Through its partner Synergy Sports Technology, EuroLeague has published on its website a statistical study concerning the best players in the competition at “finishing” at the rim. The definition “at-the rim” concerns any execution that falls into the category dunks, lay-ups or “floaters”. Post-up situations, which do not produce one of these shots are obviously excluded from the count. In the last ten years only one player in EuroLeague scored more than 10 points at-the rim per game. Boban Marjanovic, in 2014/15 when he played for the Red Star, averaged 11.7 points per game. He is the best “finisher” in the recent history of EuroLeague. Marjanovic, who is 2.21, now plays for Philadelphia in the NBA after being in Detroit, San Antonio and with the Los Angeles Clippers.
But this year the number of players who could finish the season in double digits at the points scored at-the rim could be unprecedented. Jan Vesely, of Fenerbahce, is averaging 11.0 points per game in these situations; Arturas Gudaitis follows him with 10.6, but over the 10.0 threshold, there are also Brandon Davies of Zalgiris and Jordan Mickey of Khimki. Michael Eric of Darussafaka (9.7) and Vincent Poirier of Baskonia (9.3) are close. It is not strange that they are all centers. They are the ones that play close to the rim and can finish after an offensive rebounds, with a tip-in, with a roll and of course by finishing post-up moves.
Unfortunately, the season of our Gudaitis has been ended prematurely by an injury that has limited him to 21 appearances, so its stats are finals and confirm its presence among the best offensive players of the continent. The table below explains a lot and also indicates his extraordinary effectiveness. Gudaitis scored 1.51 points per possession while finishing at the rim.
Gudaitis – according to Sinergy Sports – scored at the rim 85% of its total points. 30% of them are the result of dunks (Vesely has 44% of dunks) and 9% are created by “and ones” goals. In this specialty, Gudaitis is the number one of the entire EuroLeague with 11 “and ones” (seven completed with a three-point play).
In the end, Gudaitis finished its EuroLeague season with 263 points in 505 minutes, more than one point every two minutes spent on the court. Of these 263 points, 107 were produced from the free-throw line (41%, by far the best of the whole EuroLeague) and 156 from the field. Of these 156 scored from the field, 56 came from shots made at the rim on 30 attempts (28/30, 93.3%), 62 within a meter and a half from the basket (but not less than half a meter) and 36 more from between 1.5 and 4 meters. Gudaitis made59.6% of the shots taken within 1.5 meters from the rim and 47.4% in those taken within 4 meters.
Before getting injured, considering the addition of a reliable low-post game, Gudaitis was certainly among the best centers of the entire competition. Excluding the comparison with Vesely, who early in his career was a power forward and is still a different kind of center, very fast, very athletic who was never used close to the basket in the NBA, the numbers of Arturas Gudaitis are higher than those of all the other big names, like Nikola Milutinov, Brandon Davies (another center with a perimeter play), Bryant Dunston, the two towers of Barcelona, Ante Tomic and Kevin Seraphin, and even the two giants of Real Madrid although Gustavo Ayon and Walter Tavares’ stats are penalized by a relatively limited playing time. In this video below that dates back to the Athens road game with the Panathinaikos, Gudaitis shows all his offensive repertoire: there are shots taken at the rim “rolling”, after an offensive rebound, there is one basket manufactured off a low-post move, beating the defender James Gist and there is one also made while absorbing the foul.
