It’s a historic EuroLeague season, the one kicking off tomorrow in seven different arenas, including Belgrade, where Olimpia will make its seasonal debut. For the first time, the season kicks off with two rounds in three days. For the first time, twenty teams will be competing in a single group with just six spots guaranteeing direct playoff berths—just 30% of the total—plus four play-in slots. Two teams are brand new: Hapoel Tel Aviv, the Eurocup winner, and Dubai Basketball, a wildcard team. Seventeen of last year’s 18 teams will be joining them, while Valencia, the fourth Spanish team admitted, has replaced Alba Berlin, so reducing the German contingent to just Bayern Munich. There will also be plenty of roster changes: of last season’s top 25 players by average rating, 11 have switched EuroLeague teams, while one, Nigel Hayes-Davis, the Final Four MVP, has joined the NBA in Phoenix.
The schedule features ten two-round weeks, mostly concentrated in the first half of the season when they will be played every other week. The accumulation of games in a 38-round regular season will have a significant impact on the standings. Olimpia faces an even more challenging schedule because the first two “double” weeks will be entirely on the road, starting with two inaugural battles in Belgrade, followed by Munich and Kaunas. This means four of the first five games will be played on the road. The schedule therefore starts with a steep climb before normalizing over the ensuing weeks. The debut is tomorrow against Red Star Belgrade.
Olimpia is 9-10 in its previous EuroLeague openers in the modern era. The game in Belgrade marks the eleventh road opener, where Olimpia currently has a 4-6 record. At home, it is 5-3 with a five-game active winning streak. On the road, the last two openers have been losses (in 2023 in Istanbul against Fenerbahce and last year in Monaco), while in 2022, Olimpia prevailed in Villeurbanne. Their other road opener wins date back to the 2020/21 season (Munich, Shavon Shields’ go-ahead for good three in overtime); the 2018/19 season in Podgorica; and the 2010/11 season in Moscow against CSKA.
NOTES – Red Star Belgrade vs. Olimpia Milano will be played on Tuesday, September 30th at 8:00 PM at the Belgrade Arena.
THE REFEREES – Carlos Peruga (Spain), Emilio Perez (Spain), Semmi Shemmesh (Israel)
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “We play a tough game, on a tough court and against a very competitive Red Star team. We face this with the enthusiasm coming from being aware of how good we could be as a team based on defense, rebounding and ball circulation. This is what we are trying to build as an identity. Unfortunately, we will start without Lorenzo Brown but the return of Marko Guduric and the players we couldn’t use during the Supercup week-end give us the confidence of being able to play a very good game.”
SHAVON SHIELDS – “We are starting a very competitive euroleague season on the road and Belgrade will test our mental toughness immediately. We will need to stay focus and play hard and together for 40 minutes.”
INJURY REPORT – Lorenzo Brown (overloading left thigh) will be out. Leonardo Totè is out.
RED STAR OUTLOOK – Red Star made significant changes to its roster over the summer. Among the most notable players retained there are Codi Miller-McIntyre, INikola Kalinic, and Joel Bolomboy. Miller-McIntyre is considered the starting point guard, after averaging 9.9 points and 6.0 assists per game in two EuroLeague seasons, where he landed relatively late, at 29 years old. Among the guards, the most anticipated newcomer is Devonte Graham, who has made 336 NBA appearances in his career, averaging 11.1 points and 4.3 assists per game, including a season in Charlotte in 2019/20 at 18.2 points per game. His last NBA team was San Antonio. He missed the last few preseason games with an ankle injury. Tyson Carter arrived in the summer from Malaga, where he won the BCL championship two years in a row. He has already been part of a EuroLeague roster in St. Petersburg, but for a few games only. Isaiah Canaan, a terrific outside shooter, got injured last week and won’t be available against Milan. The roster is rounded out by Stefan Milijenovic, who averaged 12.1 points per game last year for Megabasket Belgrade. Among the forwards, there have been many significant additions, including the arrivals of Jordan Nwora from Efes, Semi Ojeleye from Valencia, and Chima Moneke from Vitoria. Nwora, the most perimeter-focused of the three, averaged 7.6 points per game (and 3.3 rebounds per game) in his EuroLeague debut season. Ojeleye, who can also play as a power forward, played in the EuroLeague in Bologna and Valencia (averaging 12.0 points and 4.2 rebounds overall). Moneke, in his fourth season in the EuroLeague after a brief stint in the NBA in Sacramento, boasts 11.9 points and 5.7 rebounds average in his career between Monaco and especially Baskonia. Added to these are the Serbian veterans, Nikola Kalinic, a player of enormous experience and solidity, who brings 344 career games to the roster and started 35 games out of 35 last season, while shooting 43.5 percent from three. Ognjen Dobric, a national team member at both the 2024 Olympics and the last European Championships, is a substance player, as is Dejan Davidovac, who played all his 168 EuroLeague games with Red Star Belgrade. At center, there is Joel Bolomboy, another experienced vertical player, who played for four years at CSKA Moscow before spending a season at Olympiacos and joining Red Star Belgrade two years ago. Last year, he averaged over 10 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. However, he skipped all the preseason. The back-up should be the Cuban big man Jasiel Rivero, coming from Maccabi (10.0 points, 4.3 rebounds per game) and previously in Valencia. The roster also includes Ebuka Izundu, recently signed from Galatasaray. Rounding out the rotation is Uros Plavsic, in his second year at Red Star Belgrade, who was rarely used last season.
RED STAR CONNECTION – Lorenzo Brown spent the 2019/20 season playing 27 EuroLeague games for Red Star, scoring 332 points. Marko Guduric is Red Star-schooled player. He played there two EuroLeague seasons at the beginning of his career between 2015 and 2017, with 53 appearances and 395 points scored. With Red Star, he won the Serbian title and the Adriatic League title twice.
GAME NOTES – Lorenzo Brown was supposed to play his 200th career EuroLeague appearance. Obviously, he won’t. This mark is also within reach of Zach LeDay (196) and Shavon Shields (186). Marko Guduric (285) is aiming for the 300th appearance threshold; Bryant Dunston (364) could theoretically even reach the 400 games plateau. Shields is also 29 games far from Kaleb Tarczewski’s second place in the all-time list (127 to 156) with Olimpia. Guduric is 12 threes away from 400 career three-pointers, a milestone reached by only 19 players before him.
