This year's "revelation"-"rising star"-"best player"

[KokkinosVasilias]

who do you think will be this year's Rising star, most improved player,
best rookie or young player, Player of the euroleague or whatever, name your categories as you want and select a player


Macijauskas will be either best player or dissapointment of the year

perhaps Delk will be euroleague MVP

Gerson says that Acker will be the new Parker...we shall see

[wardjdim]

There are teams from other countries besides Greece.

Regular Season MVP: With today's rosters, it could be anyone between Scola/Vujcic/Andersen/Papadopoulos or some other guys, especially big men.

Rising Star: It could be Splitter's time this year, but there's also a couple of great favorites in Jankunas and Schortsanitis. It also depends on whether Tripkovic will stay in Partizan, where he ll be the go-to guy, while if Belinelli goes to Roma, he is out of the game.

Still, it's very early to tell..

[Markoishvili]

I`ll eat my shorts if Delk becomes MVP.

Regarding MVP, i don`t see clear candidate, Panathinaikos has pretty balanced squad and it will be tough for anyone to put up those kind of numbers, Macijauskas doesn`t have enough versatility to win this honor. Luis Scola will see his offensive production decreased a bit now with Igor Rakocevic and Zoran Planinic on the team. David Andersen and/Matjaz Smodis could have big season for CSKA. Nikola Vujcic`s stats will improve, but it is questionable how will Maccabi preform. Barcelona has stacked roster.
Dimitris Diamantidis, Jiri Welsch, Marcus Brown, Drew Nicholas, Robertas Javtokas are some other candidates.

Rising star should be either Marco Bellineli or Sofoklis Schortsianitis, Uros Tripkovic progress is disappointing and there is no way he can be Partizan`s go-to-guy, i would rather put my money on his teammate Milenko Tepic who might very well take over Tripkovic`s starting job. Surprising player could be Luksa Andric of Cibona. Tiago Splitter is producing in Euroleague for quite some years now, so he should take a big increase in his performance to win relevation award.

[Ram]

Macijauskas will be either best player or dissapointment of the year

Agree there.
Also Vujicic is the best player in maccabi and hell have to give numbers way higher than the last few seasons...so on paper avg's he may have a chance to be a good chooise for the mvp...to bad hes team wont reach higher than max top8.

[Dookie]

Agree there.
Also Vujicic is the best player in maccabi and hell have to give numbers way higher than the last few seasons...so on paper avg's he may have a chance to be a good chooise for the mvp...to bad hes team wont reach higher than max top8.

In the 2002/2003 season (when Vujcic was the only star of Maccabi), Vujcic had numbers like 18ppg, 7rb, 1bl and 21 rkg with 60% from the field.

[guyOFK]

Cuz of Maccabi situation and the lack of foreigners players , I think Yotam will have lots of playing time and will be the next rising star of the EL.

MVP? well it's so hard to say... there is not even one player u can say his above all after AP has left so I agree that it mostly will come from the big men. I'll say Vujcic or Scola.

[ziv]

we have some old-new-comers like welsch, probably planinic, papadopoulos who didn't play EL for sometime now (and tsaklidis - and while we're at it tsiktashvili might comeback too) - so i won't rush it.
as for the rising star - i personally feel a bit uneasy with the defention of it (or the lack of it). it seems like a player can role his dices 2-3 times and i personally don't like it. we have no real defenition of rookie like the one they have in the nba but i suggest that the rising star will require both:
1. aged under 22.
2. didn't play more than 10 mpg in EL previous season(s) - after you had one 10 mpg season and wasn't chosen that's it for you (even if you're 18).
obviously that's not for us to decide but it's not interesting to disscuss (again) spliter and company.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

i doubt Splitter would win it. He won't have some great production with TAU IMO.
I won't do that, but numerous partizan related staff would likely promised to eat their shorts if Tripkovič would be leaving Partizan this year, also as Markoishvilli said his progress this year was very dissapointing... "rookies 2nd season" is always tougher than the first one, but Uroš had almost extreme downfall this season.
Bellinelli winning it would be the most sure thing to predict out of everybody...
Yotam is too old- he missed his chance.
Manu Markoishvilli won't be getting the minutes neccesarry although this year he could have his breakthrough...
Perović won't be elected because coaches have the vote here, eventhough he might gather good statistics (that are far from the real picture anyway)
...
Andrič could surprise, eventhough he is unknown to 99% of euro fans...


MVP?... Andersen, Navarro, Scola, Vujčič the ussuall group, or some US player stepping out in average team...

[elaj]

The yougsters who could step out (my opinion) (1984 like Erazem Lorbek, Paulius Jankunas and so on, I don't consider them as "youngsters who could step out" - they already did) -

Luksa Andric (210, PF/C, 1985)
Ian Mahinmi (206, PF/C, 1986)
Dusan Sakota (210, PF, 1986)
Marco Belinelli (196, SG, 1986)
Jonas Maciulis (200, SF, 1985)
Mantas Kalnietis (195, PG/SG, 1986)
Milenko Tepic (200, SG/SF, 1987)
Uros Tripkovic (196, SG, 1986)
Luka Bogdanovic (200, SF, 1985)
Nikola Pekovic (210, PF/C, 1986)
Thiago Splitter (210, PF, 1985)
Manuchar Markoishvili (196, SF, 1986)
Domen Lorbek (197, SG, 1985)
Sofoklis Schortsianitis (206, C, 1985)
Rudy Fernandez (196, SG/PG, 1985)
Cenk Akyol (200, SF, 1987)
Yannick Bokolo (189, PG, 1985)


Those are the players which I think they will get the chance, decent minutes to play in their teams, and I consider them as candidats for "youngster of the year". Ofcourse I could include all talents like Erden Semih, Emre Bayev, Aleksandar Ugrinovski, Nicolas Batum, Ajinca Alexis, Ludovic Vaty.. and so on, but I don't see them getting any decent minutes this year. For me personally the main candidat for this award is Sofoklis Schortsianitis, he is big man who will get many rebounds, score alot, and I only hope that Pinni Gershon will let him play. I don't see Thiago Splitter getting this award, he will get decent minutes to play, but with players like Rakocevic, Scola... he won't get many usefull balls. The second candidat for me is Marco Bellineli, if he stays in Bologna he will be their main weapon and threat. Considering that Uros Tripkovic and Luka Bogdanovic are year older they could do some decent games. Rudy Fernandez is newcomer in Euroleague and he is one hell of a player, if he stays in Europe (I heard he could go to NBA) he could be the one. Mantas Kalnietis is interesting guy too, he came from nowhere (we'll I heard about him already back then by Almantas :P) and could surprise, Maciulis too. While Markota is gone, Luksa Andric will get his place. He is decent prospect and could surprise in this years Euroleague. Manu Markoishvili could do his breakthrough like Matiz said, but we will see, he is still inconsistant. Domen Lorbek could surprise also in few games, when players will underestimate him, he is decent prospect but his time will come in a year or two. Anyway, the list of the players who are able to get this award is long, and we will see, it will be an interesting season.

Considering the MVP award, I would say some big guy like always... Nikola Vujcic, Matjaz Smodis, David Andersen, Lazaros Papadopoulos, Luis Scola...etc. Here the list is even bigger, players like Welsch, Rakocevic, Nicholas, Macijauskas could be there too.

[pliumbum]

rising star..
I would say Maciulis and Kalnietis are better candidates than Jankunas. Jankunas has been playing about the same level for already two years, and I don't think his improvement will be very big this year, of course he'll improve a bit, but not that much. Other candidates are of course Sofoklis, Splitter, Fernandez.

MVP clearly Scola or Vujcic, nobody else. Guys who make best statistics, even if they are sometimes not the deciding factor. As for Macas, it's so hard to be an MVP if you're a shooting guard. The MVP counting is just in favor of the big guys. It's musch easiers for a big guy to get 10 rebs in a game than for a small guy to make 10 assists. And if you're SG, you may even not be asked to make assists.. and only points and received fouls does not earn you an mvp..
I would also think about Siskauskas maybe as a possible candidate. Somebody of you mentioned Javtokas.. Nah.. Never

Disappointment - Marcelo Machado and I think Javtokas.

[Neozyrus]

I think in this order the best rising star for next year could be in this order: Marco Bellinelli ( for me this player is not a promise anymore but a consolidated gret player that can even improve himself a lot more, but watching his age, he could be in this category), Tiago Splitter ( ha always has had a lot of competition in his position and he has finished playing always), rudy fernandez ( if he continues playing ike he did last year, he would be the biggest surprise in the euroleague of this year), Schorseantidis was a great ebvelation last year, if he continues improving he could be even a greatest surprisethis year, Tripkovic, (if he finally explodes aand becomes the great player we all know he is), Lorbek is so young that he culd entry also in this category, but is there anybody that thinks that he is not altredy a consolidated player in EL???

In the MVP i think it could be:
- Vujcic, 'cause if he was a great player surrounded by other stars, now that he is the only star of the team, his stats could be awesome
- Papaloukas, probably the best pg in Europe
- Langdon if he gets to be a little more regular
- Smodis a "no-matter-what-he-does,-he-does-it-well" player
- Monya or Papadopoulos could be great surprises
- Marcus Brown or Jiri Welsch of Unicaja
- Rackocevic if get the minutes he needs in Tau
- Planinic in his came back to Europe
- Scola as always
- Navarro, he has improved even more his skills in the last year
- Lakovic, he's gonna play many minutes in Barcelona this year.
- Drew Nicholas, maybe the best shooter in Europe?
- Macijauskas, maybe NOW the best shooter in Europe?
- Siskauskas, Delk or maybe Dickoudis of Pao???

quite a long list i'm afraid