The first thing handicappers of EuroLeague basketball will want to know for the upcoming season is what format is it this year. The league has rolled out the ball since 1958 under a few different names and a variety of formats. Most years it was a series of playoffs with the top teams advancing until a winner-take-all final round. For 2016-17, however, the EuroLeague is adopting an American-style “regular season” with each of the 16 teams squaring off twice in a home-and-home against all 15 opponents. When the dust clears from the 30-team melee, the top eight teams will clash in best-of-five playoffs to reach the 2017 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four in the Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul, Turkey.
This is the first time any major European team sport has tried this approach to a season and what is a bettor expected to make of it all? Well, oddsmakers at M88 for one are sticking to the familiar names in setting lines for the upcoming season. Defending champion CSKA Moscow is listed as the favourite entering the season at 2.50. The Russian five plowed through the playoffs last year and has only failed to make it to the Final Four once since 2001-02.
【2016-17 EuroLeague Basketball Outright Winner Odds】
※ Current Odds Date & Time: October 11, 12:00 a.m. (GMT)
Moscow is led by versatile French backcourt ace Nando de Colo who won both the EuroLeague MVP and the Final Four MVP last season. Since spending a couple of uninspiring years in San Antonio in the NBA, the 29-year old de Colo has upped his scoring average each season and topped out at 19.4 points per game in 2015-16. Also in the backcourt is Serbian first-team all-league guard Miloš Teodosić. Teodosić averaged a career high 16.1 points last season after leading the league in assists the previous year. Teodosić and de Colo are joined by burly frontcourtman Kyle Hines, a University of North Carolina at Greensboro product, who was named EuroLeague Best Defender last year.
Listed right behind CSKA Moscow at 3.50 is Fenerbahçe Basketbol, one of two league entries from Turkey. The ballers have won six of the last nine Turkish League championships and last year became the first team from Turkey to make it all the way to the EuroLeague Final game, pushing the Russian squad to overtime before falling 101-96. Along the way Fenerbahçe dispatched defending EuroLeague champion Real Madrid.
Fenerbahçe starts one Turkish citizen in its first five – Bobby Dixon who hails from Chicago and starred for the Troy Trojans as a 2005-06 All Sun Belt 1st team performer. After being named the Turkish Basketball League playoff MVP in 2014-15, the slashing point guard brought his talents to Fenerbahçe and solidified the team’s offense. Center Jan Veselý, a 7-foot center from the Czech Republic, returned to Fenerbahçe after an NBA adventure as the sixth overall pick in the 2011 draft and was named to the all-Euroleague team.
Real Madrid has seen plenty of different EuroLeague formats through the years and has walked away with nine championships – more than any other team. Not to mention a record 33 Spanish championships. Before bowing out to Fenerbahçe last year Real Madrid had appeared in three consecutive Final games, winning one. Spanish guard Sergio Llull who averaged 12.8 points and 4.6 assists per game is back in charge of the Real Madrid attack.
The Spanish front court is anchored by Gustavo Ayón, a one-time Mexican national collegiate champion who spent parts of four seasons in the NBA before landing in Madrid and averaging 10 points and six rebounds over the past two seasons. Real Madrid will also be expecting big contributions from six-year NBA veteran Anthony Randolph who played in the EuroLeague for the first time last year with Lokomotiv Kuban. After averaging 14.5 points and six boards a game he joins Real Madrid, listed at 4.50 courtesy of bookie M88 entering the season.
The Greek professional team Olympiacos was the best European basketballers of the 1990s and this century has not been barren so far. There were back-to-back European championships in 2012 and 2013 and EuroLeague MVP Vassilis Spanoulis is still patrolling the backcourt at the age of 34. In his ten-year EuroLeague career, Spanoulis has never averaged fewer than 10 points per game. Last year, after being a EuroLeague finalist in 2014-15, Olympiacos ripped through the Greek League winning 25 of 26 games. They will be expecting big things this season with the arrival of Erick Green who led NCAA Division I in scoring in 2012-13 as a guard at Virginia Tech. Bettors can take a swing at Olympiacos at 7.50 as the new format will give the team longer to gel before the Final Four.
Also meriting consideration is BC Barcelona with seven appearances in the EuroLeague Finals. Still in the Barcelona backcourt is seven-time All-EuroLeague guard Juan Carlos Navarro. The 36-year old former captain of the Spanish national basketball team has spent all 15 of his seasons with Barcelona but will likely start season 16 on the bench after failing to average 10 points per game for the first time in his career last season. Georgios Bartzokas was 2013 EuroLeague Coach of the Year in 2013 when he led Olympiacos to the title and last year he kickstarted Lokomotiv Kuban to its first ever appearance in the Final Four, taking down BC Barcelona 3-2 in a five-game playoff. Barcelona must have liked what they saw as they inked Bartzokas to a three-year deal this summer. If he works his magic in Spain as well it will reward backers at 9.50.
Latest Odds: EuroLeague (courtesy of bet365)
