By Vangelis Papadimitriou/ info@eurohoops.net
Eurohoops will attempt to pick out the ten most characteristic cases of players, who, even though they had the necessary individual potential to be crowned European champions, their choices or their teams did not allow them to!
As you will see on our list, there are players who didn’t stay to try because the NBA came calling, and there is one case of someone who, even though he played in Europe for a very short time, he came closer to the ultimate goal than any of the others!
Alphonso Ford
Team: Peristeri (2000-2001, 12 games), Olympiacos (2001-2002, 20 games), Siena (2002-2003, 22 games)
EuroLeague stats: 22.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.5 steals
We begin our list with the top American scorer. Alphonso Ford was the epitome of the… ‘machine gun’ and he couldn’t be missing from the top ten. A huge scorer and a teammate who inspired confidence in his team!
Ford never got to the top of the EuroLeague and this is because he only had one chance to play for the trophy. In the 2002/03 season, he and Siena qualified for the Final Four in Barcelona but couldn’t emerge victorious from the “civil war” against Benetton and made do with third place.
All this took place just one year before Ford’s tragic loss, at 32 years of age. The American gave in to leukemia but left behind a great legacy in basketball. In fact, to honor him, the EuroLeague named the award for each season’s top scorer after him!