Frutti Extra Bursaspor center Egemen Guven made his first start since opening night and produced his finest game in his four seasons in the EuroCup. The 25-year-old center scored a career-high 15 points on 6-of-6 two-point shooting.

Guven produces nicely for Bursaspor 

He also made 3 of 4 free throws, collected 4 rebounds, dished 1 assist and collected 1 steal for a performance index rating of 18, which is also a personal best. Guven started slowly like the rest of his team with just 2 points in the first quarter before netting 5 in the second quarter and 6 in the third. He became the first player in club history to make at least 6 shots in a game without any misses.

Labeyrie has first strong game since Round 1

He also grabbed 6 rebounds and contributed 1 assist and 1 block. All that gave him an index rating of 20. It was Labeyrie’s best game since he went for 23 points, 8 rebounds and a PIR of 25 in Valencia’s first game of the season.

Umana Reyer Venice v Valencia Basket (2021-12-07T19:00:00.000Z)

Motley goes through South Korea to become a EuroCup star

The Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar big man Motley leads the EuroCup in scoring at 23.0 ppg and ranks first with an average performance index rating of 27.4. His 3.0 offensive rebounds per game are second-best while his 6.6 total rebounds are 10th-most. He is also tied for sixth in blocks at 1.0 swats per game while also chipping in 1.4 assists and 1.2 steals. Oh, and he shoots 73.2% on two-pointers – the second-best mark in the EuroCup.

“I think I'm headed in the right direction,” Motley said. “I like the way the game has been for me. I really want to try and stay out of foul trouble and rebound a little more, but other than that I think I'm playing good basketball so far.”

“I think I'm headed in the right direction… I think I'm playing good basketball so far."

Motley has registered the third and fourth highest PIRs in a single game this season - 39 against MoraBanc Andorra in Round 1 and 38 versus Boulogne Metropolitans 92 in Round 3. He also is tied for third in most points in a game with 30 against Metropolitans and fifth for his 29 points versus Andorra.

Motley’s early path to Russia was not uncommon for many in the EuroCup. After going undrafted in the 2017 NBA Draft following a strong junior season at Baylor University, Motley spent three seasons shuttling between the NBA with the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Clippers and the G-League for the Texas Legends and Agua Caliente Clippers of Ontario.

“My favorite memory is my first 20-point and 10-rebound game in the league when I was a rookie playing for the Mavs,” he said of the game with 26 points and 12 rebounds against Detroit in April 2018. “It was a fun game. It was one of the first times I got a chance to play and I did really well.”

But the back and forth became a burden for the 2.06-meter Motley.

“I just got tired of sitting on the bench. It felt like I was rotting away and while I'm still young I just want to enjoy playing the game of basketball again,” he said. “The NBA is very tough if you’re not in the rotation every night. It takes a toll mentally.”

Motley started thinking about abroad and playing more.

“I figured if I left and had a legit role it would make me happier long term, and so far, it has been true,” he said. “I've enjoyed every moment being over here playing so far. Hopefully, I can keep playing well and the team will continue to have success.”

When the subject of heading to South Korea as a first stop abroad came up, Motley went to his friend Jameel Warney, who had played there before and was MVP of the league.

“I knew something about the league. They showed the most interest at the time. It was really simple as that,” he said about playing last season for the Incheon Elephants. “I was just happy to go play somewhere where the pay was good and they allowed my family to travel with me.”

Motley dominated right away, averaging 20.7 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.4 blocks in the league in 2020-21.

“I learned that the game is different everywhere and you have to be able to adjust to become successful. I did a good job at that and played well there,” he said.

Motley said there are many underrated things about South Korea and South Korean basketball, especially how they treat you off the court.

“I met some of the nicest people in the world while I was there. They really helped me with anything I needed and also my family’s needs as well. They treated us with the utmost respect and courtesy. I think that's one thing that's underrated,” he said. “They also handled every little small thing you could think of for you so you can focus solely on basketball. It was nice being there, I really enjoyed it.”

Motley was also used to being in a big city like Incheon with 3 million people, coming from Houston and spending his NBA/G-League career in Dallas and Los Angeles.

“It was different, of course, because of the language barrier. But it was a good experience. The people locally knew who I was so it was good vibes everywhere I went. I developed some good relationships with the locals while I was there,” he recalled.

Then this off-season his focus was to head to Europe to, as he said, “test himself”.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I can dominate anywhere,” he said. “I chose Loko because I knew they were a good stepping-stone club. A lot of players who play here have the opportunity to jump up to high ranks. I also loved the coach's playing style, and I thought it would benefit the way I play, which it has so far. So I think I made a good choice,” he said.

It’s hard to argue against that with the way he is playing.

South Korea is not a league most players in the 7DAYS EuroCup have used as a stepping stone. But Johnathan Motley did just that and now is playing at a First Team All-EuroCup level.



Johnathan Motley - Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar (photo Fedor Aebor - Lokomotiv) - EC21

Cordinier, 25, played 14 minutes before the injury in his team’s 102-100 overtime victory over Dinamo Sassari. The team’s medical staff diagnosed the injury and Monday and estimated a four-week recovery time. Cordinier has averaged 8.4 points in 81.3% two-point shooting in five 7DAYS EuroCup games off the bench this season.

Virtus Segafredo Bologna will be without the services of shooting guard Isaia Cordinier for the next month after the player suffered a sprained ankle in Sunday’s Italian League victory. 

Virtus: Cordinier out with sprained ankle

Isaia Cordinier - Virtus Segafredo Bologna - EC21

MoraBanc Andorra will have to make a run for the 7DAYS EuroCup Playoffs without its captain, forward David Jelinek, who will miss three months of action with an ankle injury, the club announced on Thursday.

Andorra loses captain Jelinek for 3 months

Jelinek was injured, suffering ligament damage to his left ankle, while playing for the Czech Republic national team over the weekend. Jelinek has been a constant positive presence for Andorra in the EuroCup, averaging between 6.2 and 10.7 points each of the last four full seasons. In this one, he had been putting up 8.8 points and 2.4 rebounds in 17:36 per game as a part-time starter.

Competing in just its eighth season at the professional level, Hamburg Towers has made massive strides in its short club history. But climbing from Germany's second division to its 7DAYS EuroCup debut in such a short time is just one small part of the ambitious play of a club that has started building a tradition in a city that did not have much basketball success in the past.

The Club Scene: Hamburg Towers

Even though it's the country's second-largest city, Hamburg has not been a mainstay of German basketball. The city's first basketball club, Johanneum, founded in 1952, played in Germany's elite level at first, but then spent decades in the lower divisions. The club finally made strides in the late 1990s, drawing a large number of kids to its youth teams while earning promotion to play in the 1999-2000 first division, where it spent two seasons under the name BCJ Hamburg Tigers.

That success did not last, however, and the team declared bankruptcy in 2002. A newly founded BC Hamburg tried to take its place, but unsuccessfully, and basketball slowly started to disappear from the sports map of the city.

There was a new beginning in 2006, however, when Marvin Willoughby, a Hamburg-native and former national team player, joined with Jan Fischer in founding the Sport Without Borders association to combine sports and social work for the youth in the city. The program, which promoted values such as fairness, respect and tolerance to young people through sport, also gained success on the court, as two youth Hamburg Pirates youth teams that trained with Willoughby climbed the ranks in Germany youth leagues, too.

Then, in February 2013, former EuroCup star Pascal Roller and entrepreneur Wolfgang Sahm announced a plan to bring back professional basketball to Hamburg for the first time in over a decade. Joined by Willoughby and his program, Hamburg Towers was founded. The club not only had great ambition to reach the German first division as soon as possible, but also a plan on how to get there and stay there.

"We want to build something from the bottom up", Willoughby said at the time. "Only then it is guaranteed that there is enough substance to keep a first division team in Hamburg. Structures are far more important to me than money. "

Thanks to a wildcard for the 2014-15 season in the German second division, the club played its first game against Giessen 46ers on September 29, 2014, starting its journey. Hamburg edged Giessen 65-66 on the road and won its first home game, too, a 74-64 decision to inaugurate edel-optics.de Arena in Wilhelmsburg, the club’s home to this day.

Photos by Hamburg Towers / Dennis Fischer

Hamburg finished eighth with a 15-15 record that season, reaching the second-division playoffs, but lost against s.Oliver Baskets Wuerzburg in the quarterfinals. Hamburg kept competing in the German second division for the next four seasons. The team finished fifth in the 2015-16 regular season but was swept in the best-of-five quarterfinals by Gotha, then finished ninth and 10th in the next two campaigns. However, everything clicked for Hamburg Towers in the 2018-19 season.

With Willoughby as the team's sports director, Hamburg put together a competitive roster led by Beau Beech and Jannik Freese. After finishing the regular season fourth with a 19-11 record, Hamburg beat Rostock Seawolves, Niners Chemnitz and Nuernberg Falcons in the playoffs to win the second-division title and promotion to the German League. Justus Hollatz's triple to lift Hamburg to a 99-94 win in Game 2 over Nuernberg, and a 186-184 series win on aggregate, was just one in a line of historic moments for the young club.

Hamburg's debut among the German League elite in the 2019-20 season was a rough one. In the opening round, Hamburg suffered a 111-55 defeat on the road against FC Bayern Munich, while its first victory came in the third round, a 75-79 road triumph over Giessen. The team had a 3-17 record, all three being road wins, when the season was halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But no team was relegated, and the German League was expanded to 18 teams in the 2020-21 season, allowing Hamburg to keep its place in the German elite. The club brought in Pedro Calles, one of the best young coaches in Europe, replacing Mike Taylor, and found the right chemistry with players like Maik-Kalev Kotsar, Kameron Taylor, T.J. Shorts and Jordan Swing.

Coach Calles guided Hamburg to an impressive 2020-21 season during which the team beat ALBA Berlin and Brose Baskets twice, split victories with Bayern and qualified to the playoffs by having finished the regular season in seventh place with a 21-13 record. In the best-of-five quarterfinals, Hamburg was swept by ALBA, but the results laid groundwork fo an invitation to the 2021-22 7DAYS EuroCup.

History was made on October 19 this season, when Hamburg hosted the mighty Partizan NIS Belgrade, led by coach Zeljko Obradovic, for the debut of any Hamburg basketball club in European competition. Partizan grabbed a 97-106 win in a highly entertaining game, while Hamburg waited until Round 4 for its first win, a 96-100 decision on the road against Lietkabelis Panevezys with Lukas Meisner scoring 20 points.

What makes the club even prouder than the results it has achieved is the way it has done so. Hamburg's U16 and U19 youth teams have been making the German playoffs every year for more than a decade. Meanwhile, the likes of Hollatz and Osaro Rich are examples of homegrown players who went from youth teams to compete at the EuroCup level. Others, like Ismet Akpinar of Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and Louis Olinde of ALBA Berlin, went from Hamburg Pirates to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.

Investing in youth and strong values has fueled and helped sustain the growth of Hamburg Towers. Needing less than three years to go from the German second division to become the EuroCup's fourth highest-scoring team through Round 5, the club is building a basketball legacy in the world-renowned city of Hamburg.

Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana bolstered its backcourt by signing point guard Yogi Ferrell for the remainder of the season. 

Cedevita signs Ferrell from Panathinaikos

Ferrell (1.82 meters, 28 years old) arrives from Panathinaikos OPAP Athens, for which he debuted in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague this season. He appeared in five games as a reserve and averaged 1.6 points and 1.8 assists. Ferrell spent the previous five seasons in the NBA, where he played for Brooklyn, Dallas, Cleveland, Sacramento and Los Angeles Clippers. For his career, he averaged 7.7 points and 2.3 assists in 259 games. Ferrell also spent time in the G-League with Long Island and Salt Lake City. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team in 2017.

“We are happy that Yogi Ferrell has signed a contract with us,” Coach Jurica Golemac said. “We’re sure we brought in a quality playmaker who doesn’t have much experience playing in Europe and has a good career in the NBA League behind him. He will definitely need time to get to know the team. He is a winner by nature, likes to play defense and likes to win. I’m sure it will take a lot less time to adjust than some might think. I emphasize we are very happy that he landed at Cedevita Olimpija.”

<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="sl" dir="ltr">Cedevita Olimpija se je na igralnem položaju organizatorja igre okrepila z <a href="https://twitter.com/YogiFerrell11?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YogiFerrell11</a>, ki je lep del svoje kariere preživel v <a href="https://twitter.com/NBA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NBA</a>, nazadnje pa je nosil dres <a href="https://twitter.com/paobcgr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@paobcgr</a>.<br><br>Yogi, dobrodošel v Ljubljani! 💚🧡 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ZmajevoSrce?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ZmajevoSrce</a> <br><br>🔗: <a href="https://t.co/PFog2eFZno">https://t.co/PFog2eFZno</a> <a href="https://t.co/AU6IssFa4X">pic.twitter.com/AU6IssFa4X</a></p>&mdash; Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana (@KKCedOL) <a href="https://twitter.com/KKCedOL/status/1466038057656885256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 1, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</center>

This season there are many legitimate candidates for the EuroCup Rising Star award who have earned important roles on their respective teams in many different ways. Check out the leaders based on their numbers so far.

Many early candidates in the EuroCup Rising Star race

The list of winners of the EuroCup Rising Star Trophy includes players who have – as the name attests – gone on to find stardom at the highest levels of the game. This season there are many legitimate candidates for the award who have earned important roles on their respective teams in many different ways. Some are products of the youth teams, others are valued prospects signed from other clubs and there are even those looking to rebuild their names and reputations after striking out elsewhere. Not all the Rising-Star Eligible players with big roles could be listed and the likes of Hugo Benitez of Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse, Andrei Martiuk of Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar and Mario Nakic of MoraBanc Andorra, narrowly missed the cut. Here is a list of the five best Rising Star Trophy-eligible players so far based on their numbers.

### 5. Jaime Pradilla, Valencia Basket

Jaime Pradilla has taken advantage of an injury to Mike Tobey to become a key player for Valencia Basket. Using his outstanding post skills and ever-developing shooting range, Pradilla is playing more than anyone would have expected and surpassing all expectations. He is averaging 10.0 points on a sensational 85.7% two-point shooting (18-of-21). Pradilla has also made 50.0% of his shots from downtown and 88.9% of his free throws to go with 4.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists on average. He has reached double digits in PIR in all games but one after now. Pradilla is full of confidence and looks to keep it going.

### 4. Alen Smailagic, Partizan NIS Belgrade

A mobile center who can finish above the rim, 21-year-old Alen Smailagic returned home to his native Belgrade this season to play for Partizan NIS Belgrade after spending three seasons on the other side of the Atlantic. Smailagic is showing off all his skills under the watchful eye of the legendary Zeljko Obradovic. He is averaging 10.6 points on good shooting (52.6% 2FG, 43.8% 3FG,) in addition to 5.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists for a PIR average of 12.0. Smailagic had his first EuroCup career double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds for a PIR of 20 in Round 5 against Leitkabelis Panevezys.

### 3. Alessandro Pajola, Virtus Segafredo Bologna

Even though he turned 22 in November and is on a team full of established stars, Alessandro Pajola has become one of Virtus Segafredo Bologna's defensive anchors. He puts on-the-ball pressure on the playmakers in front of him and reads the passing lanes like few other guards in the competition. Pajola is averaging 6.4 points, 2.4 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.8 steals, ranking seventh in this last category. He has the chance to keep learning from the legendary Milos Teodosic, so expect Pajola to continue growing as a player as the season progresses.

### 2. Joel Parra, Joventut Badalona

Despite his team's loss in Belgrade, Joel Parra, an aggressive, left-handed forward full of energy, proved he can be one of Joventut Badalona's leaders. He had 14 points against Partizan NIS Belgrade and it was only his third-best scoring night of the season. Parra is averaging 13.4 points on 65.6% two-point shooting and 4.2 rebounds for a PIR of 14.2. He can shoot from beyond the arc, use his size to beat his opponents in the low post, play aggressive defense and run the floor like a guard.

### 1. Nikolaos Rogkavopoulos, Promitheas Patras

After playing in Greece and Turkey, Nikolaos Rogkavopoulos made his EuroCup debut this season and caught everyone by surprise. He leads all Rising Star candidates in PIR (18.2) and ranks 10th overall. Rogkavopoulos is averaging 12.2 points on 56.5% three-point shooting, 7.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.4 steals. His best game, stats-wise, came against Gran Canaria in Round 2 when he went for 21 points on 6-of-8 three-point shots plus 6 rebounds for a PIR of 28. He is making sure you remember his name - no matter how complicated it is for some people.

Nikolaos Rogkavopoulos - Promitheas Patras - EC21

To do so, we will take into account their respective progress, current standings, and their overall dynamic in the games which have been played.

**[MORE...](https://www.eurohoops.net/en/trademarks/1276682/7days-eurocup-power-rankings-vol-2-2/)**

The first five rounds of the 2020-21 7DAYS EuroCup season are in the books and it’s time to evaluate all 20 teams again to see where they stand in comparison to Vol. 1 of the Power Rankings.