(sJacas)

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The most entertaining phase of the European basketball season, featuring the Copa del Rey and Euroleague Top16, is over. Now comes the domestic regular season run in and Euroleague quarter finals, then Final Four. It is great entertainment in its own way, but different.

Honouring the eliminated

Real Madrid is out. Unlucky, but not illogical.

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Due to time shortage this week’s review will be fairly short, but I still want to share a few thoughts on this last round of regular season games.

As you know, this site is far from a one-man-show, so kudos to the team and in particular Billy, who’s been tirelessly developing stats.in the game and made this a formidable ressource for Euroleague statistics. New: Advanced stats for teams.

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• I’ll charge right ahead with a question.

  Is 20-year-old Nikola Mirotic a top five power forward in this league already?

  Granted, no need to overreact after one outstanding midweek performance, but is he or is he not?

  1. Scoring: A naturalised talent. Known for his jumpshot (38.1 3FG% in EL, 45.4% in ACB) but has developed a nice repertoire of finesse post moves, which he showcased in the U20 tournament last summer. His PPP of 1.12 is 7th among Euroleague power forwards (15 MPG minimum), his True Shooting Percentage (63.8) 8th.
  2. Rebounding: Offensive (5.4) and defensive rebounding percentage (15.9) are both slightly below average. See last week’s chart.
  3. Passing: Is excellent, but this season he’s often a possession-finisher. 4th on his team in usage percentage behind Carroll, Pocius and Rudy. Super high ball IQ helps.
  4. Defense: People will be quick to apply the “soft” tag for known reasons. Not readers of this blog of course, who are intelligent, thoughtful, fighting stereotypes, and on top of everything, incredibly good-looking. Mirotic is fifth among power forwards in steals percentage, is a moderate shotblocking threat (hasn’t happened often in this year’s Euroleague, though) and certainly understands defensive rotation. I’d also fight the notion that he’s not aggressive enough, if someone were to make that claim.

  Competition: Erazem Lorbek is playing phenomenal basketball this year on both ends of the floor, clear number one in my eyes. After him there’s a colourful mix: gunner Mirza Teletovic, who is leading the league in scoring, worldclass high-low passer Viktor Khryapa, back in a bigger role in Kirilenko’s absence, defensive stalwarth and rebounding presence Ersan Ilyasova (who’s a floor-stretcher on top of that, rare combination), Unicaja’s Joel Freeland and, as we were all hoping for, Donatas Motiejunas and Milan Macvan.

  What connects Europe’s power forward elite is their ability to make the three point shot. The modern power forward must possess a multidimensional game, and stretching the floor with shooting is part of that. Mirotic, tall, mobile, high IQ, smooth jumpshot, is the prototype.

  

  25 of 39 (64%) power forwards who played more than 15 minutes per game this season took 30% or more of their total field goal attempts from beyond the arc. 16 took more than 40% of their shots from beyond the arc. The dots in red-white are Euroleague power forwards from the 2001-02 season. Back in the days, only 39.5% of power forwards who played rotation minutes took more than 30% of their shots from beyond the arc, and just 26.3% took more than 40% of their shots from there.

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