03-06-2020, 03:41 AM
(03-05-2020, 03:50 PM)michaeltex Wrote: Does anyone know how Luka's championship team in Spain did the year they won it all? Were they the top seed? Were they a surprising winner?
Real had three major competitions that year:
- Spanish cup: tournament where teams play elimination matches through year. Decided with final four, 1 sem final and 1 final game. Spanish league has some Barcelona and Real as somehow equal rivals and then a couple of good teams that could challenge, especially in elimination. Real lost in finals to Barcelona by a point
- spanish league. Playoffs after regular season. Real won against Barcelona best of 5 in 4 games. Barcelona was good, but not as good as Real the whole season, it would be a surprise if they won it.
- eurolegaue: very equalized competition, several teams able to win it. Winner is decided after final four, same way as Spanish cup. Real was fifth after regular season, won quarterfinals agains fourth seeded tough Panathinaikos 3-1. They beat top two teams in the final four (CSKA and Fenerbahce).
European competition is a bit different than NBA. Not so much star driven, so there are usually many players that score between 5 - 20 points per game. Rare are guys that score more than 20 per game (game is also just 40 minutes, not 48). Luka scored 16 (top scorer) in semifinals and 15 (top scorer 17) in finals. While Luka was considered as best player, Real had very strong veteran leadership, who held the team together, played tough defense and so on. Among them former NBA player Rudy Fernandez, Spanish legend Fernando Reyes, "best player who didn't go to NBA" Sergio Llull and so on. Luka was not really top scorer, but he always (as in Dallas) filled the stat sheet with rebounds, assists,...
One thing is sure about Luka - he plays best when needed/motivated. He is driven by adrenaline. That's why I think he will never have good numbers in unimportant exhibition games like all stars.