IN THE GAME

While Euroleague and EuroCup have been taking a Christmas/New Year’s break, the winter transfer market has been fairly busy. Especially in Greece, where Olympiacos acquired Scoony Penn, while Aris signed Ivan Paunic at the expense of Juan Dixon, and Dragan Labovic at power forward. Finally, no Jeremiah Massey for them. Meanwhile, Maccabi is on a search for a big man to replace the disappointing Maciej Lampe.

Aris: It seems that Katzikaris is performing a 180-degree-tournaround. I never understood the Dixon signing in the first place, it would seem that Clark and Richardson as off-the-dribble scorers would suffice. Dixon was your typical streaky shooter with subpar defense that simply isn’t successful in Europe. Ivan Paunic, a guy who is showing heavy improvement on offense in addition to the doberman defense he already showcased in Poland last summer, could work wonders for them with his defense and great intensity. Dragan Labovic hasn’t found back to his pre-injury form, maybe more of a long-term acquisition, but a step into the right direction, in my opinion. Even if they will have three primary power forwards (Barlos and Kakiouzis can play some minutes on the three though) once Nikos Barlos is back. (Aris team profile)

Olympiacos: The Scoonie Penn signing is an interesting one in many aspects. Firstly, Penn’s arrival gives the team its seventh foreigner. They may only use six in the Greek league.

Secondly, it would seem that the roster is stacked at point guard. In fact Giannakis likes to use two point guards a lot, which works, since Theodoros Papaloukas is a better 2/3-defender anyway. The problems occur when Papaloukas is off the court, something that is well reflected by his offcourt/oncourt +/- statistics. Teodosic and Penn? Not a good defensive lineup. The same goes for Teodosic/Halperin and Beverley/Halperin, or any 1/2 combination sans Papaloukas.

Penn will turn 33 this Saturday, and he hasn’t really played on a high level of competition since he left Efes Pilsen after the 07/08 season. He’s definitely a player who fits into Giannakis’ uptempo style though. A propos uptempo: How important this is for Olympiacos, we see in the following graph:

The yellow line is Olympiacos’ average Euroleague game pace in possessions per game per team (the overtime minutes are adjusted), the red marks itself show the pace in each of their eight single Euroleague games this season. Conclusions are:

1. The games they managed to play at a higher pace than their average pace, they won by an average margin of 20.5 points

2. All those four games were home games

3. In the games which they played at a lower pace than their average Euroleague pace, they lost two (Unicaja, Partizan), won one by four points in a poor performance against a far inferior team (Orléans), and won one in a tough end-to-end battle in overtime versus a borderline Top16 team (Rytas)

4. Those four games were away games

5. It seems that Olympiacos easily establishes a high tempo game, which obviously is beneficial for them, at home, but in away games, the opponent dictates the pace.

Usually playoff games are played at a slower pace, opponents are well-prepared and much more disciplined in taking away easy baskets (like transition baskets). If the slow tempo struggles continue in the post-season, Olympiacos will not be number one favourite to win the Euroleague this season. (Olympiacos team profile)

ALBA: Luka Pavicevic & crew really want to turn some heads in the EuroCup this year. They’re surely not top favourites to win it (in my opinion, Valencia, Panellinios and Joventut are), but quarter finals should be their goal. Getting rid of Kenan Bajramovic, a huge disappointment, was the right thing to do, and Jurica Golemac has really been playing well in the first games for his new club. He is not the prototypical forward to play Pavicevic’s style (pure faceup player with a deadly three point shot, like Pavicevic’s first signing in Berlin, Goran Nikolic), but his high basketball IQ, great passing game and allround talent help a lot. (ALBA team profile)

Elsewhere, Oostende signed Bracey Wright as Paunic’s replacement, a good scorer with a nice midrange game, but a far worse defender than Paunic. Turk Telekom released former Crvena Zvezda comboguard Andre Owens, and Maccabi Tel Aviv is looking to get rid of Maciej Lampe, with Pini Gershon reportedly interested in Vladimir Golubovic (Union Olimpija) and Dimitris Mavroeidis (Maroussi). I see Golubovic as a more probable acquisition, should be a good fit with his rebounding and good positional defense. Clearly a complementary player though on a team that is dominated by backcourt play.