By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
How deep are the rotations of the teams in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague? How much deeper are some teams than others? Eurohoops.net counted the playing times of all teams through Round 9 and drew several useful conclusions regarding player usage in the first year of the EuroLeague’s new era.
The new competition in the EuroLeague, with the extra and more competitive games, has brought many changes in European basketball, especially among the top teams, top players, and top coaches.
Now that the level has been raised and the number of demanding games has multiplied, “every game counts” more than ever. Everyone has to do their best in every game, as one bad performance in November can affect the final ranking in early April. To accomplish that goal, teams are tending to have bigger rosters full of quality players who can make the difference in top-tier games.
Certainly, the weeks that include two games throughout the regular season add even more pressure on the rotations of the teams. To what extent have the teams adjusted to the new situation? A quick look and comparison to the past will convince you that now the teams have deeper rosters and that even the stars play less.
For example, during the regular season of 2012-13, with a total of 10 games, there were 16 players with an average playing time of more than 30 minutes. This year? After nine rounds, there were just eight such players, which is to say half with an average playing time exceeding 30 minutes!
And how many players have registered an average playing time that is more than 25 minutes this year? 40! What was the corresponding figure two years ago? 61!
Let’s take a look at the rotation of each team separately to explain the infographic below. All players that competed, even if they stepped on the court for one minute, were taken into account. In order for the sample to be more representative, all those who appeared in at least half of the first nine games were recorded separately.
The only team that has used as little as 11 players is Anadolu Efes Istanbul, whose a main core of eight players each play of between 19 and 29 minutes per game.
In contrast, Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz and Galatasaray Odeabank Istanbul have expanded rotations, using 13 and 12 players, respectively, in at least half of their games so far.
In fact, Baskonia together with CSKA Moscow, Darussafaka Dogus Istanbul, and FC Barcelona Lassa are the only teams that have used 14 players in this year’s competition. Injuries were an influence in all of those teams.
Real Madrid and Unics Kazan also have big rotations, using 12 players for an average of more than 10 minutes per game.
It’s worth mentioning that the only team that has a really tight rotation of five players with more than 26 minutes on average is Brose Bamberg. The German team uses its starting line-up more than any other team and has just six players with an average playing time of more than 15 minutes. Of course, Bamberg has suffered a string of late defeats with many of those core players on the floor.
Respectively, the starters of Panathinaikos Superfoods Athens and Fenerbahce Istanbul are also used a lot, with four players from each team on the floor for more than 25 minutes per game. Indeed, Zeljko Obradovic of Fenerbahce and Evgeniy Pashutin of Unics are the only coaches who have called on nine players to appear in five or more games.
Olympiacos Piraeus, Baskonia and Zalgiris Kaunas also trust a small number of players: all three have rotations with seven players playing 15 minutes or more per game.
Zalgiris and Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade allocate their playing time almost evenly and so they have only one player (Leo Westermann and Stefan Jovic, respectively) who spends more than 25 minutes per game on the court, while EA7 Emporio Armani Milan’s has two such players, Krunoslav Simon and Ricky Hickman.
See in detail by team the data regarding the playing times through Round 9 for each EuroLeague team.
Artwork: Giorgos Soulas