They aren’t ready to give the lead to the youth
Sergey Monia, Khimki
Age: 36
Season stats: 5.8 points, 2.8 rebounds in 16.7 minutes
“The coach gives me game time, and I try to justify his trust. When he will stop letting me out on the court, I’ll think: “it means something is not right,” Sergei Monia answered the question about the end of his career last season.
Almost a year has passed, but nothing has changed: Rimas Kurtinaitis still trusts forward. Compared to the previous season, his minutes on the court only increased, as did his firepower from the perimiter – now Sergey makes 51.6% of his long-range shots.
And there are no background for change. “Captain Russia” is charged to fight in every game and, despite his age, often pleases fans with dunks and block shots. Will anyone be surprised to see Monia at the All stars-2020 Game in Moscow?
Vitaly Fridzon, Lokomotiv-Kuban
Age: 34
Season stats: 9.2 points, 2.0 rebounds in 19.1 minutes
Multiple League champion with Khimki and CSKA last summer decided to change the team and left Moscow for Krasnodar. The guard wasn’t wrong: in Loko he got more game time and a new role in the team, improved his statistics and increased his efficiency. He found a second youth, if you want.
This season, Fridzon began cheerfully, scoring 17 points in Minsk with a pretty good percentage – 6/9 from the field. However, in early November, the guard broke his arm and missed 2 months. He returned in a recent game against Nizhny Novgorod – and immediately began firing from his famous pistols:
Gustavo Ayon, Zenit
Age: 34
Season stats: 11.7 points, 6.0 rebounds, 2.7 assists in 22.7 minutes
The transfer of the famous Mexican from Madrid to St. Petersburg became one of the high-profile transfer bombs of the off-season 2019. The two-time Euroleague champion with Real can probably be called the most striking signing in the history of Zenit, and his experience was to help the club, renewed by 90%, turn from a set of players into a single team.
And, despite his age, Ayon does not disappoint, confirming his high level in the VTB United League with a quality game. The Mexican center is the leader in rebounds in his team and is in the Top 3 in the number of points scored and shots made per game. It is true that unlike partners, Gustavo is unusually stable: it was only one of 10 games where his percentage of shots fell below 50%!
There is nothing surprising in the fact that Ayon was in the top five most popular foreign players in the .voting of fans for the All Star Game 2020
Uladzimir Verameyenka, Tsmoki-Minsk
Age: 35
Season stats: 6.2 points, 4.5 rebounds in 19.2 minutes
An interesting fact: one of the best Belarusian basketball players has been playing outside Belarus since 2002 — almost his entire career, not counting the debut seasons for Gomel. And only this summer, after the invitation of Tsmoki’s head coach Rostislav Vergun, the forward returned to Minsk.
Uladzimir Verameyenka is well known in the League: from 2009 to 2014 he defended the colors of UNICS, and in the 2017/18 season he played for Nizhny Novgorod. Now forward often appears in the start of Tsmoki, spends almost half of the game on the court and does a lot of rough work, from fighting for the rebounds and setting up picks to make the three-second zone safe.
Branko Mirkovic, Tsmoki-Minsk
Age: 37
Season stats: 12.2 points, 5.2 assists in 24.7 minutes
The Serbian guard, who returned to the capital of Belarus in the summer after 3 seasons in Kalev, did not even find a second, but a third youth. Despite the fact that Mirkovic is the oldest player in the League, he spends quite a lot of time on the court and is included in the Top 10 of the League in assists.
Moreover, before the appearance of the second foreign point guard – Robert Lowery – Mirkovic practically did not leave the court (32.9 minutes). The signing of the American allowed the coaches to relieve the captain of Minsk, but Branko is still productive and plays an important role in the system of Rostislav Vergun. You don’t need to go far for an example: thanks to his efforts (16 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists), Tsmoki won their first
home game of the season by beating Avtodor, and Branko entered the top five roster of the round.
Kristjan Kangur, Kalev
Age: 37
Season stats: 5.7 points, 5.3 rebounds in 22.8 minutes
Mirkovic’s former teammate – Estonian Kristjan Kangur – also refuses to age. Half of the season has already passed, and the 37-year-old forward in each of his 12 games for Kalev was in the starting line-up and never left the court without scored points and collected rebounds.
Kangur is an old-school basketball player. He is rarely seen in the corner preparing for a three-point shot – instead, Kristjan will prefer to push the opponent with his back or fight for the rebound. Maybe it’s a joke – in Kalev, only jumpy Janari Joesaar (5.7 rebounds) picks up more than Kangur, who was happy to fly for the slam dunk contest of the All Star Game 2019 .
Like Mirkovic, this season Kangur was already in the top five roster of the round: the forward became the main character of the triumphal victory of the Tallinn over UNICS (85:63).
Lukasz Koszarek, Zielona Gora
Age: 36
Season stats: 3.3 points, 3.3 assists in 15.2 minutes
The point guard spends his seventh season in Zielona Gora, and no one will be surprised if he finishes his career here. Fans love Koszarek, the press calls him a professor, and the club management without any doubt gave him the captain’s band.
With a new coach, Lukash Koszarek gets much less game time. But if at the start of the season the guard looked faded, exhausted by his performance at the World Cup in China as part of the Polish national team, then in recent games he was the team’s engine. For example, thanks to his points in the end of the game , Zielona Gora moved the game against Tsmoki to overtime and won.
Michael Umeh, Avtodor
Age: 35
Season stats: 6.9 points, 1.3 assists in 18.9 minutes
During his 13-year professional career, Michael Umeh managed to play in the championships of Germany, Poland, Israel, Italy, Spain and France, and during the current season he signed a contract with Avtodor, which was in dire need of an experienced player of the backcourt. And Umeh, who played at the Olympics several years ago as part of the Nigeria national team, fit into the roster.
One of the main tasks of Umeh in Saratov is to add energy to the team, when he leaves the bench. The Nigerian played his best game in the League quite recently: in Minsk Umeh scored 18 points and gave 4 assists.
Lorenzo Williams, PARMA
Age: 35
Season stats: 8.3 points, 3.7 assists in 23.1 minutes
Williams appeared in PARMA a few days before the start of the season. Due to the injuries of Tony Carr and Alexander Platunov, the Perm coaching staff urgently sought a player for the position of the first number, and Kazys Maxvytis decided to sigh the guard, who he trained in Litkabelis and Neptunas, into the team.
Lorenzo does not hog a blanket over himself in the offence – he is only the fifth player in PARMA in terms of the number of shots per game. The coaching staff trusts Williams with a positional offence, and this seems justified: the Permians are 5th in terms of scoring in the United League.
