Olimpia’s 2025 begins with a road game. Olimpia spent the first day of the new year in the gym and traveling. On Thursday the team will take the court at the LDLC Arena, the new home of Asvel Villeurbanne, in an attempt to return to its winning ways in the EuroLeague after two narrow, very painful and closed defeats at home against Bayern Munich and Olympiacos Piraeus. The game in France is the first a sequence of four consecutive game in which Olimpia will face opponents who currently are behind in the standings. One might say that it’s time to advance, but the differences are minimal. Asvel, for example, is extremely dangerous, especially on its court. Of its eight wins, four have been achieved in games closed between one and three points of difference and another two with differences between four and six points; therefore, it is a very fearsome team in close games, those which unfortunately have kept Olimpia from a place in the standings consistent with what we have seen on the court. The two teams faced each other in Milan a few weeks ago, and it was a battle won by Olimpia, but another close one and Asvel was playing without Nando De Colo. The two top EuroLeague players for index rating will be on the court even if there is no talk of a duel because Theo Maledon (just named December’s player of the month) is a “combo guard” and Nikola Mirotic obviously a power forward forced to play center at times, due to Josh Nebo’s absence. Olimpia will also have to play without Fabien Causeur who, due to a muscle strain that needs to be re-evaluated during the trip, did not follow the team to France.
Tip-off time at LDLC arena in Lyon will be 20:00 on January 2nd.
THE REFEREES – Ilija Belosevic (Serbia), Jordi Aliaga (Spain), Jakub Zamojski (Poland).
COACH ETTORE MESSINA – “We face an extremely athletic team with three guards excellent at creating play. Transition defense, containing their one on one plays, ball movement will be the keys in order to have the chance to win on a traditionally tough court.”
ASVEL VILLEURBANNE OUTLOOK – The star of the team is obviously Theo Maledon, who returned to France this year after four seasons spent in the NBA, the first three in Oklahoma City and then between Charlotte and Brooklyn, for a total of 177 games played. This season he has always started, sometimes as a point guard and sometimes as a guard alongside Paris Lee. Maledon plays over 29 minutes per game and is averaging 18.8 points per game on 38.7 percent three-point shooting. In addition, he has 4.8 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game. Point guard Paris Lee contributes 8.9 points and 3.7 assists on average. The other guards are Shaquille Harrison (5.4 points per game, 36.8 percent from three), another player with seven seasons and 183 NBA appearances, and the great Nando De Colo (10.6 points and 4.5 assists per game), who has scored over 4,600 points in his career, second all-time behind Mike James, who needs four free throws made to become the first all-time in this statistic which he also leads in terms of accuracy (93.0%). Another option is Edwin Jackson, a very experienced player (35 years old, seven EuroLeague seasons, the first one at Barcelona) who just returned from an injury and averages 5.8 points per game. David Lighty, another veteran in Villeurbanne for the last six seasons, is normally the starting small forward (5.2 points per game, 45.2 percent from three). The back-up plan is Melvin Ajinca (4.7 points per game, 37.1 percent on threes), an emerging player who is 20 years old and was chosen by the Dallas Mavericks in the latest NBA draft. Andre Roberson is the power forward, a 2.01 mt player who played guard in the NBA (307 games of which 302 in Oklahoma City) and in the 2016/17 season was included in the second All-defensive team. After a serious injury, he failed in his bid to return first to the Thunder and then to Brooklyn, so this year he restarted his career in Cholet. After four games in the French league, he was signed by Asvel, where he averages 6.8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game in addition to his usual ruthless defense. The centers are Neal Sako, in his first EuroLeague season at 26 years of age, a vertical player (9.2 points and 6.4 rebounds on average), who is shooting 64.4 percent from the field, and Joffrey Lauvergne who is having another high-level season, averaging 11.7 points and 4.8 rebounds per game, while shooting 63.5 percent from two. However, he’s missed the last two games. Behind them, there is also the veteran Tarik Black (3.1 points and 2.5 rebounds per game). Multipurpose forward Charles Kahudi and power forward Mbaye Ndiaye are absent due to injury.
NIKOLA MIROTIC NOTES – Nikola Mirotic has an active streak of ten games with at least 16 points and at least 12 personal rating points. Mirotic, who has also hit all of his last 22 free throw attempts, is second in individual rating with 23.2 per game; he is sixth in points per game with 18.4; he is third in rebounds with 6.8 per game; he is third in free throws made (5.4 per game) and sixth in fouls drawn (5.1 per game).
ZACH LEDAY NOTES – In 10 of the last 11 games, Zach LeDay has made at least one three-pointer. LeDay is seventh in individual rating and ninth in scoring. He enters this game three points shy of 2,000 for his career. Finally, with 52.6 percent he is second overall in three-point shooting; with 5.7 per game, he is fifth for fouls drawn; with 4.7 per game, he is fourth in free throws made per game.
GAME NOTES – Fabien Causeur has made at least one three in 12 of the last 13 games. Armoni Brooks has done it in nine of the last 10 games played. Causeur is first in three-point shooting with 58.2 percent, third for steals with 1.3 per game, tied with Leandro Bolmaro who also has 1.3 steals per game.
