Jaime Pradilla of Valencia Basket made a major impact in his first season in the 7DAYS EuroCup.
Pradilla's two-point shooting was historic
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Pradilla led the 2021-22 EuroCup by a wide margin with 79.8% two-point accuracy, which was the highest in the competition since 2005. He missed just 17 of his 84 two-point shot attempts. Alen Omic of Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana ranked second, with 59 of 82 shots inside the arc made (72.0%). Three other players - Octavius Ellis of Turk Telekom Ankara (71.2%), Jasiel Rivero of Valencia (70.4%) and Zach Auguste of Cedevita (70.3%) made more than 70% of their two-point shots.
Pradilla turned 21 years of age midway through the season and delivered from the very start of the campaign when he made all of his 5 two-point shots in Round 1 against Promitheas Patras. After four games, Pradilla was averaging 8.5 points with just one shot missed from downtown: he was 12 for 12 two-pointers, 2 for 3 on three-pointers and 4 for 4 on free throws. Pradilla was perfect from two-point range in Rounds 6-8 against Umana Reyer Venice (3 for 3), Frutti Extra Bursaspor (3 for 3) and Cedevita (2 for 2). At the regular season's halfway mark, Pradilla had missed just 4 two-point attempts and was shooting an incredible 88.9%.
Opposing coaches did their job and Pradilla stopped catching players by surprise, but his post skills, ability to finish plays with dunks and great effectiveness from mid-range allowed him to lead the regular season in two-point shooting percentage (79.5%), ahead of three Cedevita players: Omic (72.7%), Edo Muric (71.4%) and Auguste (70.8%). Pradilla kept shooting the ball with outstanding accuracy in the playoffs, making all 4 of his attempts in the eighthfinals against Hamburg Towers and 5 of 6 shots in the quarterfinals against Boulogne Metropolitans 92.
At the end of the season, Pradilla had the highest two-point accuracy in EuroCup history for a player appearing in more than 12 games. Primoz Brezec of Krasnye Krylia made 47 of 55 two-pointers (85.5%) in six games in the 2010-11 season. Jozef Szendrei of Debreceni Vadkakasok (81.8%) and Boyko Mladenov of Lukoil Academic Sofia (80.6%) also had higher percentages in the 2004-05 season but played in only nine and 12 games, respectively.
Pradilla helped Valencia reach the EuroCup Semifinals, averaging 8.7 points and 4.0 rebounds in 20 EuroCup games this season despite playing less than 16 minutes per night. On a per-minute basis, Pradilla was eighth in PIR (27.5 per 40 minutes) and 14th in scoring (21.9). He finished tied with Joel Parra of Joventut Badalona for second place in a close race for the EuroCup Rising Star award, which was won by Khalifa Diop of Gran Canaria. Pradilla now hopes to keep his overall effectiveness in a higher level of competition: the 2022-23 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.