Rookies and EuroLeague: it's complicated / News - Basketnews.com

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EuroLeague is increasingly becoming a competition where it's difficult to find minutes and a consistent role for rookies.

Points this season

45%74,0Points made:74,0Accuracy:45,0%Place in standings:12Record max:89Record min:58Best scorer:Shavon ShieldsTeamEuroLeagueStatisticsSchedule

And we are not talking only about really young players, but also players who have been built a solid career in other competitions and play for the first time in EuroLeague.

When we look at the top of the standings, very few teams are willing to give minutes and space to rookies at the Euroleague level. And this season hasn't seen a change in this perspective, although there are a few exceptions that we'll highlight.

At the top of the standings, as of right now, we find Barcelona, coached by Sarunas Jasikevicius. In the main rotation of the Catalan side, there's only one player who's a rookie at the EuroLeague level, former no.5 pick in 2014 NBA Draft Dante Exum.

The Australian player joined Barcelona at the end of 2021 to help the team that was struggling after the injuries of Nick Calathes and Cory Higgins. Exum, of course, is not your typical rookie. He played for several years in the NBA, and if it wasn't for the injuries, he'd probably still be there.

The Australian rookie started quietly, but with the weeks passing, he became an important piece of coach Jasikevicius' rotations. His combination of size, passing abilities, and defensive awareness really helped Barcelona in a tough moment, and he's showing all his value with an average of 7.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 1.1 assists while shooting more than 60% from the 3-point zone.

Other top teams in the competition have absolutely zero rookies, including Real Madrid, Olympiacos, and the now-suspended CSKA Moscow. Also, Serbian side Crvena Zvezda have no Euroleague rookies in their main rotation.

Zalgiris Kaunas / Schedule

Zalgiris Kaunas FC Barcelona91-84 Zalgiris Kaunas Olympiakos PiraeusTue18:00 Zalgiris Kaunas Anadolu Efes IstanbulThu18:00

Anadolu Efes'main addition in the last offseason was a rookie, Filip Petrusev, but the Serbian big man, after some promising games at the beginning, quickly fell out of coach Ataman's rotations. At this point, he plays only in the garbage time in EuroLeague games.

Among the top teams in the competition, only AX Armani Exchange Milan have multiple rookies who have a role in their rotation. The team coached by Ettore Messina can count on Devon Hall, Troy Daniels, Jerian Grant, and Italian forward Giampaolo Ricci.

During the season, Milan also added another rookie at the EuroLeague level, American guard Trey Kell, who had never played in the competition before.

Hall has probably been one of the best surprises of this EuroLeague's season. He's averaging 9.5 points and 2 assists per game while shooting almost 40% from 3-point. He also handled more playmaking responsibilities than expected, especially while Rodriguez and Delaney were out because of injuries.

Jerian Grant had a slow start but gradually started to show more of his skills coming off the bench. He had to adapt to a very different role from the one he had in his first European season with Promitheas, where he had much more offensive responsibilities.

Troy Daniels fits a similar profile to Exum's. He's a player with several years of NBA experience, and now he's playing his first overseas season when he's already 31.

Just like Grant, his season so far hasn't been super effective, but he had good moments, and having a shooter like him coming off the bench is always a good thing for a team like Armani Exchange that doesn't have a ton of offensive options.

So far, the former Houston Rockets guard is averaging 5.8 points per game while shooting 37% from 3-point.

Of course, if we start to consider teams with smaller budgets and more inclined to stay in the lower parts of the standings, we can find more rookies and even some positive exceptions to the general rule.

Monaco are in their first season in the EuroLeague after winning the EuroCup title last season. They're in the hunt for a playoff spot despite having 8 rookies in their rotation. During the previous offseason, Monaco completely reshaped their roster.

Despite adding a couple of players with a certain degree of experience at the EuroLeague level, like Mike James, Will Thomas, and Donatas Motiejunas, the rest of the roster is made mostly by rookies.

Alpha Diallo, Donta Hall, Dwayne Bacon, Paris Lee, and Yakuba Ouattara have all shown that they can be reliable contributors at this level. Monaco's performances made it evident that having so many rookies at the EuroLeague level is not necessarily a weakness, especially for a club that can't spend the same amount of money as Barcelona, Real Madrid, and other top clubs.

Elie Okobo shined in the first part of the season with the other French club, LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne. The team owned by Tony Parker is another club that decided to rely on players at their first experience in the top European competition.

The former Phoenix Suns guard has been the star of the team, averaging 15.8 points and 4.0 assists per game, but in the second half of the season, his performances went down a bit, and defenses started to adapt better to his game, limiting his qualities.

Future NBA player Victor Wembanyama has been limited by injuries in the first part of the season. Still, he has already shown some flashes of his talent in his first season in the EuroLeague.

Compared to Monaco, ASVEL are pretty distant from the playoff zone but considering the circumstances, they haven't done a bad job, and as a multi-year licensed team, they have more time to build than Monaco.

Josh Nebo is another rookie in the competition who's having a strong impact. With Zalgiris Kaunas, the American big man is averaging 8.3 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, already building his case for a step forward in his career next season.

Sure, Zalgiris season hasn't been positive, but Nebo is taking advantage of the situation and might end up in a bigger team next season.

The Lithuanian side is another club that has multiple rookies on the roster: Tai Webster, Regimantas Miniotas, and at the beginning of the season, their main addition was Emmanuel Mudiay, but unfortunately, in that case, the experiment didn't produce the expected results.

As we have seen, there's definitely more space for rookies in those teams that have smaller budgets and fewer playoff ambitions. At the top, except for Milan, we have seen almost no rookies this season.

While it's hard to draw a definitive conclusion, it's clear that teams with higher ambitions have more concerns in investing money on rookies at the EuroLeague level, even when they're players with proven experience at other levels, including the NBA.

The adjustment process to EuroLeague basketball is much more complicated than one can anticipate at first. On top of that, coaching staffs and executives often have their job security on the line. They don't like to take unnecessary risks, ending up declining 'outside of the box ideas that might come from scouts or other consultants.

For smaller teams, on the other hand, investing in rookies is often the fastest way to find the next diamond in the rough so to have a better shot at a season above the expectations or to get a decent buyout when the player, ultimately, will join a bigger club in EuroLeague or an NBA franchise.

One thing is for sure, though, EuroLeague is a tough environment to play in.

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