A new Euroleague season starts, possibly the most exciting, spectacular and even of the last decade after the huge investment of the two Greek teams, Panathinaikos y Olympiakosbig favorites with permission from other teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Fenerbahçe, Monaco o Anadolu Efes who are always good to have in the pools for the title.
Hellenic basketball is reborn
He Panathinaikos and the Olympiakos They lifted the champion trophy twice each between 2009 and 2013, but In the following 10 seasons they went through a journey in the desert as a result of their lower investment and erratic planning. that prevented them from winning the title until last season The Athenian team broke the drought and won its seventh Euroleague after defeating Real Madrid in the finalthe most successful team on the continent with 11 titles.
Lorenzo Brown, Evan Fournier, Kostas Sloukas, Sasha Vezenkov and Cedi Osman.
He Panathinaikos does not want these new laurels to wither and has increased its budget almost exponentially to try to perpetuate themselves at the forefront of continental basketball. The owner of the team, the Greek businessman Dimitris Giannakopoulosa basketball fan, inherited the club after the death of his father Pavlos and his uncle Thanasis, former owners and owners of the largest pharmaceutical industry in the country. And his successor has pulled out his checkbook to put his beloved team back on top with a new title and the largest budget of the tournament: more than 50 million.
The cherry on top of a formidable squad
This huge budget has allowed him to further reinforce, if possible, the formidable squad he already had last year. (Grigonis, Grant, Nunn, Papapetrou, Sloukas, Lessort, Mitoglou, Juancho Hernangómez…) with the signing of three stars: Lorenzo Brown, Cedi Osman (exCavs y Spurs) y Omer Yurtseven (exHeat y Jazz). The always controversial Ergin Ataman He will have a huge squad on his hands.
The Panathinaikos squad poses at the club’s Media Day.
And as usually happens in Spain with Real Madrid and Barcelona, Olympiacos has responded to the order of its hated neighbor by entering the bidding with the return of Vezenkov (Kings) and four other flashy signings: Fournier (Knicks), Keenan Evans, Vildoza (Panathinaikos) y Tyler Dorseythis one back.
In this way the set of Bartzokaspresent in six of the last nine Final Four but that He has not won the title since 2013, he is once again a strong contender for the title.
Bouquet of candidates
One step below them is a bunch of teams that also aspire to everything. Among them the Spanish. He Real Madridreinforced with Happy, Rathan-Mayes, Ibaka and Garuba. and he Barça of Peñarroya with the signings of Fall, Núñez, Punter, Justin Anderson and Metu. Both should be Final Four teams.
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Also Jasikevicius’s Fenerbahce strengthened with Marjanovic, Birch, Baldwin, Gazi, Colson, Melli y Hall. He AS Monaco reinforced with Korkmaz, Begarin, Papagiannis, Vitto Brown and Calathes. and he Anadolu Efes with the signings of Nwora, Stanley Johnson, Poirier y Rolands Smits.
Flashy signings
In total the 18 participating teams have done 107 signings (16 coming directly from the NBA). Partizan, with 14 additionsis the one that has been reinforced the most. They follow him Zalgiris (8), Virtus, Red Star and Fenerbahce (7), ASVEL and Maccabi (6).
Sasha Vezenkov returns to Olympiacos after his discreet time in the NBA.
Among the signings, those of Fournier, Osman, Sasha Vezenkov, Lorenzo Brown, Punter, Korkmaz, Ibaka, Poirier or Luwawu-Cabarrotamong others. Guaranteed show.
