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EuroLeague is back!

The ban of Russian teams from European club competitions after the February invasion of Ukraine continues, so they will not compete this season including EL giant CSKA. Three new teams that will compete compared to the last season are actually not so new to EuroLeague fans, its former European champions Partizan Belgrade and Virtus Bologna, and well-known ACB team Valencia, which was part of EL in 3 of the previous 5 seasons. And according to reports, all these three teams are busy this summer with transactions, so at least any of them should not be cannon fodder, and the whole competition will stay very competitive.

I'd just take look at today's betting odds (to Win EL2003) to see current expectations for the upcoming season, but please note that is still Jully, and lineups are still wide open for further changes, so this is just very early predictions:

Winner odds around 5: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Efes
around 10: Olympiacos, Milano, Fenerbahce
around 15-20: Bologna, Monaco, Maccabi
around 30: Partizan
around 40: Valencia, Bayern
around 50: Baskonia, Crvena Zvezda, Panathinaikos
100+ winner odds: Alba, Zalgiris
There is a big confusion about the Asvel winner odds on https://www.oddschecker.com/basketball/euroleague/winner where 3 bookmakers give them around 40 odds, but the other 3 around 100!?

Here is the announced schedule for the first 11 rounds. For American visitors of this thread not familiar with European clubs I put city and country from where they are:

Schedule 1st half:


Schedule 2nd half:

Real Madrid has looked scary good from what I saw, I would bet on them.

Not based on betting, just from my own head, biggest MVP candidates, who do you got?

Valter Tavares
Nikola Mirotic
Aleksander Vazenkov
Shane Larkin
Vasilje Micic
Tomas Satoransky
Mike James

NBA Mirotic is the natural favorite to win it again, but I see some serious playing time restrictions in his case due to health issues. So, I'm with dark horse Sasha Vezenkov to win the 2022 MVP award. He improved very much in the past two seasons and now is in his prime. The problem with European bigz (C's+PF's) in this century is that often almost all of TOP15 are in NBA. Vezenkov is an exception because he is a late boomer peaking now while Mirotic already proved himself in NBA but is back in Europe due to injury problems.

I dont know what they did to euroleague.net, but I see mostly white screen when I load that, WTF is this, are my browsers bad, I still recovering my PC, so maybe, but man, I needed to google to find out todays match ups... Hope Zalgiris and Olympiacos wins today, screw this Barca team.

Look at this Barca roster, they are arguably the most talented non NBA team on earth. Then look how they play, Jasikevicius is seriously horrible, he is horrible fit. Man is good when he coaches inferior product. When he has the more talented team, he will always be a weak link with his approach to coaching. All these guys do are run semicircles, I know that offense has a name, I dont know the name, but it is Jasikevicius' dial M for talent murder. Off ball running shooters and post up SFs thrive under him, no doubt, basically players who need sets, because this team only play sets. Why have guys like Heurtel, Calathes or Satoransky when you want allow any individual creativity? This team aint winning anyhthing until they find a new coach, this team does not need to be overcoached to this degree, its a disaster.

NBA TV used to show some Euroleague games. Hate having to fish for streams.

Marcus Howard with 8 threes, damn, new Macijauskas?
Vazenkov was unstoppable, carried his Eurobasket flow.
As a law, Tavares was bad against Jasikevicius' team, Saras always puts a shooter on him and Tavares becomes a liability. Even tho Barca almost fumbled a game that was basically completely over.
Zach Leday with 32 PIR, but even then I watch him and think, man does he look brutally bad. But I always look at these players from NBA perspective, I always try to calculate whom would be best on NBA court, so I admit I sometimes don't appreaciate players for who they are at Euro level. But seriously, this guy shouldn't be able to have these type of games, but he has a few of those every year.
Mathias Lessort looks like he could be a dominant bigman.

UcanUwill wrote:Marcus Howard with 8 threes, damn, new Macijauskas?
Vazenkov was unstoppable, carried his Eurobasket flow.
As a law, Tavares was bad against Jasikevicius' team, Saras always puts a shooter on him and Tavares becomes a liability. Even tho Barca almost fumbled a game that was basically completely over.
Zach Leday with 32 PIR, but even then I watch him and think, man does he look brutally bad. But I always look at these players from NBA perspective, I always try to calculate whom would be best on NBA court, so I admit I sometimes don't appreaciate players for who they are at Euro level. But seriously, this guy shouldn't be able to have these type of games, but he has a few of those every year.
Mathias Lessort looks like he could be a dominant bigman.

Leday is a bad EuroLeague player. I have no idea how he keeps managing to get contracts. Lessort dominant how? All he can do is dunk.

Out of 9 Euroleague games this round, 3 finished in overtime while the result in the other 4 was one possession ball game. That's a lot of fighting!

Yeah, Marcus Howard is new Euroleague superstar. When a guy shoots over 40% from 3 in the NBA, even if he can't hang, it is something, guy can shoot. Amazing signing.
Vazenkov is probably winning the MVP though, having him and Sloukas on the same team looks unfair sometimes. Real loses another game by two points, after having a final possession.
Zalgiris vs Virtus was brutal, not a ton of quality there, but Zalgiris gets their first win. Not looking good for either team though, both look brutal, Teodosic is so bad on defense now it is amazing, he was probably WOAT in his prime, now he is just a cone.
Also, I told you guys Calathes wasn't done, it was just Barcaelona asinine offensive system.

Real - Olympiacos game was close start to finish. My man Vezenkov keeps racking 20pt+ double doubles. Not super talented, but does his thing without dominating the ball like some other scorers. Wonder what he will look like with more space in NBA despite being a bit slow. Hopefully Kings clear the forwards logjam and bring him over next season.

sunsbg wrote:Real - Olympiacos game was close start to finish. My man Vezenkov keeps racking 20pt+ double doubles. Not super talented, but does his thing without dominating the ball like some other scorers. Wonder what he will look like with more space in NBA despite being a bit slow. Hopefully Kings clear the forwards logjam and bring him over next season.

I always thought Vazenkov's face reminds me of someone, and I just now realized it is Big boss form Metal Gear V

Told you Lessort is good. Big who is so good on offensive glass and can play above the rim will always be a problem. Man Virtus is trash, Teodosic is still top 5 passer in the world but he is cooked, shouldn't play at this level anymore.

Zalgiris surprises Barca, 1 point win, despite almost giving a game away in classic Zalgiris fashion. On Barca side, jokubaitis and Vesely becoming the new classic pick and roll duo, Vesely is just so good at that and it seems he found new connection with Rokas, something hes probably been missing since Sloukas left him. Ulanovas was key factor thought, demolished Kalinic and other match ups.

Maccabi easy win over ASVEL. Do not really know what to think of Wade Baldwin. Well, I honestly don't like him at all, but he is looked as Euroleague star, but he just has no IQ whatsoever, no shot, no explosiveness, you flat out see why Blazers drafted him with a high pick and flat out waved him early in his second year. At Euroleague level, he can do things cause he has very good handle and can kind of play one of one well at this level, something that is still uniqae at this level, but my man kid is not a smart player. Good size for a PG, good handle, lacks everything else.

UcanUwill wrote:

sunsbg wrote:Real - Olympiacos game was close start to finish. My man Vezenkov keeps racking 20pt+ double doubles. Not super talented, but does his thing without dominating the ball like some other scorers. Wonder what he will look like with more space in NBA despite being a bit slow. Hopefully Kings clear the forwards logjam and bring him over next season.

I always thought Vazenkov's face reminds me of someone, and I just now realized it is Big boss form Metal Gear V

The Big boss of the Euroleague right now. If he keeps it up I would put it in my signature similar to your Sengun one.

Seriously though, monthly MVP is coming. Four wins against the better teams. The last one was weird with Olympiacos going -21 in 2nd qtr with Sasha on the bench. I'm only used to those 20 pts in no time swings only when Suns play Mavs.

UcanUwill wrote:Told you Lessort is good. Big who is so good on offensive glass and can play above the rim will always be a problem. Man Virtus is trash, Teodosic is still top 5 passer in the world but he is cooked, shouldn't play at this level anymore.

Zalgiris surprises Barca, 1 point win, despite almost giving a game away in classic Zalgiris fashion. On Barca side, jokubaitis and Vesely becoming the new classic pick and roll duo, Vesely is just so good at that and it seems he found new connection with Rokas, something hes probably been missing since Sloukas left him. Ulanovas was key factor thought, demolished Kalinic and other match ups.

Maccabi easy win over ASVEL. Do not really know what to think of Wade Baldwin. Well, I honestly don't like him at all, but he is looked as Euroleague star, but he just has no IQ whatsoever, no shot, no explosiveness, you flat out see why Blazers drafted him with a high pick and flat out waved him early in his second year. At Euroleague level, he can do things cause he has very good handle and can kind of play one of one well at this level, something that is still uniqae at this level, but my man kid is not a smart player. Good size for a PG, good handle, lacks everything else.

Do you think Teodosic will leave the top 5 anytime soon? If you ask me, he's still pretty good, and he may very well show a good game.

Hi all.

What was Strazel thinking when he signed with Monaco? Dude didn't even get playing time in the preseason games. Not that he's some NBA level talent, but definitely talented enough to establish himself as a pro. However, this is a lost year for him. Should have just gone to a Eurocup team or even just a normal French/German/Italian 1st division team and played back up PG.

He doesn't have a lot of playing time in the Euroleague (he is used for defensive mission when needed and he is doing pretty good so far). He has more time during the french championship and he was signed for that.
I'm not sure I would chose to sign there too, but his role is not so different as if he was a back up PG elsewhere. He would probably have more playing time in a Europcup/BCL team though.

crvena zvezda fans openly supporting russian fascist terrorists and Euroleague being OK with that is one of many reasons why their league will never generate big money.

Bunch of good for nothing commies. I find it extremely hilarious when people pick those degenerate ultras and tell everybody what a great hardcore fans they are. Truly a bottom of society.

ShazamDaShiznt wrote:crvena zvezda fans openly supporting russian fascist terrorists and Euroleague being OK with that is one of many reasons why their league will never generate big money.

Bunch of good for nothing commies. I find it extremely hilarious when people pick those degenerate ultras and tell everybody what a great hardcore fans they are. Truly a bottom of society.

The fact that you called Zvezda fans "commies" tells me exactly how little you know about the things you're talking about lmao

Back on topic, Zvezda with 6 wins in the last 7 games since Ivanovic was appointed as the head coach. And we just signed Campazzo. We finally have a team that can throw hands with anybody. The season is looking nicer by the day.

Inspektor1312 wrote:

ShazamDaShiznt wrote:crvena zvezda fans openly supporting russian fascist terrorists and Euroleague being OK with that is one of many reasons why their league will never generate big money.

Bunch of good for nothing commies. I find it extremely hilarious when people pick those degenerate ultras and tell everybody what a great hardcore fans they are. Truly a bottom of society.

The fact that you called Zvezda fans "commies" tells me exactly how little you know about the things you're talking about lmao

Nice to see where you really stand on the issue.
Oh, and everyone knows about the communist past of the club, but that's not even the issue. This cute "you don't know what you are talking about" is not working.