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Who's hot: Joel Parra, Joventut Badalona

Who's hot: Joel Parra, Joventut Badalona

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1 February 20233 Mins read

Who's hot: Joel Parra, Joventut Badalona

Two of the hottest teams in the competition, Prometey Slobozhanske and Joventut Badalona, play a battle for outright possession of first place in Group A on Wednesday. It is also a game that will feature one of the hottest players in the 7DAYS EuroCup – a 22-year old Joventut forward Joel Parra.

Prometey (8-4) enters this game on a five-game winning streak and Joventut (8-4) has won four of its last five. During that five-game span, Parra has been one of the most productive players, scorers and shooters in the competition.

Since Round 8, just four players have scored more points than the Joventut forward, who is averaging 18.4 points over that span. Parra has scored at least 11 points in each of those five games, and has 16 or more points in four of theme.

In the first and in the last game in this five-game run, Parra scored a career-high 23 points. He first did it in a dramatic home win over Umana Reyer Venice, a game in which he nailed a career-high 5 triples on 7 attempts, and he scored 23 again last week in a come-from-behind victory over Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana.

What makes his run mighty impressive has been Parra’s three-point shooting. Over the last five games, Parra has knocked down 15 three-point shots on an astounding 68.2% accuracy.

He has made more triples in the last five games alone than he did in any of the three EuroCup seasons he played before this one.

Parra's 15-for-22 three-point shooting is a massive improvement in accuracy, but also in volume over the first seven games of the season, during which he made just 6 threes on 16 attempts (37.5%).

While shooting and making more threes, compared to the first seven rounds of the season, Parra also increased the number of two-point shots he is both making and attempting, as well as his number of trips to the free throw line.

It not only led to Parra more than doubling his scoring output, from 8.9 points on average in the first seven appearances, to 18.4 in the last five, but it also turned him into one of PIR leaders over the last five games. Parra improved from averaging a PIR of 12.0 to posting 21.8 per game, accumulating a fourth-highest 107 index rating points.

If young forward continues his hot run on Wednesday night, Joventut could be starting February sitting pretty atop of Group A standings.