Dirk wrote:I had to double check, but this guy along with another Euroleague demigod, Shane Larkin, destroyed the competition.
Shane Larkin isn't a EuroLeague demi god. He's never managed to do anything in Europe, other than when he was playing in a stacked Efes team. Baskonia didn't do anything with him, and Efes has done nothing with him since Micic left.
He's also never done a thing with Turkey's national team. He's nowhere remotely near to being a EuroLeague demi god. He's not even the best American point guard in EuroLeague.
JayMKE wrote:Probably not, a lot of these euro MVPs aren't really playable in the NBA; Juan Carlos Narvarro, Vassilis Spanoulis, Šarūnas Jasikevičius, Nando de Colo
Sarunas Jasikevicius was never EuroLeague MVP.
Godymas wrote:no and Euroleague is a joke and the awards winners are not actually indicative of anything. Reminder that Doncic was the Euroleague MVP at 18 and won literally everything that year and he comes into the NBA and has a very good rookie year before adjusting and becoming a superstar.
Luka won the EuroLeague MVP at age 19. At age 18, he was like Real's 7th-8th man.
SomeBunghole wrote:The issue with nearly all the Euroleague MVPs(and even "lesser" stars) coming over is that they are already in their mid or late 20s and already established players. They're not 19-20 year old prospects who may end up carving out one of many possible roles in the NBA; from star to solid rotation or role player. The likes of Vezenkov, Micić, Navarro, Spanoulis, Teodosić and others are already stars in Europe, which by definition means they are the focus of an offense and in modern basketball primary ball handlers. You don't get very many role players coming over from Europe.
The problem becomes that in the NBA, these guys aren't likely to be given the same role and they end up struggling. Of course, some/many of these guys would struggle even if given that role because the NBA is too fast and too good for them, and some might also struggle even though they're potentially good enough for this role but it takes time to adjust to a different game and a different situation. Being older, it's also not likely they will wanna hang around for a few years while adjusting and learning because they can go back to Europe and make similar money and be "the man" again. NBA teams also may not wanna spend 2 seasons developing a guy who's already in his late 20s.
Sasha Vezenkov was always a pure role player his whole career in Europe. Even in his MVP season. He's always been a role player on every team he's been on. His role in Olympiacos' offense was to catch the ball after it redirects, or after a kick out, and then shoot it. That was the extent of his whole role on offense, which is the same exact role he has in the NBA on offense. And he for sure has never played with the ball in his hands at any level of competition, not even at the youth levels.
Juan Carlos Navarro - while he was not a role player in EuroLeague, he also never played with the ball in his hands, at any point in his career, not even at the junior levels. Even during his peak, he never played with the ball in his hands. He actually had the same role on offense in the NBA - mainly shooting 3s off of screens, and shooting floaters and runners in the lane, off of screens.
And actually, you get a lot of guys that were role players in EuroLeague in the NBA. In fact, the vast majority of NBA players that came from EuroLeague were role players in that league. Many of them, especially the draft picks, were scrubs in EuroLeague.
Players from former Yugo are just on a different level. If Ibrahimovic picked up a basketball he would have been a NBA superstar.
