By John Rammas/ irammas@eurohoops.net
The EuroLeague format has taken several directions since 2000, but now it seems to have reached its destination. Starting with the 2016-17 season, the competition has the 16 best teams battling it out in a regular season that lasts 30 rounds – sometimes more often than once a week – and this latest change has made it more exciting than ever before. The number of games with such small margins of victory is proof of this.
The season of the change
The 2015-16 season was the last one that included more than one phase – the regular season and the Top 16 – preceding the playoffs and there was a varying degree of suspense in the games. Only 13% of games came down to a single possession (1-3 points), though the championship game in Berlin (Fenerbahce Dogus Istanbul 96-101 CSKA Moscow in overtime) was more than enough to make up for that low figure.