When on Thursday, somewhere around 18:45, the referee drops the ball between the centers of Alba and Panathinaikos in the middle of the pitch of Berlin's Uber Arena, and the new season (unofficially) of the second the best basketball league in the world.
Among the 18 teams that have the honor of being part of the elite European society, there will again be two Serbian representatives, who enter the new Euroleague season with great ambitions, and accordingly, with the attention and pressure of the local fans.
The ever-present need to be better than those of others, which is a characteristic of all great sports rivalries, reinforced by the great success of the basketball team during the summer, fueled the desire among fans Partizan and Red Stars to finally start the real thing, which is the Euroleague.
By switching to the league system of the competition, the Euroleague made a complete hit, at least when it comes to the most important product they present to the audience - the field itself. The introduction of the play-in, i.e. the play-off, has proven to be a good choice, which leaves room for the majority of clubs to be in the fight for something concrete until the last round - whether for the best possible position before the play-offs or at least to enter the play-in.
However, the Euroleague still has a lot to do in the field of marketing and finance. They took a step forward with the announced introduction of "celery cap", which was already discussed on our portal. Matches of the best teams are the content that sells TV rights, but the problem is that this money is not big, and a particular problem is that it is not distributed in a very fair way at the moment.
Serbian clubs, for example, do not receive a single dinar from TV rights, even though Serbia is one of the few countries where every Euroleague match is broadcast live, and it is certainly the country where this competition is the most popular. The subjective impression of the signatories of these lines is that the popularity of the Euroleague in Serbia - through eternal matches, numerous podcasts or the phenomenon called fantasy – currently they can only match Novak's finals at the biggest tournaments.
Therefore, the current question these days is - how much can Partizan and Crvena zvezda do in the new season? These days, their officials came out with unofficial data that the budgets of both clubs are around 22, 23 million euros. If that is true, the (too) high expectations imposed on them by their fans may be justified this time. However, both of them have certain problems and question marks, which we will talk about in the following lines.
Partizan - reconstruction and patience
The previous season has to be characterized as extremely unsuccessful for the black and whites, especially when considering the high standards set the season before. A year without a trophy and 11th place in the Euroleague is certainly a serious step back compared to winning the ABA league and the door to the final four, which Partizan fans witnessed not so long ago.
The reconstruction of the composition was expected in the summer, but no one could have guessed that only one player would remain from the entire team, and the one who had the smallest role. After three years, Panther and Leday left the club, while, with unnecessary media fanfare, one of the best players in the previous two seasons, James Nunnelly, also left.
More than once, Željko Obradović talked about how he "doesn't reach the team", which resulted in the loss of numerous games in uncertain endings, usually after a series of bad decisions on the floor. The final Euroleague score of 16 wins in 34 games is far from shameful or tragic, but it is still insufficient for a club like Partizan, and for the team the black and whites had.
The summer brought as many as 14 new basketball players to the black and white part of Belgrade. There are no names like Panther or Leday, but there are extremely interesting players who are hungry for individual and team improvement. Along with Alba, Partizan will be the youngest team in the Euroleague, with only two players over 30 years old.
Karlik Jones and Ife Lundberg should lead the outside line of the black and whites, Sterling Brown to replace the performance of Nunnally, while in the positions of high players a lot is expected from Tyreek Jones and Brandon Davis. Izak Bonga emerged as the perfect connective tissue of Partizan, who delighted the fans at the beginning of the new season with three-pointers, blocks and jumps.
Among the domestic players, Partizan returned the national team member Vanja Marinković, who was given the club's captain's armband again, while the Black and Whites see a pledge for the future in the potential development of super talents Aleksej Pokushevski and Mitar Bošnjaković.
Maybe Partizan does not have the amount of attacking talent as last season, but they could expect a breakthrough in the defensive phase. The completely new team will certainly need some time to get to know each other, as well as the requirements of coach Obradović. The impression is that the team was assembled according to the size of the audience and the terrifying atmosphere in the Belgrade Arena. This team will bite the floor and fly above the hoop, and the full stands will be able to appreciate it.
Crvena zvezda - a breakthrough is waiting
They are red and white for the 2023/24 season. ended triumphantly, by returning the ABA League trophy to their showcases. With a 3-0 triumph in the final series against their biggest rival, they pleased the fans who at one point gave up on the season.
However, the impression is that the fans now want a breakthrough in Europe. In the previous ten years, Crvena Zvezda won most of the trophies in domestic and regional basketball, but during that time, they achieved only one placement in the Top 8 of the Euroleague. In the previous season, they took the 16th position with only 11 victories.
Crvena zvezda enters the new season with a changed management, but the same coach. Yanis Sferopoulos received support after the successful end of the ABA League, and he decided to keep the backbone of the team.
Milos Teodosic and Joel Bolomboy were the tandem they lived on during most of the last season, so it was logical to extend their contracts. Nemanja Nedović was certainly planned in the new lineup, while Jago dos Santos was also retained.
The red and white team received the loudest reinforcements in the form of two returnees and two experienced Americans. Ognjen Dobrić and Nikola Kalinic are names that star players adore, so there was not much thought when the opportunity arose to bring them. Of the foreign reinforcements, the most is expected from Cody Miller-McIntyre and Izea Kenan, who arrive after excellent seasons in Baskonia and Olympiakos, respectively.
Crvena zvezda will once again have a very experienced team, which proved to be a winning formula for the finals of the ABA League, but not exactly for the Euroleague. The season in Europe is long and difficult, so a lot will depend on the health of the players, especially Teodosić and Kalinić.
Like the black and whites, this composition lacks a better solution in the wing center position. After a real soap opera, Olympiakos decided to keep Filip Petrushev in their ranks, creating a problem for coach Sferopoulos, because there are currently no quality and available solutions on the market.
The rest of the league - the Greeks, then everyone else...
This year's market reminded many basketball fans of some earlier years, such as the 90s or the end of the 00s, when Greek clubs spent money and attracted big names. In the absence of the Russian CSKA and with the somewhat calmer Spanish giants, Panathinaikos and Olympiakos led European basketball when it comes to aggressiveness in the transfer market.
Panathinaikos, the reigning European champions, further strengthened themselves over the summer by bringing in Lorenzo Braun, Djedi Osman and Omer Yurtseven, along the way retaining all the key players from the previous team. Their composition really seems intimidating, so he forced his neighbors from Piraeus to open the bag as well.
The biggest reinforcement this summer is certainly the return of Saša Vezenkov to Olympiakos. After one year in the NBA, the player who won the title of MVP of the Euroleague before the move "across the pond", received a tremendous contract from the new-old club, worth over 4 million euros per year. It didn't end there for Olympiakos, so they brought in more famous names like Evan Fournier, Tyler Dorsey, Luka Wildosa or Keenan Evans.
The undivided impression of basketball experts is that the Greek giants are the number 1 and number 2 favorites to win the Euroleague. Opinions differ only about who is in first place and who is in second place. They are followed by Fenerbahçe and the Spanish giants, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Fener has put together an excellent team according to the taste of coach Jasikevicius, Real was left without Jabuzele, but kept Hezonja and Tavares, while Barca's biggest reinforcement is the recent captain of Partizan, Kevin Panter.
After that, there is a round of teams that have very high-quality squads, but also certain question marks, and that round includes Anadolu Efes, Monaco and Olimpia Milano.
There are numerous teams that will be looking for a chance for the play-offs from the edge, and there are - apart from the Serbian clubs - Virtus, Maccabi, Baskonia and Žalgiris. The French and German clubs have certain qualities, but it is difficult to imagine them in a serious fight for a high ranking.
Time to enjoy
Ivica Dukan, once a famous Yugoslav basketball player, and now a Chicago Bulls scout, in a recent interview vividly portrayed the obsession with basketball in Serbia: "When I come to Belgrade, when I get into a taxi, and when the taxi takes me to the hotel, I talk to the taxi driver like a colleague , coach someone. He says: "Well, that one, master, doesn't play defense, this one is your three, he's not a two." They live for it, they know and feel it.''
Serbia has a brilliant basketball tradition, but also the potential to be like that in the present. The best basketball player in the world, the silver Olympic team, two clubs in the Euroleague. Instead of announcements and morning programs, it would be nice to enjoy what awaits us - and awaits everyone, regardless of the club affiliation - 34 games of the second best club basketball competition in the world.
So let us enjoy the best that basketball Europe has to offer, so that our main concern is whether to defend Sasha Vezenkov by doubling, and to direct Kendrick Nana to the right, to the weaker hand.
