Only one other player has previously reached this milestone in the EuroLeague
Nando De Colo and his journey to 4,500 points
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Regular Season
Round 2 of 34
Group Regular Season
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The 4,500-point club contained just one man, Mike James, until Thursday night. During LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne’s 87-85 triumph over Virtus Segafredo Bologna at the Astroballe, Nando De Colo joined James after scoring 16 points and moving to 4,502 points in his 297-game Turkish Airlines EuroLeague career.
Midway through the third quarter, De Colo stepped back from mid-range – forcing ex-CSKA Moscow teammate Will Clyburn to touch the floor in the process – before seeing his shot drop and moving to 12 points, which took him one score shy of 4,500 points. In the end, he reached the 4,500-point mark by driving to the rim for a layup with 2:45 minutes to go in the fourth.
The Frenchman has wowed EuroLeague fans for 12 seasons now and even at 37, it still seems he has something left in the tank. There is no denying De Colo’s legendary status in the league, with just a faint glance at his roll of honors being enough to underline his greatness: two EuroLeague championships (2016, 2019), one EuroLeague MVP (2015-16), one Final Four MVP (2016), one Alphonso Ford Top Scorer Trophy (2015-16), and six All-EuroLeague selections – three in the First Team (2016-18) and three in the Second Team (2014-15, 2018-19, 2020-21).
But, how did De Colo make his way to 4,502 points and join James, the EuroLeague’s all-time leading scorer on 4,649 points?
Bursting onto the scene with Valencia
His rookie EuroLeague season came back in 2010-11 after leading Valencia Basket to the 2010 BKT EuroCup title. Aged 23, De Colo looked right at home in Europe’s premier club competition, helping Valencia reach the Top 16 and later the playoffs. He scored in double figures in nine of his 19 appearances that year, netting a season-high 17 points at Zalgiris Kaunas in the fifth game of the Top 16. Valencia ended up falling in Game 5 of the playoffs to Real Madrid, but De Colo’s average of 10.1 points per night had caught the attention of many – particularly in the United States.
De Colo, who was selected with the 53rd overall pick by the San Antonio Spurs in the 2009 NBA Draft, ended up staying with Valencia as it dropped down to the EuroCup for the 2011-12 campaign, but the summer of 2012 saw him make his long-awaited move stateside. Between 2012 and 2014, he made 98 appearances for the Spurs and played 21 games for the Toronto Raptors before deciding to return to Europe with CSKA.
Becoming a star at CSKA
A powerhouse on the old continent, De Colo’s arrival at CSKA saw the team become the outright favorite to win the EuroLeague, having reached three straight Final Fours but failed to get over the line in any of them. What CSKA got in De Colo was a new animal compared to the one EuroLeague fans had seen in 2010-11, with the Frenchman averaging 14.4 points per game (403 points overall) and scoring 10 or more points in 21 of his 28 appearances in 2014-15, including in eight games straight to start the Top 16. While CSKA made a fourth successive trip to the Final Four, it could not get past the semifinals.
The following season was arguably De Colo’s best-ever campaign in the EuroLeague. Impressively, he upped his scoring average by five points per game in 2015-16 (19.4 ppg.) and had a double-digit number of points in all but one of his 27 games as CSKA won its seventh EuroLeague title and its third of the modern ea. What’s more, De Colo scored 20 or more points 11 times, including 30 in the semifinal and 22 in the championship game. His total of 525 points was the first time he had broken the 500-point barrier. In the space of one year, De Colo had done enough to establish himself as the league’s best player.
There was no slowing down by De Colo to start the 2016-17 season, neither, as he averaged 19.4 ppg. and guided CSKA to a fifth straight Final Four. Again, he had just one single-digit game across 28 appearances, while he hit at least 20 points in 15 games, all of which were in the regular season. To date, the 2016-17 campaign remains the season in which De Colo has scored the most points: 534.
That said, the 2017-18 season was almost identical points-wise as De Colo poured in 533 points, albeit in four more games (32). CSKA made it to yet another Final Four – its sixth straight – and while the Frenchman remained one of the top players in the EuroLeague, there was an ever-so-slight comedown in relation to the previous two years. He still hit double figures for points in 27 of his 32 appearances, numbers any player in the league would be delighted with, but his scoring average dropped to 16.7 ppg., still a remarkable figure.
De Colo’s final year in Moscow came in 2018-19, and he went out with a bang. While he had his lowest scoring average since arriving in Russia, 14.7 ppg., he still had 10 points or more in 26 of his 34 appearances. In the postseason, De Colo notably increased his averages, averaging 18.0 points – and scoring 28 and 27 points, respectively in Games 3 and 4 – as CSKA swept Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz before posting 19.0 points at the Final Four. He had 23 points against Real Madrid in the semifinal and 15 in the championship game against Anadolu Efes Istanbul as he secured his second EuroLeague title. That year was the fourth straight season in which he had scored 500 or more points, finishing 2018-19 with 501.
A new adventure
In the summer of 2019, De Colo signed for Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul, but it was a season to forget in 2019-20. Although De Colo did well on an individual basis, averaging 15.9 ppg. in 24 games (382 total points), Fenerbahce failed to make the playoffs – the first time that had happened to the Frenchman in the EuroLeague.
The following season, 2020-21, De Colo had the fifth 500-point season of his career as he finished with 507 points and averaged 15.8 ppg. in 32 games. Fenerbahce returned to the playoffs and had to face CSKA, with De Colo scoring 27 points in Game 1 and 22 points in Game 3, but it wasn’t enough as the Russian side swept the series.
Fenerbahce again missed the playoffs in 2021-22 in what proved to be De Colo’s last season at the club, with the veteran guard averaging 11.9 ppg. across 21 games in an injury-affected campaign. His 249 points that year was his lowest tally since his rookie season, when he had 191 points in 19 games with Valencia.
Heading home
De Colo decided to come home to France in the summer of 2022 and managed to turn the clock back in 2022-23, scoring a total of 400 points (13.8 ppg.) in 29 games. In fact, he looked on course to break Vassilis Spanoulis’s all-time scoring record of 4,455 points heading into the 2023-24 season.
However, an injury suffered in Round 15 meant De Colo had to watch on as Mike James surpassed both himself and Spanoulis en route to taking the all-time scoring mantle. De Colo finished last season with an average of 12.2 ppg. (256 total points) in 21 games and did ultimately go above Spanoulis in the all-time scoring charts, although James had created a sizeable gap at the top.
Entering the 2024-25 campaign, he knew he needed just 19 points to reach 4,500 points and managed to reach that total in Round 2. De Colo is still one of the premier players to watch in the EuroLeague, despite his age, and ASVEL fans will be hoping he can move as close to 5,000 points as possible this season. Just 498 points to go…