By Giorgos Orfanakis /info@eurohoops.net
Last March the EuroLeague presented a list of the 10 most clutch players in the history of the competition, and at the top of that list, one could see the names of Vassilis Spanoulis and Dimitris Diamantidis.
Essentially, it was an ode to Greek basketball, which was fortunate enough to enjoy for a number of years the legendary duels between the two huge players, who are featured very high in almost every statistical category in the EuroLeague.
So, when one outperforms the other in a certain statistical category, it’s newsworthy. This is what is expected to happen in Round 12, or one of the following rounds, as “Kill Bill,” who has scored 370 three-pointers, needs just another 3 to surpass “3D” (372).
In the table below, you can see the Top 7 three-point shooters
|
Name |
Three-pointers |
Percentage |
Games |
|
Juan Carlos
Navarro
|
598/1594 |
37.52% |
325 |
|
Milos Teodosic |
471/1253 |
37.59% |
237 |
|
Gianluca Basile |
421/1149 |
36.64% |
223 |
|
Jaka Lakovic |
381/986 |
38.64% |
218 |
|
J.R. Holden |
377/1124 |
33.54% |
209 |
|
Dimitris Diamantidis |
372/992 |
37.50% |
278 |
|
Vassilis Spanoulis |
370/1128 |
32.80% |
254 |
As shown in the above table, Olympiacos’s captain needs just 3 three-pointers to surpass Diamantidis, despite having played 24 fewer games so far.
At the same time, Spanoulis has attempted 136 more threes during this time but the 32.8% with which he executes, compared to Dimitris Diamantidis’s 37.5%, did not allow him to surpass the former Panathinaikos player sooner.