Stats review: Star players being efficient on the offensive end

The usual suspects are in the list of efficiency leaders

The first third of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season is in the books. The standings look incredibly tight, Vassilis Spanoulis is coming off his first win as the head coach of AS Monaco with a road victory over the defending champions Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, and Carsen Edwards has nearly doubled his scoring average to lead the league in scoring.

While there are no shortage of rapidly developing storylines across the league, some things in the EuroLeague do not change quite so quickly.

The table above lists this season’s most efficient scorers in points per possession among the 34 players using over 12 possessions per game. While there are several newcomers included here, the presence of Sasha Vezenkov and Nikola Mirotic continues perhaps the most predictable trend in the EuroLeague.

After a season away from Olympiacos, Vezenkov has picked up where he left off, actually improving on the top-ranked 1.22 points per possession he scored during his MVP season. Shooting 57% in the post, finishing 74% of his other shots at the rim, and knocking down 39% of his catch and shoot jumpers, his inside-outside scoring prowess has been the cornerstone of his team’s early success.

Mirotic has led the EuroLeague in scoring efficiency in three of the last five years while still placing in the top-five in the two seasons he didn’t finish on top. This season has been a good example of why. Even as Mirotic has had an off year by his standards scoring in the post, he’s made 43% of his spot up three-point attempts and 85% of his free throws to compensate as he remains one of the league’s toughest defensive assignments with his ability to beat defenders on and off the ball. He showed his whole arsenal in Round 20 scoring 29 on the road against the league’s most efficient defense coming into that game.

Devin Booker is the most notable newcomer on this list relative to previous seasons. In this, the 33-year-old’s seventh EuroLeague campaign, he has had a breakout year of sorts. While Booker has had some efficient years at previous stops, he’s never scored this consistently in this big of a role. Leading all players in scoring as the screener in pick and rolls, he’s kept defenses honest popping to the perimeter while shooting a staggering 83% around the rim as well, finding great chemistry with FC Bayern Munich’s potent backcourt.

Perhaps the most surprising name here is Facundo Campazzo, who has sat towards the top of numerous passing related leaderboards since debuting in the EuroLeague with Real Madrid during the 2017-18 season but never found as much success looking for his own shot as he is this season. Though he is still in a battle with TJ Shorts to be the league’s assists leader, he’s done so while looking to keep the ball more often in transition and emerging as more of a threat when sliding off the ball as well.

To round out the surprises, Theo Maledon has been a major bright spot for LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne and a much improved young talent than the one EuroLeague fans last saw. The 23-year-old guard has looked like a different player offensively than he did in his last EuroLeague season, also with ASVEL, in 2019-20, creating steadily out of ball screens, shooting the ball with confidence from beyond the arc, and delivering in several high-pressure road games already.

Nigel Hayes-Davis is a more established, battle-tested veteran but is nonetheless off to the best shooting start of his career, elevating his game early on. Jabari Parker falls into that boat as well while his FC Barcelona teammate, Kevin Punter, remains arguably the league’s most dangerous midrange scorer and a nightmare matchup when he gets hot but has found his way onto this list by virtue of striking more of a balance with the way he gets to his spots.

Consistency will be key for this group moving forward as they’ll look to lift their respective teams in what is shaping up to be an extremely crowded postseason picture.