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The newest production in the Insider Documentary Series created by Euroleague Basketball tracks the personal and professional journeys of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague stars Toko Shengelia and Mike James. As the title attests, the two have "Crossed Paths" on multiple occasions. The film follows CSKA Moscow's 2020-21 EuroLeague season, with Shengelia and James among the team’s stars.

Euroleague Basketball documentary: "Crossed Paths"

Shengelia takes viewers back to his roots in Georgia and shares the path that ultimately took him to Moscow. Along the way family members, childhood friends and current and former teammates and coaches are interviewed to reveal more about Shengelia and his background.

“For me, religion, my country and my family are the three important things in my life,” Shengelia attested. “Believing in God is a way of life for me. I have felt his blessings ever since I was a little kid and ever since then I have felt that God is in my life every day.”

James too sheds light on his childhood in Portland, USA, and his on- and off-court personalities.

“I think I’m a totally different person off the court thank I am on the court. I think off the court I mostly just joke around all day, singing, laughing making fun of people. That’s basically who I am 93 percent of the day," James described himself. “I think in the games a little bit more calm. Sometimes I’m a little bit too emotional."

CSKA signed James in the summer of 2019. The following year, Shengelia joined the team, thus reuniting the pair four years after they had helped Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz reach the 2016 Final Four.

"That was defiantly a special team and it was special to be a part of it. I still keep in touch with a lot of those guys, which still shows how close we are,” James said of that squad.

"I am a big believer in chemistry. We had a group of people that was great people, hard workers, fighters and hungry people. So I believe that this is the ingredient for success," added Shengelia.

Both Shengelia and James are former All-EuroLeague selections and are considered to be among the most talented players in the competition, in no small part due to their work ethics.

"The work ethic is the reason I am where I am right now. This is something I would say is my talent,” Shengelia said. “If you are not working hard, if you are not working more than other people, you are just going to be the same level as anybody else. So if you want to be better than someone, I believe that you have to work harder than anybody in the room."

All the signs pointed towards CSKA model 2020-21 having all the ingredients to go far, just like the last time Shengelia and James had crossed paths. Indeed, despite the struggles of a difficult season, they had CSKA aiming high, but the ending was not at all as the two had expected.

"Crossed Paths" is the latest film in the Insider Documentary Series, which captures the intimacy behind the EuroLeague spotlights and provides full access to the protagonists and the people who know them best.

In a decision taken in consultation with German national and local authorities in the interests of the health and safety of all participants, the 2020-21 Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Finals have been postponed a week and relocated to Valencia, Spain.

In addition, five teams have been awarded wildcard entries to join the three others that had already punched their tickets to the finals by winning qualifiers played across Europe in recent months.

U18 ASVEL Villeurbanne, U18 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade, U18 Stellazzurra Rome, U18 Valencia and U18 Zalgiris Kaunas were invited to compete alongside already-qualified U18 FC Barcelona, U18 Real Madrid and U18 Mega SoccerBet Belgrade.

The 18th edition of the ANGT Finals, originally scheduled to run alongside the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four in Cologne, Germany, will now be held from June 3 to 6 at the state-of-the-art L'Alqueria del Basket facility in Valencia, where the first of this season's three qualifying tournaments was staged successfully, as well.

The field features four past champions who won six of the previous 17 ANGT titles. Zalgiris hoisted the trophy in 2003 and 2007, Zvezda was the 2014 champion, Real claimed the crown in 2014 and 2019, and Barcelona took the title in 2016.

The eight teams will be divided into two groups of four, which will play a round-robin format during the first three days of the event. The two group winners will square off in Sunday's championship game to crown the U18 continental champion.

Group A of the ANGT Finals is comprised of ANGT Istanbul winner Real, ANGT Belgrade runner-up Zvezda, ANGT Istanbul third-place finisher Zalgiris and ANGT Valencia sixth-placed team ASVEL. Group B features ANGT Belgrade winner Mega, ANGT Valencia victor Barcelona, ANGT Istanbul runner-up Stellazzurra and host Valencia, which placed seventh in the first qualifier on its own court.

Among the players currently on EuroLeague rosters who previously dazzled in the ANGT are Marcus Eriksson and Niels Giffey (ALBA Berlin), Vasilije Micic (Anadolu Efes Istanbul), Luigi Datome (AX Armani Exchange Milan), Borisa Simanic and Branko Lazic (Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade), Nikita Kurbanov (CSKA Moscow), Nikola Mirotic and Sergi Martinez (FC Barcelona), Diego Flaccadori, Leon Radosevic, Nihad Dedovic and Sasha Grant (FC Bayern Munich), Alexey Shved (Khimki Moscow Region), Yovel Zoosman (Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv), Livio Jean-Charles (Olympiacos Piraeus), Nemanja Nedovic (Panathinaikos OPAP Athens), Alberto Abalde and Usman Garuba (Real Madrid), Klemen Prepelic, Vanja Marinkovic and Guillem Vives (Valencia Basket), and Arturas Gudaitis (Zenit St Petersburg).

Field and new host set for postponed 2020-21 ANGT Finals

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Parents and family members are always excited and nervous while watching their loved ones compete in sports at a high level. 

It's all in the family for young talents at ANGT Finals

But for more than a handful of young stars at the 2021 Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Finals, their mothers, fathers or siblings know very much what they are going through because they have been on the big stage, too.

It should be no surprise if European basketball fans spent some time during the ANGT Finals on Google and Wikipedia checking to see if one of the young stars fighting for the 2021 ANGT title was related to someone they had heard of or watched play in the past. And more times than not, the answer was yes.

Watching 2021 champion U18 Real Madrid play in Valencia, it was hard to not notice an undersized, compact powerful player give his team one energetic play after the next - both on offense and defense, below and above the rim. Surely, a lot of people were reminded of Usman Garuba when they were observing his younger brother Sediq Garuba race around the court for Real. Usman, 19, has already made his name with the club’s senior team and was chosen as this season's EuroLeague Rising Star award winner.

U18 Mega SoccerBet Belgrade had three players with famous parents. Nikola Djurisic, who was named to the all-tournament team, could call on advice from both of his parents. His mother, Vesna Citakovic was a great for Serbia and Montenegro in volleyball, helping the country to a silver medal at the 2007 European Championship and bronze at the 2006 World Championship. She also won league and/or cup titles in Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey and Italy besides also playing in Israel, Germany, Romania, Poland, Indonesia and Serbia before retiring in 2016. Djurisic’s father, Dusko Djurisic, played football in Serbia, Switzerland, Belgium - where Nikola was born in 2004 - Israel, Germany and Cyprus before he hung up his boots in 2010.

One of Djurisic’s backcourt mates in Valencia was Luka Bogavac, whose father Nebojsa Bogavac played for Serbia and Montenegro at EuroBasket 2003. Nebojsa also played two seasons in the EuroLeague with Le Mans and one each in the EuroCup with Hemofarm Vrsac and ASVEL Basket.

Finally, Filip Stanojevic of Mega is the son of Jovo Stanojevic, who played four seasons in the EuroLeague with Partizan Belgrade, ALBA Berlin and Prokom Trefl Sopot.

Another ANGT Finals connection to the 2003 EuroBasket in Sweden comes from Freds Bagatskis of host U18 Valencia Basket. His father is Ainars Bagatskis, who played at four EuroBaskets for Latvia, including placing second in scoring in 1997 and averaging 14.3 points in 2003. He also competed professionally in Latvia, Norway, Poland, France, Russia and Lithuania. He appeared in 29 games in the EuroLeague for Zalgiris Kaunas from 2003 to 2005.

Ainars Bagatskis then became a successful head coach, serving as the play-caller for Zalgiris in the EuroLeague in 2006 and 2007 and also guiding Ukrainian side Budivelnyk, Nizhny Novgorod of Russia and Israeli giant Maccabi Tel Aviv in the EuroLeague. He was the Latvian senior national team head coach from 2011 to 2017 and guided it to three EuroBaskets.

Speaking of Zalgiris, the Lithuanian powerhouse had a family connection as well. Titas Sargiunas’s older brother Ignas Sargiunas played the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons in the ANGT. He appeared in the ANGT Finals in 2016 and served as the team’s captain.

U18 LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne meanwhile featured the son of a former Olympic medallist in Zaccharie Risacher, whose father not only won silver at the 2000 Sydney Games but also played 96 games over six seasons in the EuroLeague for Olympiacos and Unicaja Malaga before retiring in 2010.

U18 Stellazzurra Rome also had a father-son connection, though Kaspar Kuusmaa’s father may not be as well known. Aivar Kuusmaa played professionally for nearly 20 years - most of them in his native Estonia. The elder Kuusmaa also played three seasons with Panathinaikos in the 1990s. His third campaign was in 1996 when the Greens won the EuroLeague.

From Sediq Garuba to Kaspar Kuusma, many of the top talents at the ANGT Finals knew they had family members rooting for them who understood exactly what they were going through.

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Members of the U18 Real Madrid team very well may have looked themselves in the mirror after Anadolu Efes Istanbul claimed its much-anticipated 2021 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague crown and said: "Now it’s our turn."

Real finishes unfinished business with ANGT title

Just like Efes, which saw the COVID-19 pandemic cancel the remainder of a 2019-20 EuroLeague campaign it expected to win, Real’s future talents were left a void after not getting an opportunity to defend their Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament title last season despite being a favorite.

The 2021 ANGT Finals in Valencia gave Real the chance to finally get some closure and finish the unfinished business from last season. And the Spanish powerhouse ended up doing just that, outlasting archrival U18 FC Barcelona 81-78 in overtime of the 2021 ANGT Championship Game to claim the club’s third U18 continental crown.

"Before the game, we talked about how for the whole year we had been fighting and working together and we wanted to win so bad," said Real guard Urban Klavzar, who contributed 16 points and 4 rebounds in the win over Barcelona.

After surviving the battle with Barcelona, Klavzar raced around the court and then knelt on the court and banged his hands on the court, before getting up to celebrate with his teammates. It was similar to the relief that Efes expressed in Cologne after downing FC Barcelona to win the EuroLeague crown.

Klavzar had a huge release of relief after finally getting the crown: "Our goal was to win this. It feels incredible," he added.

Klavzar was one of seven players on the 2021 ANGT Finals team who took first place at the ANGT Munich in 2019-20 with a comfortable 16-point win in the last game to qualify for the ANGT Finals for a seventh straight year. The others were Sediq Garuba, Konstantin Kostadinov, Eli Ndiaye, Juan Nunez, Matteo Spagnolo and Tristan Vukcevic. Nunez and Vukcevic were not on hand for the end of the ANGT Finals as both were with Real’s senior team. Vukcevic did not play at the ANGT Istanbul for the same reason. Owen Aquino was on hand at both of the last two qualifiers, but missed the ANGT Finals

"We worked all year just for this," added Spagnolo, who was the only member of the Real team that won the 2019 ANGT title in Vitoria-Gasteiz and played in Valencia.

Spagnolo was hampered in this season’s finals and only played in the championship game, where he tallied 8 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. It was Spagnolo's third appearance in the title bout; he also played for U18 Stellazzurra Rome in the 2018 ANGT Championship Game, a loss to U18 Rytas Vilnius.

The playmaker also became just the 10th player to win two ANGT trophies. Anatoly Kashirov, Vasily Zavourev, Artur Urazmanov and Iliya Astafiev all won the crowns for U18 CSKA Moscow in 2004 and 2005 and Iliya Gusev was part of CSKA’s winning teams in 2005 and 2006. Besides the CSKA three-peat, the only other club to win back-to-back ANGT trophies was U18 FMP Belgrade in 2008 and 2009. The quartet of Dejan Musli, Branislav Djekic, Aleksandar Ponjavic and Nikola Vukasovic was part of both winning sides.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Real is considered a favorite to win the title again in 2022 considering that Klavzar is one of nine players born in 2004 or later, including the MVP Ndiaye, Nunez and Garuba, while Jan Vide was born in 2005 and Amadou Traore was in 2007.

With its unfinished business now finished, Real can start thinking about matching CSKA with a historic three-peat.

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For those Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament fans saddened that the 2021 ANGT Finals are over and wishing they could watch more of the stars from this past season, you are in luck. 

Plenty of 2020-21 ANGT stars expected back next season

That is because many of the top players from the just-completed season will likely be back for 2021-22 since they were born in 2004... or even later.

There are many benefits to pushing a player from a younger generation and having them play with older players. One of them is that they learn by watching others and have less pressure to perform. And then those youngsters have the experience to call upon when it’s their time to shine for their own generation.

Many players born in 2004 or later excelled during the 2020-21 campaign, leaving ANGT fans’ appetites whetted for how they will perform next season.

Those ANGT fans and participants hoping freshly-crowned champion U18 Real Madrid will not be as strong in 2021-22 will not find much solace in the fact that the majority of the team that claimed the club’s third ANGT title and second in a row will be back.

Seven of the players from the team in Valencia were born in 2004, including ANGT Finals MVP Eli Ndiaye and top guards Juan Nunez and Urban Klavzar and Sediq Garuba. Jan Vide was born in 2005 and center Amadou Traore is a cadet from Real’s 2007 generation.

Real’s opponent in the ANGT Championship Game, U18 FC Barcelona, also has reason to look forward to next season after its young players showed they can perform. Big man James Nnaji was named to the ANGT Finals all-tournament team as he averaged nearly a double-double to go with 3.3 blocks. Rafa Villar is an unselfish point guard, exhibited by nearly a double-double against U18 Valencia Basket with 8 rebounds and 9 assists and 0 points with just 1 missed three-pointer. There is also big man Teodor Simic from the younger generation.

U18 Mega SoccerBet Belgrade was hoping to finally pick up its first ANGT title but came up short, losing to Barcelona in the key group stage game. But the two-time finalist will be returning one of its absolute leaders in Nikola Djurisic, who was named to the all-tournament team and should be that much better next season.

The other team to nearly make the ANGT Championship Game was U18 LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne, which had only two of its 11 players born in 2003 but still gave Real a challenge in its game group. All-tournament team selection Kymany Houinsou is a model of the idea of pushing a player as this was his third ANGT season despite still being a generation younger. Daryl Doualla was also a leader from the 2004 group and ASVEL had several 2005-born players who impressed over long stretches of the ANGT Finals, including Killian Malwaya, Zaccharie Risacher and Francois Wibaut. Many of ASVEL’s top players also got to experience even older competition during the season, playing in and winning the U21 French League.

U18 Stellazzurra Rome had the bad luck of having to face Barcelona and Mega in its group, but the tournament was a learning experience, especially for the trio of 2004-born players Fabrizio Pugliatti, Rokas Jocys and Matteo Visintin. U18 Zalgiris Kaunas will have the duo of Paulius Murauskas and Motiejus Krivas back next season and U18 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade’s 2004-born guard Ognjen Matovic performed well with nearly 10 points, more than 5 rebounds and 2.4 assists.

There were also younger players who excelled during the season for teams that did not reach the ANGT Finals. U18 Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Ido Menchel is from the 2004 generation and he poured in 20.8 points to go with 4.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists. U18 Casademont Zaragoza’s 2005-born big man Aday Mara was dominant at times as he collected 8.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.5 blocks despite being two years younger. Also two years younger and dominating was Kany Tchanda of U18 Herbalife Gran Canaria with 13.8 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocks.

Looking at the number of younger players who shined in 2020-21 and knowing they will be back to show even more next season makes the wait for the 2021-22 campaign at least a little easier.

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