Insane transfer offseason is over, and each team of VTB League has become stronger. Let’s reveal main topics and intrigues of 2019/20 season.
After insane transfers VTB League is the strongest in Europe
Every summer clubs work hard on the transfer market trying to power-up the roster. But this offseason was particularly hot: 16 ex-NBA players, Euroleague and Eurocup stars, it’s a top level in Eruope.
Several players at once performed in NBA last season, and played not the last role in their teams: Jonas Jerebko made it to the finals with Golden State, Sam Dekker was playing almost 20 minutes per match in Cleveland and Washington. Timofey Mozgov returned to Khimki straight from Orlando, Ron Baker and Konstantine Koufos are going to restart their careers in CSKA, and Alan Williams in Lokomotiv.
Except oversea players, a load of recent stars of Euroleague and Eurocup are here, and each of them deserves his own article. Mike James – best scorer of Euroleague, Stefan Jović and Devin Booker – current champions of Germany, Gustavo Ayon – a legend of Real, Janis Strelnieks– elite sniper of Europeague, Andrew Albicy who helped France national team to make it to the world cup’s bronze.
Clubs below top-5 made similar power-ups. For example, Astana brought back Coty Clarke, who was the main star of Avtodor in 2017/18 season. Enisey signed Darius Morris, who was playing alongside Kobe Bryant and Stefan Nash in Lakers. Forward of Avtodor Isaiah Hicks has become a champion of NCAA and played in New York Knicks last two seasons. Drew Gordon, who was rocking in Zenit in 2017/18, now will play for Zielona Gora.
Slam dunk contest is going to be like NBA’s
Jeremy Evans – winner of All-Star NBA slam dunk contest in 2012. Garlon Green – winner of the same contest on All-Star 2016 in Germany, Jamar Abrams – in 2018, moreover he also won slam dunk contest in Canada in 2012. Janari Joesaar won a contest when he was in college, Valeriy Likhodey took part in a contest within All-Star PBL match.
But there are also other incredible dunkers. Bolomboy’s slam was chosen the best in the last season. Andrew Gordon was slamming the rim while he was playing in Zenit, and for example, Sam Dekker’s poster dunk above Enes Kanter in NBA match can be watched on repeat.
It is going to be really hard to decide who will take part in a contest at All-Star match 2020, which takes place at VTB arena on 16 of February
First ever Russian Big 3 in the League history – in Khimki.
Current MVP of the season Alexey Shved, without a doubt, one of the greatest Russian basketball players. Sergey Karasev was a star of Zenit, and only injury streak is not allowing him to return back to his level. Timofey Mozgov spent 9 seasons in NBA and became a champion together with Lebron James and his Cleveland.
Now all three of them teamed up and no-one is really able to predict what it can lead to. Will they show the best performance in his career? Will Khimki take away the title from CSKA, as it was in 2011? How all of these players are going to divide up the ball?
However, one fact is already known: it is the first time when one of the teams collected three Russian stars at once.
PARMA made the most insane offseason in its history.
For 3 years in league team couldn’t manage to climb higher than 11th place, and therefore hasn’t played in playoff. It can be changed this season: PARMA seriously changed and strives to make some noise. First of all, club’s office changed the coach. Nikolajs Mazurs was dismissed in February 2019, and after that team was coached by Viacheslav Shushakov. But in summer PARMA invited Kazys Maksvytis – Lithuanian coach who is expected to become a main coach of Lithuanian national team.
Maksvytis immediately got Artem Zabelin from Avtodor, Arnett Moultrie from Kalev, and completed his frontcourt with signing Mareks Mejeris – ex-forward of VEF. Also some newbies were added to backcourt: Adas Juskevicius came to PARMA from France, and Tony Carr from Italy. PARMA finished its job on transfer market with signing Maksim Grigoriev – ex-guard of Nizhny Novgorod. No foreign players from the last year remained in club, but PARMA extended contracts with Nikolay Zhmako and Aleksandr Platunov who was trying to get a place in Russian national team and go to a world cup in China. PARMA now is a pretty solid team that can make it to the playoff.
Zenit is not a dark horse anymore, they are contenders.
From the first year in the League Zenit was one of the favourites on paper, but in reality Zenit was only making it to the semi-finals, losing to the level of other teams. But it seems that with a wild card of Euroleague, everything has changed: after power-up in offseason 2019 Zenit is going to make some noise.
Moreover, office relies not only on foreign players: Dmitriy Khvostov moved from the Lokomotiv to Zenit, Anton Ponkrashov came from UNICS. Also some other players added to Zenit’s roster: Andrew Albicy, bronze medalist of World Cup, Gustavo Ayon, a legend of Real, leader of Polish national team Mateusz Ponitka, current MVP of Euroleague William Thomas…That means that we should not underrate Zenit and Joan Plaza.
Now UNICS is a shadow challenger
However, UNICS can’t really pretend to be named one of the favourites in the League. CSKA planned structural adjustments, Khimki and Zenit are in arms race, and even Lokomotiv, which has a bad start of the season, has some perspective players in its roster.
UNICS in this offseason had conservative ideas, and haven’t managed to make any roster changes. They made some pick-ups on transfer market, but without any celebrity signs. But it doesn’t mean that they are out of the top-teams list. Instead, the key players should safely start the season and at the same time Dimitrios Priftis will in enroll new players into his playing model. Last season they haven’t claimed the title because of some mistakes, a we think they are willing to fix it this time.
Decisive season for Nikita Mikhailovskii in Avtodor
Best young player of the 2018/19 season offered himself for the NBA draft, but declined it, with the thought that it is better to try next season and he will have more chances.
Well, to achieve this he should demonstrate his abilities throughout the season.
They are ready to give him some game time there in Saratov. In the last season he spent, in average, more than a 15 minutes on court, with 5,5 points scoring. Of course you can’t impress oversea scouts with that, but he has entire season to increase his statistics.
Lokomotiv renews its roster, invites Italian coach and signs player of Russian national team
After not really impressive ending of the season (defeated by Zenit in quarterfinals) Lokomotiv’s roster has been seriously renewed: apart from coach some key players as Dmitriy Khvostov and Mateusz Ponitka also left. But Mantas Kalnietis returned to the team, this fact impressed the fans. Among other perspective fresh players there are Samuel Dekker and Alan Williams – both ex-NBA players, also Johnny O’Bryant who won Israel Championship with Maccabi, and last but not least is the MVP of German championship Will Cummings.
But Lokomotiv is looking towards the young players too. Literally two days before the start of the new season, they announced the contract with Grigoriy Motovilov – 21 years old guard, who managed to get in Russian national team and scored a 4,6 points on the World Cup in China. But his task in Lokomotiv is not easier: he will compete for game time with Kalnietis and Cummings.
CSKA decided to make structural adjustments
Last season they won both VTB League and Euroleague. But changes were about to happen, and they managed to make them in summer. Almost all foreign leaders left the roster: Nando De Colo, Sergio Rodriguez, and Cory Higgins.
During offseason they signed 6 fresh players. Some of them were known in some way, for example the best scorer of Euroleague Mike James, or ex-NBA players Ron Baker and Konstantine Koufos, but some of them, for example Johannes Voigtmann, Darrun Hilliard and Janis Strelnieks are only going to become familiar. CSKA has already won the pre-season tournament in Turkey, but not that easy as usual.
Team is being formed right now, well, it is going to be more challenging this season!
Healthy Nizhny Novgorod – terror of contenders
Last season in Nizhny Novgorod was like a Hollywood thriller: the closer the ending , the more players injured. However, team managed to continue winning in VTB League and Champions league. Only loss of key players Kendrick Perry and Ivan Strebkov slowed them down: they were eliminated from Champions league, and then finished season with a defeat from CSKA in quarterfinals.
In summer, team renewed foreign roster and tried to save key Russian players. Zoran Lukic stated that team is absolutely ready for the start of the season without any injuries. How far they can go without losses is a good question though.
New coach of Enisey is going to rock.
During the first two seasons Enisey performed quite well with Oleg Okulov: they made it to the FIBA cup Final four, and for the first time in 3 years got into VTB League playoffs in 2017. But afterwards they had a drop and decided to change the coach after 2018/19 season. That’s how Dražen Anzulović appeared in the team.
They worked hard on transfer market, particularly picking up candidates. Among the 8 fresh players there are some familiar names – Aleksandr Gudumak, Ilya Usoltsev, Tomislav Zubсiс, Garlon Green. But also some fresh names – Davion Berry, Nikola Rebiс, Darius Morris, Dustin Hogue
Enisey successfuly played pre-season games, and had 4 wins. We can expect that they will perform well in VTB League too – just like they have claimed.
Astana: with the best coach of the season and a new roster
Emile Raikovich was a triumphant of the last season: he took Astana in the summer 2018, and transformed it from the outsider into the playoff participant, which almost displaced Zenit from top 5. Raikovich reasonably got the best coach award.
Now the head coach has a more serious task: club haven’t managed to save any foreign players, and even naturalized Anthony Clemmons moved to France. Of course Astana re-signed all Kazakhstan players, gave a contract to Robert Pan, local young center, and also brought 4 foreign players into their roster including Coty Clark Clarke, who scored 20 points per game.
This brings us to the one of the most interesting questions of the coming season: would Raikovich be able to create a team that can make it from a zero to the playoffs?
Best of three series can bring unexpected results
Due to Olympics 2020 in Tokyo, the League has to reduce series from 3 wins to 2. And teams, which are better in short run terms can benefit from it.
It was stated by honorary president of VTB League, at the season-opening press conference. “We’ve already made radical changes to playoff, remember Final four. But the result was the same. Theoretically, best of three series can bring surprising element, but we will see it on the court”.
For the time being, CSKA haven’t faced defeats in series, but everything can change this season. Team planned structural adjustments, but Zenit and Khimki, their rivals in Euroleague, have become stronger too. We also should not forget about UNICS and Lokomotiv, which are striving only for the League title.
