Loyd

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Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul announced on Monday that is has signed small forward Dyshawn Pierre to a contract extension. The new deal is for two seasons with an option for a third year. Pierre (1.98 meters, 27 years old) made his Turkish Airlines EuroLeague debut last season with Fenerbahce during which he averaged 9.1 points with outstanding shooting (61.4% 2FG, 41.7% 3FG) plus 3.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists as the team's sixth man.

A native of Canada, Pierre played college basketball at the University of Dayton and made his professional debut in Germany with Lowen Braunschweig in 2016-17, when he led the German league in rebounding. He spent the next three seasons with Dinamo Sassari, which he helped to win the FIBA Europe Cup in 2019, before joining Fenerbahce last summer.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="tr" dir="ltr">✍️ <a href="https://twitter.com/DyshawnPierre?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DyshawnPierre</a> üç yıl daha Fenerbahçe Beko’da! <br><br>👉 <a href="https://t.co/HYqTBYSXYE">https://t.co/HYqTBYSXYE</a> <a href="https://t.co/B4jKZBvLYn">pic.twitter.com/B4jKZBvLYn</a></p>&mdash; Fenerbahçe Beko (@FBBasketbol) <a href="https://twitter.com/FBBasketbol/status/1404363281423347715?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Fenerbahce pens Pierre to multi-year extension

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In 2017, Vasilije Micic was playing in Turkey when the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four was played in Istanbul. He bought tickets to sit in the last row at the top of Sinan Erdem Dome for the semifinals and couldn't get tickets for the championship game! So much has changed since then. Today, Micic is on top of the basketball world after leading Anadolu Efes Istanbul to EuroLeague glory for the first time in a season that saw him capture both the EuroLeague MVP and Final Four MVP trophies, too.

With his triumphant season now in the rear-view mirror, Micic sat down for a lengthy chat with his new friend, The Crossover host Joe Arlauckas. Though their conversation covered all of Micic's career, it focused more heavily on the last five years during which Micic has risen to basketball stardom.

Early on, Micic showed that he is not your average athlete. He grew up as a skier and his sister was an Olympic snowboarder.

"I still believe that I am a better skier than a basketball player. This is something that my father thinks, too," Micic said. "This is my first love. Basketball is actually second.

"I grew up in the mountains, the most famous mountains in Serbia, and the logical thing was actually to start to ski," he went on. "For six months a year, we had snow and there was nothing else to do. And if you have some talent and work ethic, you achieve good things."

The strength and athleticism he gained on the slopes paid dividends when Micic began to play basketball. He was seen as one of the best prospects in Europe after leading Serbia to a silver medal at the 2013 U19 world championships, but passed through several seasons with different teams in different countries before Micic took a major step forward.

Micic also went through some tough times off the court with the passing of his mother. All of his emotions came out when Euroleague Basketball surprised Micic with a video to announce his selection as MVP for the 2020-21 season. The video included clips congratulating him from his sister and father.

"I was also really touched emotionally by that video," Micic said. "That was one of the most special moments for my career, in my life, because when you don’t expect things, things are prettier. When you don’t chase them and they happen, you really feel pure happiness…

"Two years ago I lost my mother and that's something that is a big miss for us. But for the four of us, before we lost her, she was our base for everything. We always built from that… Like every mother, she was one of the strongest people in our lives and all these words that Nina said and my father, touched me so much because I felt it through my whole body and all these memories went through my mind because I really had a lot of situations where many people from my country, many fans didn't believe I could achieve this."

As Arlauckas and Micic started to trace his path to basketball greatness, it became clear that the 2016-17 season in Turkey with Tofas Bursa was a major turning point.

"Maybe the most important [step] for me was Tofas Bura in Turkey. That experience for me meant so much, privately and professionally, because I met one of the most important persons and a best friend in my life, Coach Orhun Ene. He is currently the head coach of the national team of Turkey. He gave me a chance," Micic explained. "I put all my past to the side when I signed there and I started to build my style of basketball that I play now. I started to shoot the ball; he pushed me to shoot the ball. He forced me to be more of a scorer."

After a strong season with Tofas, Micic felt ready to return to the EuroLeague. He could have stayed with Tofas and played in the 7DAYS EuroCup and had multiple offers in the EuroLeague, but settled on Zalgiris Kaunas, where another coach would help mold his game and push Micic to the highest level.

"For me, it was only important to improve my game and to be on the court at a higher level. It really happened like that," he said of his decision to sign for Zalgiris. "It wasn't an easy year for me because Saras is a very, very demanding coach. I always like to say as a comparison, that year was like I had played five-six years at a EuroLeague level. Because the way Saras teaches players, the way he treats players on the court with the details, paying attention, especially for a point guard, was an amazing experience that I use so much since."

Many raised eyebrows when after helping Zalgiris reach the Final Four, Micic signed for an Efes team that had been last in the league the season before. Especially because his initial role was to be Shane Larkin's backup. But Micic likened it to Sarunas Jasikevicius's decision to leave FC Barcelona in 2003 to test himself with Maccabi Tel Aviv. And it worked out perfectly.

In his three seasons with Efes, Micic and the club reached new heights, culminating in the 2021 EuroLeague championship. Micic tried to describe what it felt like to climb the mountain top and celebrate as a champion.

"The best proof of your achievement is when your friends and your family say 'bravo' or 'congrats' and your teammates... you cannot lie to them for such a long period. When my teammates hugged me and they said to me, ‘Thank you', to me and Shane the most, I don’t want to divide anybody, but really, I never felt that before, that my teammates came to me and said thank you. And that's enough to describe how good a feeling it is to win the title," Micic revealed.

With a one-hour format of exclusive one-on-one interviews, The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas goes well beyond the playing court with each podcast to delve into the life experiences that have made his guests protagonists and legends of the EuroLeague. The Crossover debuted in 2018 and has featured such current stars as Toko Shengelia, Shane Larkin and Kyle Hines, coaching greats such as Ettore Messina, Pablo Laso and Zeljko Obradovic, and legends like Theo Papaloukas, Nikola Vujcic and Mike Batiste, among others.

The guests in Season 3 have includedFC Bayern Munich Coach Andrea Trinchieri, Zalgiris Kaunas star Marius Grigonis, Kostas Papanikolaou of Olympiacos Piraeus and CSKA Moscow assistant coach Darryl Middleton, Kevin Pangos of Zenit St Petersburg and Norris Cole of LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne.

The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas is available on Youtube, [iTunes](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crossover-with-joe-arlauckas/id1440034922), [Audioboom](https://audioboom.com/channel/the-crossover-with-joe-arlauckas), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/6T1SYvGSpzyrYZpG9z2wjR), [Deezer](https://www.deezer.com/fr/show/65962), [RadioPublic](https://radiopublic.com/the-crossover-with-joe-arlauckas-6NkdjJ), [Google Podcasts](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzQ4ODM3OTkucnNz?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwiYzr_b78XtAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ), [TuneIn](https://tunein.com/podcasts/Sports--Recreation-Podcasts/The-Crossover-with-Joe-Arlauckas-p1174586/), [Stitcher](https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-crossover-with-joe-arlauckas), [CastBox](https://castbox.fm/channel/The-Crossover-with-Joe-Arlauckas-id1467328?country=gb), [iVoox](https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-the-crossover-with-joe-arlauckas_sq_f1629856_1.html) and other platforms.

The Final Four and full-season MVP relives his experiences with Joe Arlauckas.

MVP Micic stops by The Crossover

One of the best shooters in the sport switched Turkish Airlines EuroLeague teams with CSKA Moscow announcing the signing of Marius Grigonis to a three-year contract. Grigonis (1.98 meters, 27 years old) arrives from Zalgiris Kaunas, where he averaged 13.4 points on 45.6% three-point shooting and 3.3 assists in 34 EuroLeague games last season.

In three seasons with Zalgiris, Grigonis helped his team win three Lithuanian League championships and a pair of Lithuanian Cups and to an appearance in the EuroLeague Playoffs in 2019. In 78 EuroLeague career games with Zalgiris, Grigonis has averaged 11.1 points. He ranks 21st all-time in three-point shooting (44.1%) and second overall in free throw percentage (92.8%) behind only Nando De Colo (94.0%).

<div style="display: grid; place-items: center;"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Marius Grigonis joined CSKA 🤝<br><br>Lithuanian shooting guard Marius Grigonis (27 years old, 198 cm) became the first recruit of our team in the offseason. The contract with the player is valid until the summer of 2024. <a href="https://t.co/Ef5Sa6UNtP">pic.twitter.com/Ef5Sa6UNtP</a></p>&mdash; CSKA Moscow (@cskabasket) <a href="https://twitter.com/cskabasket/status/1403594201724489728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>

Grigonis started his career with Zalgiris's youth teams and also played for Huesca, Manresa and Tenerife in Spain, as well as for ALBA Berlin in Germany. He helped Tenerife win the BCL title in 2017 while earning final four MVP honors. Grigonis is also a member of the Lithuanian national team.

"I'm really excited to be part of CSKA. CSKA has been one of the best organizations over the years and has won many championships, so as an athlete, to be able to play for this club is a big achievement for me," Grigonis said after the announcement. "I'm looking forward to meeting the CSKA family and showing what I am capable of."

CSKA lands scoring ace Grigonis

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Olympiacos Piraeus struck quickly to sign guard Thomas Walkup to a multiyear deal. Walkup (1.93 meters, 28 years old) spent the past three seasons with Zalgiris Kaunas, where he made his EuroLeague debut. He averaged 8.2 points, 4.5 assists and 1.1 steals per game last season. Walkup helped Zalgiris win the Lithuanian League each season he was there as well as a pair of Lithuanian Cups. After playing college basketball at Stephen F. Austin State University from 2012 to 2016, Walkup started his pro career with Windy City of the D-League. In the summer of 2017, he signed his first contract in Europe with MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg of Germany.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="el" dir="ltr">Η ΚΑΕ Ολυμπιακός ανακοινώνει την απόκτηση του Τόμας Γουόκαπ. Ο Αμερικανός γκαρντ υπέγραψε συμβόλαιο τριετούς διάρκειας. Διαβάστε περισσότερα εδώ: <a href="https://t.co/2n17J1JsuY">https://t.co/2n17J1JsuY</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OlympiacosBC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OlympiacosBC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeAreOlympiacos?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeAreOlympiacos</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TogetherWeFight?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TogetherWeFight</a> <a href="https://t.co/UTBUmL71XO">pic.twitter.com/UTBUmL71XO</a></p>&mdash; Olympiacos B.C. (@olympiacosbc) <a href="https://twitter.com/olympiacosbc/status/1403338294004420617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 11, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Olympiacos pens Walkup to three-year deal

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