In his debut season in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, Nick Weiler-Babb is making a strong impression with FC Bayern Munich. The 25-year-old guard has featured in every game for the playoffs-chasing team, ranking second in the roster’s total minutes played to become a key component of Coach Andrea Trinchieri's strategy.

Although Weiler-Babb is a novice in European competition, he is following a well-trodden family path and has been able to receive plenty of guidance from his older brother. Chris Babb is a veteran of the 7DAYS EuroCup, having played 60 games in the competition over four seasons with radiopharm Ulm, Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar and Promitheas Patras. Nick is the younger of the two brothers and has always found in Chris someone to look up to.

"He's been a really impactful person in my life," the Bayern star said. "I've always looked up to him as a big brother. He's always been doing the right things and growing up as a younger brother having somebody you can look up to is a blessing. 

"Growing up as a younger brother having somebody you can look up to is a blessing." 

"He's almost six years older than me, so it’s a pretty big age difference. When we younger, we weren't as close as we are now, just because of that age difference. I always wanted to be around him and his friends and being the annoying little brother. Sometimes, he didn’t want me to be around! But we've grown closer over the years and he's helped me a lot over my career."

Considering the age gap, Chris started out on his basketball path earlier than Nick, who remembers following the elder's career very closely right from the start.

"When Chris was at high school I was a little bit younger, obviously, but I was always trying to be on the court before the games with him – rebound, be in the layup lines, like a little annoying kid!

"Chris has always had success. In high school, he was one of the top scorers in the state and when he got to Iowa State they did really good – his team started the whole turnaround at Iowa State – and then as a professional he's had success. He's been successful his whole life. But I don't think that's what made me take basketball seriously as well. It's just the sport I love the most."

Inevitably, Nick regularly faced comparisons to his older brother when he was growing up and initially found that tough to handle, but he has now learned to look on the positive side.

"When I was younger, I got offended by it a lot: 'Oh, you're Chris's little brother, little Chris'…some people even called me Chris!" Nick said. "When I was younger that really annoyed me because I wanted to be my own person and do my own things, but as I got older, I took it as a compliment because he was always someone I looked up to and to be compared to him was a good thing."

After a brief stay with Boston Celtics, Chris moved to Europe to join Ulm back in 2015, when Nick was only 19 years old and had just finished his freshman year at college. Chris has played in Europe ever since, so by the time Nick graduated from Iowa State in 2019, he was well aware that pursuing his life in basketball on the other side of the Atlantic was a realistic option.

"I think the biggest part of moving to Europe is the level of comfort that you feel and that's a problem for Americans," he explained. "They don't really feel comfortable and don't know what's going to happen. So having Chris telling me what’s going to happen, lay that foundation of what to expect and how to treat the situation, helped me a bunch."

Witnessing the positive experiences of his older brother was a big factor in convincing Nick to accept an offer to start his professional career from German team Riesen Ludwigsburg – although he also made it clear that Chris left the ultimate responsibility of making the decision to Nick himself.

"He doesn't like to just tell me what to do; he wants me to figure out things for myself. So he'll give me all his advice, but let me make my own decisions," said Nick. "But he did tell me Germany was one of his favorite places to play. He felt really comfortable here, a good atmosphere and good cities, so he did help in the decision-making. In the end, the process was pretty easy, especially because in Ludwigsburg we had John Patrick, an American coach, and two American assistant coaches, so that made it a lot easier. Germany is a great place."

In his sole season with Ludwigsburg, Nick did well enough to attract the attention of Bayern and was more than excited to step up to another level.

"He was always someone I looked up to and to be compared to him was a good thing." 

"It's a big jump," he admitted. "Especially from not playing internationally at all, coming to a city like Munich and to play in the EuroLeague. I knew it was a big step up, but if you're not ready for the challenge, you shouldn't be in sports."

Chris was also on the move last summer, returning to Germany to join Telekom Baskets Bonn, and so this season will give the brothers their first-ever chance to play against each other. Tuesday, March 16, when Bayern will welcome Bonn to Munich for their first meeting of the season, is a date marked in red on the family calendar.

"We have never played against each other, so it will be big brother versus little brother for the first time!" said Nick. "My parents are back in the States but they are able to watch all our games, so I'm sure it will be an exciting day for them. I think it might be like Seth and Steph Curry’s parents, both of them wearing half of each jersey! In the end, they will probably cheer for whoever wins!"

Nick Weiler-Babb of FC Bayern Munich is in his first season in the EuroLeague, however, his road to basketball success was first blazed by older brother Chris Babb, a 2018 EuroCup finalist with Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar.

Nick Weiler-Babb, Bayern: 'I've always looked up to Chris'

Carlos Alocen of Real Madrid is one of the most interesting young players in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. The athletic playmaker boasts great court sense and a high basketball IQ. By signing a long-term contract with Real, Alocen did much more than joining one of the best clubs in the world.

His father, Alberto Alocen, was born in Madrid and played for Real's youth teams. He had a long professional career, in which he played for Oviedo, Helios, Peñas Huesca and Askatuak, but never got to play for Real's first team. Carlos is now living his father's dream.

"It is very special. It is like a dream-come-true to sign for Real when I was so young. Obviously, Real Madrid, for me, is one of the best teams in Europe and in the world, and its interest for me being part of this team the next 4-5 years is something very special for me," Alocen said. "I want to practice a lot to try to get better in the things that I have to and try to do my best and play a lot of years here in Madrid." 

"I am very thankful to my father because he passed me that love for basketball that I have to this day." 

Though Carlos played a lot of sports as a kid, basketball was his natural choice. His father never pushed him to choose basketball over other options. In fact, he practiced all sports with him.

"I played tennis with my father. I played soccer, too, I played basketball, but when I was 10 years old, more or less, I was playing all the games together and that was impossible because I had practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... and it was impossible for my parents, and for me, too!" Alocen admitted. "I chose basketball because it was the sport that I loved, that I played best, too. I saw that my father was a basketball player, too, but he never pushed me to play basketball, soccer or whatever. He didn't push me, ever."

Once Carlos chose basketball, his father Alberto tried to share his experience with him. Being in love with the sport definitely helped create a special bond.

"I have always said the same about my father. He has always been a big part of my basketball, of my life. Obviously, he has been a reference for me," Carlos said. "He played basketball for a lot of years and loves basketball. I saw his love of basketball in his mind all the time and that was why I chose basketball and why I am playing it. I am very thankful to my father because he passed me that love for basketball that I have to this day."

Alberto played from 1977 to 1991 and Carlos was born in 2000, well after his father had retired. Basketball was important, but getting good grades at school came first and this is something Carlos will always be grateful for, that his parents made sure he put his education before sports.

"I think it is helping me a lot. I keep studying now. I did it in Zaragoza, I finished my studies there, but now I keep studying in the university," Alocen said. "It is more difficult because we practice a lot, we travel a lot and it is different, but in my mind, like my father tried to teach me, it was like, you have to keep studying, you never know what's going to happen in the future and you have to have your studies, your education, and I try to do it every day."

Carlos was born in Zaragoza and his father played for Real Madrid. There is another Alocen, Lorenzo, who is also from Zaragoza and who made history with Los Blancos. His name will be forever linked to a game in Varese back in 1962 in which Real's Coach Pedro Ferrandiz instructed him to score in his own basket to lose a game on purpose, avoiding overtime in which his team might have lost by more points. That trick forced a change of rules. Alocen helped Real win Spanish League titles in 1962 and 1963. Despite so many coincidences, Lorenzo Alocen is not related to Carlos and Alberto Alocen, making Carlos the first member of the family to join Los Blancos' first squad.

"I know he is very proud of me," Carlos said of his father. "It's true that he played in the youth program in Madrid, but he didn't play in the first team. Now, I have reached a dream that we both had. He didn't get it, but he is so proud of me. We share the love of basketball and we talk about this a lot, about basketball and about the things that happened in my life. My father was born in Madrid, loves the city, its soccer team and of course, its basketball team. He's watched all the games throughout the years, and I did too. I watched all the soccer and basketball teams' games and like them, too. Like I said, we shared that love for Madrid. We have family here in Madrid and it is so good to play here, to play a lot of years. Everything is right."

The senior Alocen played in the Spanish first division for many years and faced Carlos's current coach, Pablo Laso, many times. He also played against his current teammate Alberto Abalde's father, also named Alberto, mainly when he was with OAR Ferrol and Alocen was with Huesca. Of course, that leads to some interesting conversations in Real's locker room. 

"I have reached a dream that we both had. He didn't get it, but he is so proud of me." 

"Yes, we have talked sometimes about this. It's a funny fact. I remember one press conference that Pablo [Laso] talked about this. It is funny," Alocen said. "I have talked with my father about this and it's true that he played against Abalde's father, against Pablo Laso, and I have watched some games of Pablo against my father, and it is special, too."

Abalde's father taught him some moves and tricks, but has respected the coaches he had over the years.

"When I was young, we practiced a lot. When I was 8, 9, 10 years old, we practiced together. He tried to teach me some moves or some things that I had to learn. Those moments, I think, helped me a lot to be where I am right now. Being 19 and bigger, it is more difficult to keep practicing together, but sometimes we talk about this," Carlos said. "We talk a lot about basketball. It's true that he's let my coaches, obviously, do their work, and he tries to support me in the difficult moments. But he wants to give me my space, to think by myself when I have lost, when I had a bad game, but obviously, he supports me every day.

"Now, I see my parents less because they are living now in Zaragoza, but they support me from there. It is different, but it is a new opportunity."

Point guard Carlos Alocen has a multi-generational story to his rise to the Real Madrid lineup. His father was a product of Los Blancos' youth academy, but despite a lengthy professional career, never played for Real's senior team. When Carlos did so, it was a dream-come-true for both.

Carlos Alocen, Real Madrid: 'We shared that love for Madrid'

ALBA Berlin center Ben Lammers is in his second campaign as a professional basketball player – and first in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, but there was a time that he thought he would spend his mid-20s doing much different things with his life. Lammers studied engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a school he decided to attend more for its excellence in the sciences than for its famed basketball program.

"I was a mechanical engineering major at Georgia Tech. So I kind of, I guess, had both worlds go in there with some pretty tough classes and also with all the athletics," Lammers said. 

Lammers wanted to play basketball in a place where he could also acquire quench his thirst for scientific knowledge. He was convinced to go to Georgia Tech after he visited the Invention Studio, a lab at Tech’s main mechanical-engineering building that is full of 3-D printers, oscilloscopes, lathes, bandsaws and other tools to enable students to develop projects. 

"I'd be up with my group mates, like doing a report or building something. And it would be 5:00 in the morning. And then I would have to go to basketball practice." 

"It's a lab with a bunch of different machines and so that any student could use at any time," Lammers said. "When I saw that, I was... it made me pretty happy. And yeah, it was definitely one of the things that made me want to go to Tech."

He showed interest in robotics and would spend endless hours working on prototypes. He would practice in the morning and afternoons and study until late at night. Lammers particularly liked a class called Mechanical Engineering 2110 (Creative Decisions and Design), in which students collaborate to build a robot that competes against other teams. Lammers became the team’s main programmer, using LabVIEW, often staying up all night to code.

"We're about like halfway through our college career. It's one of the classes where you have to get a team of four people usually and they have to build these robots that have specific jobs to do. So, for instance, you had to like go grab some stuff off to the side, kind of slam on something and like pick it up and then also reach out across probably like a meter and a half to kind of like drop something off in the center. And like, you get points for all the stuff you collected and all the actions you did. And so that's one of the things we did for the full semester," he explained.

Lammers's team was ranked 27th out of 28 but they surprised everybody: "At the end, everyone's robots competed. And then it's kind of like a tournament where, you know, if you're relatively good enough, it moved on, and ours made it to the semifinals, which is pretty good, given that there was a preliminary round where they ranked you and our robot messed up a little bit. So it kind of made us the underdog," Lammers recalled.

"But this is also a class where I had to stay up pretty much the entire night, multiple nights to kind of do some of these things. And then also what would happen is like I'd be up with my group mates, like doing a report or building something. And it would be 5:00 in the morning. And then I would have to go to practice because we would have an early morning practice. It was a rough summer, but also really fun."

Even though it is hard to compare coding and basketball, there is a rule that applies to both: if you are patient, persevere and keep working hard, it often pays off. And that in many ways describes Lammers on and off the court. 

"Sometimes you get frustrated on the court, you're not making all your shots, just like maybe your code doesn't work for a couple hours in a row," Lammers said. "And then the perseverance, you keep on shooting or you keep on trying and eventually everything gets together and you start making shots or the code starts working."

Much to his surprise, Lammers is not the only coder in ALBA Berlin. Head coach Aito Garcia Reneses studied telecommunications when electronic scoreboards were implemented in Spain some 50 years ago. Aito contacted the company that imported those scoreboards to Spain. He created and designed an electronic scoreboard model that was cheaper and was eventually installed in around 30 arenas around the country.

"He told me that actually, like one of the first things he said is that he designed it and there are a bunch of them in Spain which are still there, which was pretty cool. I didn't know that at all. Normally coaches here, they have always been coaches or ex-players and everything. So it is kind of funky that he designed scoreboards and everything. You don't expect that!" Lammers said.

Lammers is not done learning. He continues to study engineering while playing basketball. Last summer he took an online class at Georgia Tech. 

"I still try to do some stuff to keep my mind a little active." 

"I still try to do some stuff to keep my mind a little active. And this past summer, I learned, basically, how you make a bunch of different things, like if it's like a metal pressed or if it's plastic or a 3D printer kind of things. I like the basics of all that," he said. "I'm kind of used to having to learn by myself a little bit because, with Georgia Tech, my basketball schedule was always so crazy that I wouldn't be at class sometimes for two or three days out of the week. So I'd always just have to read the textbook and catch myself or look up all my videos and stuff. So I'm kind of already used to doing it away from the classroom."

It is no surprise that once he hangs up his basketball shoes, Lammers would like to work as an engineer.

"I think my motto has kind of always been that you can only be a professional basketball player for 10-15 years maybe if you're lucky, but you can be an engineer for... you don't have to be young, agile or anything to be an engineer. You can be kind of old and fat to do it," Lammers said. "So once I figure I'd finish up with basketball, I want to take up engineering again. That's always an option."

ALBA Berlin center Ben Lammers is not your average professional basketball player. A mechanical engineering major at Georgia Tech, Lammers is an expert coder and continues taking classes in his free time in the summer.

Ben Lammers, ALBA: 'Engineering is always an option'

Before he focused all his efforts on cutting a path into elite basketball, CSKA Moscow center Johannes Voigtmann was a high-level youth player in another sport: handball. Not only had his father played handball professionally, but it was the favored sport in Voigtmann's hometown of Eisenach, Germany. Although he has not seriously played the sport since his early teens, Voigtmann believes that some of the skills he developed during his time in handball have also proved useful to his progression in basketball.

"The sense of how to handle a ball, hand-eye coordination, has helped a lot with my basketball," he says. "Lots of different team sports that involve some kind of ball can give you a sense of how to be in a game situation, how to evaluate what's happening around you, That's what I learned from an early age and I still think one of my best skills is that I have pretty good vision and a pretty good idea of what's going on around me. That's what you can transfer from one sport to another. 

"It's a lot about reading the room, taking decisions in a split second, and that's where it is easy to compare handball to basketball. You have a little smaller ball, but there are a lot of similarities." 

"It's a lot about reading the room, taking decisions in a split second." 

Voigtmann also emphasizes the physically demanding nature of handball and believes it put him into a good position to deal with the tough stuff in the paint when it comes to battling for rebounds or dealing with contact from opponents.

"Handball is a little different in physicality," he explains. "Basketball is not the non-physical sport anymore that it once might have been, but handball is harder and more violent, if you can say that!

"I still follow handball a lot, and one of the top players in the last decade has been Nikola Karabatic [who is currently sidelined by a long-term injury]. He always has to suffer a lot in games. He gets beaten up, like really beaten up. From handball's standpoint, when you're a high-level player you have to take a lot of literally punches and not get [taken] out of your way.

"I think that's something else you can take into basketball, not to get [taken] out of your way even if someone is playing very physical with you and trying to get you out of your comfort zone. In general, every top athlete has to be mentally very strong in that way."

There are also tactical aspects of handball that transfer easily to the basketball court, such as the ability to respond immediately to new phases of action.

"In handball, after every goal, you have to go to the midcourt and do a restart," Voigtmann explains. "So after you concede a goal, you have to transition very quickly, forget that you've just received a goal, and go into offense as quick as you can."

And the comparisons don't end there. As a keen watcher of many sports, Voigtmann is struck by the frequency with which certain tactical strategies employed in basketball also have very similar parallels in other sports. "

When I have a day off I watch everything, from tennis to American football, soccer, handball, Tour de France, Formula One... I'm very interested in every sport there is!" he says, before pinpointing some of the basketball strategies he has seen in other sports.

"In soccer you see some teams defend set pieces in zone coverage, but others going man to man. And the attacking teams often set screens or picks to create space for a teammate. Being in a certain space with other people, they are trying to prevent you from doing something. In handball they use pick-and-roll – the rules are a little different, it's called a little different – but they use pick-and-roll. 

"To capitalize on the mistakes of the opponent – that's across the board for so many sports." 

"For many team sports, there are similar things you see in all of them. Basically, you are trying to create very high-percentage shooting actions. That's what you want, whatever sport you are playing. And you are also trying to capitalize on the mistakes of the opponent – that's across the board for so many sports."

As a sports junkie, Voigtmann is happy to have plenty of his CSKA colleagues to discuss the latest action from around the world:

"A lot of the guys here at CSKA follow other sports, too. Mike James and I both cheer for the Green Bay Packers in the NFL. Dani Hackett knows a lot about soccer. One of our physios, Alexander Selyavkin, was physio for the biathlon team of Russia, so I talk winter sports with him. And another trainer is a UFC guy, so I have a lot of guys with different skill sets to talk to!"

As a sports junkie, CSKA Moscow center Johannes Voigtmann tries to take lessons to basketball from every sport he follows, including the one he pursued first, handball.

Johannes Voigtmann, CSKA: 'I'm very interested in every sport there is!'

In the latest episode of The Crossover, Joe Arlauckas gets to know Maccabi Tel Aviv's Ioannis Sfairopoulos, who bided his time as a long-term assistant before skyrocketing into the top echelon of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague head coaches over the last seven seasons.

The son of a soccer pro, Sfairopoulos chose basketball as his sport, but by age 21, had given up playing to coach his amateur club, Apollon Kalamarias, in his hometown of Thessaloniki. In his 11th season there, Apollon won Greece's third-division title, earning him an assistant coach's slot at nearby PAOK, where he stayed seven seasons, one as head coach, while also assisting for the Greek national team. Though he rarely slept in those predigital years full of scouting and video analysis, Sfairopoulos considers his assistant coaching experience essential to his formation.

11:20 "Whatever I did all those years up to this moment – and I continue to do – is always to learn and to be better and improve myself," Sfairopoulos says. "I didn't know until what point I would reach in my career, to what level I would go, but I worked as hard as I could."

His learning process continued in the EuroLeague as Sfairopoulos joined Olympiacos Piraeus for three seasons starting in 2005, coaching under former champions Jonas Kazlauskas, Pini Gershon and Panagiotis Giannakis. After a spell as head coach for Kolossos Rhodes in the Greek League, Sfairopoulos reunited with Kazlauskas at CSKA Moscow. That fateful 2011-12 season – which ended with his old team, Olympiacos, rallying to take the EuroLeague title on the last play between two players he knew well already, Vassilis Spanoulis and Georgios Printezis – taught another lesson.

44:53 "Basketball is like life," Sfairopoulos says. "No matter how many times you fall down – because in basketball you also fall down after a bad loss – you have to stand back on your feet and continue to move and to run. This is the idea out of this game, and this is also the example if we transfer basketball actions to life."

After spending the next two years leading Panionios in the EuroCup, Sfairopoulos got the call to return to EuroLeague champion Olympiacos as head coach after Georgios Bartzokas stepped down early in the 2014-15 season. Six months later, Olympiacos overcame FC Barcelona's playoffs home-court advantage to reach the Final Four and then rallied from 9 points down with 4 minutes left to beat CSKA in the semifinals. Although Final Four host Real Madrid proved too much for the Reds in the championship game, Sfairopoulos had become just the second EuroLeague rookie head coach this century to reach the finals.

1:01:20 "My first year, to qualify to the Final Four as a head coach in the EuroLeague, that was like a dream," Sfairopoulos says.

He and Olympiacos would return to the title game in 2017, only to lose again to a club playing in its home city, Fenerbahce Istanbul. The following year, Sfairopoulos left Olympiacos, but later in 2018 got the call to help resuscitate Maccabi, which had missed the playoffs ever since its EuroLeague title run in 2014. It was love at first sight between Sfairopoulos and the Maccabi fans, who recognized immediately the seriousness and change of attitude he brought to their team.

1:23:50 "They gathered me, they hugged me from the first moment," Sfairopoulos says. "The love I received and am still receiving from Maccabi fans, I will never forget in my life. This is something unique, only here. And I love them too because this goes vice-versa. As we said, whatever you get, you give. Whatever you give, you get. They gave me love: I give them love. I wish we could have them in these games now. It's very strange and very difficult the game without them. It's a completely different game. I'm not saying that if we had them we could win more games on our homecourt: this is obvious. But the game, basketball, is different without fans."

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 first guests in Season 3 were FC Bayern Munich Coach Andrea Trinchieri and Zalgiris Kaunas star Marius Grigonis.

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.

Joe Arlaukas chats up two-time EuroLeague finalist

Maccabi coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos visits The Crossover

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Sometimes sporting careers can appear to unfold along a fateful path and Martin Hermannsson's move to Valencia last summer certainly felt like a date with destiny. Hermansson's uncle and mentor is Jon Stefansson, a former Valencia player who represented the club in 2006-07 and again in 2015-16, and one of Hermannsson's happiest childhood memories is a trip to visit his uncle there.

"I came here in 2006," Hermannsson remembered. "I was 11 or 12 years old, I went with my family to Alicante. My grandpa has a house there, so we went to see him. We called Jon to see if he was in town because we wanted to see Valencia as well, so we took the drive here from Alicante and went out for dinner with him. Unfortunately, he was hurt so he wasn't playing at the time, but I got to see the city, I got to come with him here to the arena to check it out a little bit. It was a lot of fun and ever since then, I always had a little dream of hopefully playing here one day as well. So it's kind of funny that it's happening right now." 

That trip made a big impression on the young Hermannsson, partly because it was the first time he had visited such warm and sunny climates. 

"Jon was like Jordan to me. I tried to copy most of the things he did on the court, outside the court, the way he dressed, the way he looked." 

"The first thing I remember is the weather!" he laughed. "For me, it was a little bit different, with palm trees and everything I wasn’t used to seeing in Iceland! My family used to travel a lot and we went to the States, London, Germany, Denmark, but I had never been to this kind of climate before."

Far more than the weather, though, the highlight of the trip was the chance to spend time with his uncle Jon, who was already firmly established as Hermannsson's idol.

"I was playing basketball already; my father was a professional as well so I touched my first basketball before I could speak! And Jon was like Jordan to me. I tried to copy most of the things he did on the court, outside the court, the way he dressed, the way he looked. We had the same hairstyle and everything!" said Hermannsson.

"He was my biggest role model for sure. Just seeing his career was so impressive and something that I really wanted to do myself. Play at the biggest stage against the best players. I tried to copy most of the things he did, whatever it was. And that wasn't only me but every young basketball player in Iceland. He was the only player we had at this level. He was our Michael Jordan for Icelandic kids. So just imagine for me, an 11-year-old kid to come and see his biggest star in Valencia! I talked about it for the next four or five years straight, so it was a big moment for me, for sure. I was bragging a lot when I came back home!"

Hermannsson's dream of following in his uncle’s footsteps duly came true, and he even had the joy of playing alongside his idol for several years on the Icelandic national team. And throughout his journey as a professional, which included a stint in France before landing in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague when he joined ALBA Berlin last season, the point guard has been able to call upon the best possible advice. So when the opportunity came for Stefansson to recommend his nephew to his former club Valencia, and vice-versa, everything fit together perfectly.

"I've known about Valencia’s interest in me for the last two years," Hermannsson revealed. "Jon has good connections with the club and knows a lot of people, and he's been telling me for the last two years that Valencia was always talking about me and was interested, so Valencia has always been in the back of my mind.

"He basically called me one morning and told me: 'You’re going to Valencia.' So I didn't have anything to say about it! Ever since I became a professional, I've been talking to Jon about every decision I've made, so he's been involved in all my decisions. And when the GOAT of Iceland calls you and tells you that you have to go to Valencia, you just follow whatever he says!"

Of course, Hermannsson didn't solely rely on the word of his uncle, but found a lot to like about Valencia once he started to meet with the club.

"We also had Tryggvi Hlinason, another Icelandic player, who is now in Zaragoza. And there is another Icelandic kid on the youth team, so it's almost becoming like a new Iceland team! They contacted me pretty early after the end of last season and everything about the club – how it's run, the organization, the facilities, the city – was something I was really excited about, especially seeing who we were signing this year, adding to the players we had before," he said. 

"When the GOAT of Iceland calls you and tells you that you have to go to Valencia, you just follow whatever he says!"

"I was really excited to join the club and hopefully bring something to the table. After speaking to the coach, finding out what he thought I could bring to the team, it felt like the right decision – the same feeling I had when I signed for ALBA, although I guess I was also following my heart with this decision."

Stefansson is now still playing at the age of 38, having signed for Icelandic team Valur at the start of this season.

"He's still making a run for it. Even though his body probably doesn't want to continue, it’s hard to stop forever," Hermannsson said. "So he's giving it one more year – he's been telling me one more year for the last four years!"

When it was suggested to Hermannsson that many young players will now regard him, not his uncle, as the 'GOAT of Iceland', he joked: "I'm definitely coming for the crown! But no, the most important thing is we're showing kids in Iceland that anything is possible. Even though we're from a small country, if you work hard and are determined, you can play with the best in the world. That's what I'm focusing on, showing kids that anything is possible."

Valencia Basket guard Martin Hermannsson's first up-close look at the club came when his uncle and Icelandic legend Jon Stefansson was playing there. And he dreamed of wearing Valencia's orange colors ever since.

Martin Hermannsson, Valencia: 'I had a little dream of playing here' 

The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas breaks new ground in its third episode of the season by interviewing an assistant coach. In this case, Darryl Middleton of CSKA Moscow is also one of the most remarkable champions in EuroLeague history, a man whose playing career lasted more than a quarter of a century and included many memorable battles against Arlauckas himself.

From his beginnings in New York City to playing professionally until age 47 and winning two EuroLeague titles since then as an assistant coach at CSKA Moscow, Middleton reminisced about his career highlights, which saw him play professionally for teams in Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece and Russia, win the EuroLeague as a player, take multiple Spanish League MVP awards and lift six domestic crowns combined in Spain and Greece.

When looking back at the 1995 Spanish League finals, Middleton reminded Arlauckas that he still owes him dinner from a bet after Middleton's FC Barcelona defeated Arlauckas's Real Madrid! Middleton's sustained success in Spain led to an offer to play for one of the sport's greatest head coaches, Zeljko Obradovic, at Panathinaikos Athens, where he finally captured the EuroLeague title.

[19:15] "I worked very hard in summer time and all that just paid off, man, by going and getting that title. I was so happy because all the time, that's what I wanted. I wanted it so bad," Middleton said. "This is something different. This is like, you know, a European title. This is great. I needed, I wanted to win this."

Long before Middleton got into coaching, he was already serving as a mentor to some of the game's great young stars.

[14:15] "You can ask Marc Gasol how much I beat him up every day. It was brutal. It was brutal, but I loved it," Middleton recalled of their time together in Girona. "He kicked the ball many times out in practice, got mad, walked away, you say it. But we were friends. He respected what I was doing afterward when he went to the NBA. He understood that's what it took to be tough. You have to play tough."

As his playing career was winding down, Middleton opened a restaurant in Alicante. He retained the same work ethic he was known for as a player, often getting to the restaurant at 7 a.m. to start working, while still heading to practices and games. A phone call from Dimitris Itoudis, his former assistant coach at Panathinaikos Athens, changed everything and Middleton joined him on the CSKA staff in the summer of 2014.

Having already won a EuroLeague as a player – alongside Itoudis as an assistant coach – Middleton knew the sweet taste of glory. However, when they took the crown together with CSKA in 2016, the feeling was different.

[38:59] "I was happy, but I was like, I felt so happy for Dimitris," he explained. "Because it was his first time winning it as a coach, as the head coach. And I know how much he, all the sweat he did. That was a tough year for us and it was tough and we did it and it was good. I was happy. But I like I said, I was so happy for him, seeing him there with his family, with the president of the team. It was different as a player."

All of Middleton's success from basketball came with a price. He was not able to be the typical husband or father and there is no way to recapture that lost time, he lamented.

[45:40] "There's some good things about basketball, some bad things as well. There're some things that you can never get back. The time that you miss with your family, you know. I mean, I missed everything. I mean the graduations, school, holidays," Middleton said. "I wanted to be the best player I possibly could be... I had to kind of like put them to the side for that."

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 first guests in Season 3 were FC Bayern Munich Coach Andrea Trinchieri and Zalgiris Kaunas star Marius Grigonis.

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.

Panathinaikos legend, CSKA assistant coach chats with Joe Arlauckas

Three-time champ Darryl Middleton visits The Crossover

eb-20-21-the-crossover-ep-03-static-middleton-16x9-v3-00000.jpg

In a postponed game from Round 10 that went to overtime, Olympiacos Pireaus grabbed its seventh road victory in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Regular Season by downing LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne 93-101 at the Astroballe on Tuesday.

Sloukas leads Reds to victory in France

In a postponed game from Round 10 that went to overtime, Olympiacos Pireaus grabbed its seventh road victory in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Regular Season by downing LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne 93-101 at the Astroballe on Tuesday. Olympiacos improved to 11-9, while ASVEL dropped to 6-14. Kostas Sloukas forced overtime with a huge three-pointer and kept pacing Olympiacos in the extra period to seal the outcome. Sloukas and Shaquielle McKissic led the winners with 23 points apiece. Hassan Martin added 15, Aaron Harrison had 12 and Georgios Printezis 11 for Olympiacos. Norris Cole paced ASVEL with 21 points, David Lighty added 17, William Howard 18, Kevarrius Hayes 13 and Ismael Bako 10.



Lighty got ASVEL going with a three-pointer and Bako followed a dunk with a jumper for a 7-4 lead. Octavius Ellis dunked twice in a 0-7 run that put Olympiacos in charge, 7-11. Bako followed a jumper with a two-handed slam, but Sloukas and Martin kept the guests ahead, 11-17. Antoine Diot sank a baseline jumper before Printezis and Martin fueled a 0-6 run that made it a double-digit game, 13-23. Howard dunked to fix the score at 15-23 after 10 minutes. Howard took over with a wild four-point play early in the second quarter. Charles Kahudi drew ASVEL within 21-23. Martin hit a jumper, Kahudi and McKissic traded triples and Matthew Strazel hit a floater to make it 26-28. Bako and Guerschon Yabusele each dunked and Lighty added a layup, but Charles Jenkins and McKissic kept Olympiacos ahead, 32-33. Cole buried a three-pointer but Olympiacos kept finding easy points in the paint, as Printezis, Martin and Ellis gave the Reds a 37-44 margin at halftime.

Catch up on LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne vs Olympiacos Piraeus from Round 10 of the 2020/21 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season, 19th January 2021

LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne vs Olympiacos Piraeus Highlights - Round 10 - 19th January, 2021

Martin scored in the low post to cap a 0-9 run. Cole stepped up with a couple of three-point plays and fed Hayes for an alley-oop slam, but Harrison and Jenkins kept Olympiacos ahead, 45-51. Sloukas bettered Lighty's layup with a triple, but Cole and Hayes brought ASVEL within 55-56. Vassilis Spanoulis hit a triple and McKissic took over with a huge driving layup. Diot and Hayes got ASVEL within 61-63 after 30 minutes. Howard bettered Harrison's jumper with a three-pointer and added a driving basket to make it 66-65. McKissic answered with a layup-plus-foul, but Hayes singlehandedly restored a 71-68 ASVEL lead with 7 minutes left. Lighty followed a three-pointer with a driving layup, but McKissic and Martin gave the Reds hope at 79-76. Sloukas took over with a three-point play, which Martin followed with a put-back basket for a 79-81 Olympiacos lead with 2 minutes to go. Howard sank a three-pointer, Sloukas and Hayes traded free throws, and the guests fouled Cole with 9.9 seconds remaining. He made both attempts, but Sloukas buried a triple with 0.8 seconds left that sent the game to overtime, 86-86.

Light split foul shots early in overtime and Cole gave ASVEL an 89-86 lead. Sloukas kept pacing Olympiacos and Harrison gave his team an 89-90 lead. Cole scored around the basket, but McKissic and Sloukas answered with consecutive driving layups for a 91-94 score with 1:20 left. Free throws by Harrison and Sloukas sealed the outcome, 91-97, allowing Olympiacos to return home with a win.

### Pivotal performer

Kostas Sloukas's late heroics allowed Olympiacos to win the game. He made the three-pointer that sent it to overtime and then scored 6 more points in the extra period. He finished the game with 23 points on 4-of-8 two-point shooting, 2-of-2 on three-pointers and 9-of-9 on free throws plus 6 assists and 6 fouls drawn for a PIR of 27.

### Game-changing moment

ASVEL led 79-73 midway through the fourth quarter but Shaquielle McKissic and Kostas Sloukas fueled an 0-8 run that Hassan Martin capped with a put-back layup for a 79-81 Olympiacos lead. Sloukas made the difference in crunch time, but Olympiacos would never have had a chance if it didn't get back in the game with that run.

### Stellar stat

Olympiacos had 9 blocks in this game - a career-high 3 by Sasha Vezenkov, 2 each by Octavius Ellis and Georgios Printezis, and one each by Hassan Martin and Livio Jean-Charles. It matches the Reds' club record; Olympiacos previously had 9 blocks in a 57-62 road win against Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade on November 7, 2014. It is also the highest mark by any team in the 2020-21 EuroLeague.

### Did you know?

It has been a long time since ASVEL beat the same team twice in a EuroLeague season. ASVEL beat Olympiacos twice in the 2002-03 campaign, both at home - 85-74 on January 30, 2003, with 20 points from Harold Mrazek and 89-79 on April 17, 2003, with 17 points each from Andre Owens and Stevin Smith. Its next opportunity comes against TD Systems Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz in Round 22 next week.

Sloukas-001926.jpg

In a postponed game from Round 10 that went to overtime, Olympiacos Pireaus grabbed its seventh road victory in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Regular Season by downing LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne 93-101 at the Astroballe on Tuesday.


LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne v Olympiacos Piraeus (2021-01-19T19:45:00.000Z)

Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv general manager Nikola Vujcic made the signing of center Ante Zizic a priority over the summer. Vujcic had good reasons for optimism because he knew that Zizic had many connections to the team.

Zizic hails from Split, Croatia, just like Vujcic, and has known the GM for as long as he can remember. Zizic's older brother, Andrija Zizic, won the EuroLeague in 2014 with Maccabi. Andrija also played for his brother's new coach, Ioannis Sfairopoulos, during his career. Maccabi's star guard, Scottie Wilbekin, was Zizic's teammate when he made his EuroLeague debut with Darussafaka Istanbul during the 2016-17 season. And Zizic's first taste of professional basketball, back when he was just 16 years old, came during a summer tryout with the Israeli champs.

With all of those reasons in the back of Zizic's mind, it was almost a slam dunk that he would find himself in Tel Aviv this season, admitted Zizic, who signed a two-year deal with Maccabi in late August. 

"Vujcic helped me a lot in that time to make a huge step in my career." 

"This decision was, in the end, pretty easy and pretty simple," he said. "When I decided to come back to Europe, I got offers from different teams, but Maccabi was always there. I felt always that they wanted me so bad and, you know, I feel welcome here. So for sure, it wasn’t an easy decision, but in the end, it was like pretty simple. I spoke with the coach, I spoke with Nikola [Vujcic] and I said, that's it."

Andrija Zizic is 17 years older than Ante and, in many ways, paved a path that helped the budding star find greatness.

"He's been really important," Ante said of Andrija. "He's my mentor. I've learned a lot from him. He’s been a big support. For sure he's taught me a lot."

Andrija is just a year and a half younger than Vujcic and the two were teammates at Split, where they made their professional debuts in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Vujcic was 23 when he left Split to sign with Maccabi in 2001. Andrija first went to the Croatian capital to make his EuroLeague debut with Cibona before heading abroad in 2005 and then playing much of the next decade for clubs in Greece, Spain, Turkey, France, Kazakhstan and Italy.

"I used to follow EuroLeague from a young age," Ante recalled, because though he was just a boy, he grew up following the careers of his brother and Vujcic. "I was always rooting for him because I knew him. So basically I know Nikola since I'm a little kid."

Ante Zizic's relationship with Vujcic took on a more personal feel when Vujcic moved home to Split in 2011 to finish his playing career with his boyhood club.

"He opened his academy the year he moved back to Split and I joined Spit basketball club and his academy," Zizic explained. "He brought great coaches. It was my first [experience] in the professional system. I spent two years there and, basically, he helped me a lot in that time to make a huge step in my career."

In 2013, Vujcic moved back to Tel Aviv to become team manager for Maccabi, for which he had played six seasons and won reached four EuroLeague Final Fours, including taking the crown in 2004 and 2005.

One of Vujcic's first tasks was preparing Maccabi for the season, which was difficult because EuroBasket 2013 would keep several members of the roster away from the team until at least mid-September. He found a solution for Coach David Blatt. Vujcic invited two of the best players from his academy in Split, Zizic and Dragan Bender, to join Maccabi for the preseason.

"We just fit in to make numbers. They didn’t have big guys, so I had to guard Big Sofo [Schortsanitis]," Zizic remembered. "He was like the biggest human being you could see! I was 16. For me this meant a lot, guarding people like him. Coach Blatt put me in the fire and it was my first [time] with some professionals here in basketball." 

"Playing for a EuroLeague team meant the world for me. Especially Maccabi, you know, a team with a rich history and the great fans." 

The stories that came out of the practices were that Schortsanitis, an All-EuroLeague selection two years earlier, was throwing Zizic around like a rag doll, but the 16-year-old would get up and come back for more.

"That's my character." Zizic summed up that experience. "I never give up. I know he's stronger. I know he's bigger, but I'm not stopping."

Both Bender and Zizic impressed the Maccabi coaching staff during their stay. However, though Bender would sign a long-term deal to remain in the Maccabi system, that wasn't in the cards for Zizic.

"I was still young and my parents didn't want me to go far from home until I finished school and grew up as a person," he said.

Even so, Zizic would find himself back in Tel Aviv that season when Andrija joined Maccabi as a mid-season injury replacement. Ante came for about a week to see his brother play live. Maccabi went on to win the title that season in Milan. Unfortunately, Ante was unable to attend the Final Four because his team had an important game in the Croatian second division. However, the whole experience left Ante with fond feelings for Maccabi.

"For me, growing up, EuroLeague was my, 'wow, I want to play EuroLeague,’ because my brother, he used to play EuroLeague," Ante said. "And playing for a EuroLeague team meant the world for me. Especially Maccabi, you know, a team with a rich history and the great fans. I always used to like playing for a team like that."

He would get his chance soon enough. In December 2016, Ante, who was playing alongside Andrija at Cibona, received an offer from Darussafaka, coached by David Blatt, to join the team for the rest of the season. He was ready to take that step.

"David Blatt is a great guy, a great coach. I respect him a lot. I'm really grateful for what he did for me. He brought me there when I was 19," Zizic said. "He brought me there to make an impact on the games and I fit in perfectly. He put me in the starting unit. At that time, it meant the world. It was a huge step in my career. I grew a lot and got experience playing in the EuroLeague."

Zizic averaged 9.0 points on 64.9% shooting plus 6.7 rebounds in 20 games with Darussafaka and was the runner up to Luka Doncic of Real Madrid in voting for the EuroLeague Rising Star Trophy. Alongside Wilbekin, Will Clyburn and Brad Wanamaker, he helped the team reach the EuroLeague Playoffs for the only time in club history and they even won a playoff game in Madrid before Real took the best-of-five series in four games.

At the end of that season, Zizic went overseas and signed for Boston in the NBA before eventually playing three seasons for Cleveland, with which he played in the 2018 NBA Finals. When his contract was up, Zizic decided the time was right to return to Europe and Maccabi was waiting.

Was it a tough decision to make? As he said before...

"This decision was, in the end, pretty easy and pretty simple."

When Ante Zizic decided over the summer that the time was right for him to return to the EuroLeague, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv was a natural landing spot because of the player's many connections to the team.