The EuroLeague keeps getting bigger. In money, in attention, and in the kind of player it can attract.
More NBA players are willing to leave and come to Europe. A bigger role, a different game, a new chapter. Whatever the reason, the traffic is going one way more often than it used to.
The transfers inside the league were just as busy. Usually two or three moves stand out and you fill the rest of the list. Not this summer. Cutting it down to five was hard.
So: five arrivals from the NBA, and five of the biggest moves between EuroLeague clubs.
The arrivals from the NBA
Jonas Valanciunas, to Zalgiris Kaunas
The homecoming that changes the maths in the paint. Valanciunas signed a two-year deal in July, days after Denver waived him, and comes back to Lithuania at 34 with 14 NBA seasons behind him.
He gives Zalgiris something the league does not see very often. A centre who scores with his back to the basket, who can be fed without a screen, and who lives on the offensive glass. Defences that want to help off him have to decide who pays for it.
Guerschon Yabusele, to Panathinaikos Aktor Athens
Three years, and one of the biggest contracts in Europe. Yabusele spent last season between Chicago and New York, 67 games and 15 minutes a night, and Panathinaikos have bet that Europe suits him better than that role did.
What they get is a power forward who can play centre, run the floor, shoot from outside and switch onto smaller men. Against a big, slow five he takes the game away from the basket. Against a small one he plays on the block.
Dario Saric, to Anadolu Efes Istanbul
Saric is back at the club he left for the NBA a decade ago, and he answers a specific question. Efes have guards everywhere, so the big man next to them has to pass.
He does. From the elbow, from the short roll, in the half-second before help arrives. Against teams that trap the pick and roll, a big who reads the floor that fast turns their aggression into a problem for them. More on what Efes built this summer.
Patty Mills, to LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne
One year, and a reunion. ASVEL is run by Tony Parker, the guard Mills backed up in San Antonio, where he won the title in 2014.
Late in his career, he still changes how a defence stands. You cannot leave him to help, and you cannot go under on a handoff. ASVEL have spent years looking for a guard who makes the right decision with four seconds left. That is the job.
Tyrese Martin, to FC Barcelona
Martin arrives from Brooklyn, where he spent two seasons, and he is not here to shoot a lot.
He is here to take the other team's best wing, to finish in transition before the defence is set, and to rebound from the perimeter. Barcelona wanted someone to do the hard, unglamorous half of the game. He does that.
The moves inside the league
Shane Larkin, Anadolu Efes to Fenerbahce
The move of the summer, and the one that hurt. After eight years, two titles and a status very few players reach at a club, Larkin crossed Istanbul to sign for the rival.
Fenerbahce get one of the most reliable late-clock shots in Europe, the pull-up off the pick and roll that does not need anything to work. Jasikevicius now has it, and Efes do not.
Mike James, AS Monaco to Anadolu Efes Istanbul
How do you replace Larkin? You sign the man who has scored more points than anyone in the history of the competition. 5,916 of them in 362 games.
James also needed a club. Monaco dropped down to the EuroCup this summer, which took his team out of the competition. He signed for one year with an option, at 36, and Efes handed him the ball.
Jean Montero, Valencia Basket to Olympiacos Piraeus
The champions did not stand still. Montero is 23 and he brings the thing Olympiacos sometimes lacked: a guard who can make something out of nothing when the offence stops.
He plays at a speed most defenders cannot live with, and he gets into the paint off the dribble. Bartzokas-ball is built on everyone moving. Montero adds the possession where nothing is planned and it works anyway.
TJ Shorts, Panathinaikos Aktor Athens to Valencia Basket
Valencia lost Montero and Brancou Badio in the same summer, so they needed a guard who could walk in and run everything. Shorts spent a year under the pressure of Athens. In Valencia he gets the ball and the freedom that comes with being the main man.
Sylvain Francisco, Zalgiris Kaunas to Panathinaikos Aktor Athens
Panathinaikos replaced Shorts with Francisco, and added Badio behind him. Two years in Kaunas made Francisco's reputation: a guard who wants the ball when the game is tight, hits pull-up threes, and pressures the other guard for 94 feet.
The bottom line
No move guarantees anything. Big names still have to fit, familiar players still have to adapt, and a team that changes half its roster still has to become a team.
That is what makes this summer interesting. More NBA players are choosing Europe, and the best EuroLeague clubs are spending to keep up with each other. The gap between the two worlds is not disappearing. The traffic between them is just getting busier.
