ACB working day 3. 4
The ACB League was established in 1983, 41 years have passed. At that time, the elite clubs broke away from the tutelage of the Federation and created their own competition, in which Baskonia already appeared. Since that first time, the representative team of Vitoria, since then also one of the most powerful on the Spanish scene, has always competed in the fight for the title, never falling out of the top eight. In 2024, after their defeat at the WiZink Center against Real Madrid (106-100), it is the first time. Among the best eight will be Manresa, despite their defeat against Tenerife (84-80).
In an atypical season, at least before the title is decided, the winner of the regular season is Unicaja de Málaga, winner against Palencia (93-69), who has Ibon Navarro on the bench, a coach trained in the Baskonia quarry. In fact, he was Dusko Ivanovic’s assistant in the 2008/09 season, in which the Vitorians won the regular League but not the title. The previous year, as Neven Spahija’s second, he did celebrate the ACB trophy.
Baskonia was the last team to finish first before the play off –2008/09 season–, breaking the usual monopoly of Real Madrid (7) and Barcelona (7), which have dominated in the last fourteen years. Of course, finishing in the lead is no guarantee of anything. Since the century began, only nine times has the winner of the regular League finished as champion.
Baskonista’s decline this season has no clear explanation. In the previous one, the Vitorian team finished second in the regular phase with 28 wins and only 6 losses. In an incomprehensible way, although perhaps not so much looking at the defensive balance, because Baskonia is the team that receives the most points per game (88.3), although it is the third highest scorer behind Unicaja and Barcelona (88.4) . This defensive bleeding, which was not so noticeable in the Euroleague, has balanced the numbers, which have remained at 18 wins – ten less than the previous season – and 16 losses. These are numbers that in other years would have allowed him to sneak into the top eight, but not this time, and it is a historically negative figure.
Analysts point out that Baskonia’s poor start in many of the games played during the season have been another part of the problem. In the Endesa League, Dusko Ivanovic’s team has lost seven of the nine games in which it began by falling in the first quarter. Also, the limited wardrobe that his coach has, in a team weighed down by several injuries – the latest, those of Moneke and Miller-Macintyre, his starting point guard. Baskonia has already played 74 games between the League and the Euroleague, and fatigue has been evident in recent days.
Baskonia is one of the most traditional teams in the competition, having won the ACB League four times in this century (2002, 2008, 2010 and 2020), and has finished in first place in the league on as many occasions. regular. They have also won the Cup six times, in which they did not qualify this season either, and have four Super Cups. In addition, between 2006 and 2008 it qualified four consecutive times for the Final Four of the Euroleague, in which he last played in 2016.
The first person to be disconcerted is, of course, Josean Querejeta, the man who, in the offices, has run the ship since 1988, the same year in which he abandoned the presidency of the basketball players’ union. With him at the helm, Baskonia became one of the most respected clubs in Europe, among other things because he was the founder of the Euroleague, of which it is a permanent member. A week ago, the Baskonista leader laid the first stone for the construction of a residence for athletes in Vitoria, sponsored by the Alavés-Baskonia group, of which he is the visible head. Ultimately, Querejeta hinted at the reasons for taking the step: “Generate resources and consolidate our teams in the elite and compete with fewer differences compared to the rest of the teams.” Baskonia maintains a budget of 15 million euros — the fourth highest in the ACB after Real Madrid (45), Barcelona (44) and Valencia Basket (25.4), ahead of Unicaja (14) — of which 2 .56 come from his agreement within the group that he maintains with Deportivo Alavés, in which he receives as a fee, 4% of the football club’s budget, for the provision of services, since the Alavesista employees are on loan from Baskonia. Querejeta must strike a balance between the two entities, since it is convenient for the basketball team, the jewel in the crown, due to that 4%, for the soccer team to remain in the First Division. Relegating to Second would cause a drop in income for the Baskonistas.
Querejeta’s words, at the inauguration of the works on the new facilities, are a declaration of intentions, although the evils may be due, precisely, to the opposite of what he comments, because being unattainable, except in a specific manner, blocks like those of Real Madrid and Barcelona, the point is that the upper middle class to which the Barça club belongs has become quite equal and teams like Manresa, Gran Canaria or Murcia have emerged, questioning the Vitoria team’s privileged position in recent years.
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