Fresh off a run to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Championship Game, Olympiacos Piraeus is ready to once again be among the contenders to lift European basketball's crown. The Reds wowed fans across the globe with their play during the last campaign, and it's fair to say that Olympiacos will be one of the EuroLeague's teams to watch once again in the 2023-24 season.
Olympiacos finished last year's regular season top of the standings for the first time since the 2015-16 campaign, when it finished top of Group B. There have been some notable departures over the summer, but the club's fan base remains optimistic after bringing in a handful of top-level players.
Moving on from Vezenkov, Sloukas
Two of Olympiacos's star performers last season, 2022-23 EuroLeague MVP Sasha Vezenkov and the best sixth man in the league in Kostas Sloukas, both left the club this summer. Vezenkov made his long-awaited move to the NBA, while Sloukas shocked the basketball world by joining Olympiacos's archrival, Panathinaikos Athens.
It was always going to be difficult to replace the impact of Vezenkov and Sloukas, but Olympiacos has done a good job of doing so by bringing in the likes of Nigel Williams-Goss, Ignas Brazdeikis, Luke Sikma and Nikola Milutinov. In the cases of Williams-Goss and Milutinov, they have both returned to the Reds after previously playing for the club, so they already know exactly what is expected of them in the coming season.
Key players still on the roster
The new signings are all likely to make a positive impact for Olympiacos during the campaign, but head coach Georgios Bartzokas will also be able to lean on several of the players that have made the Reds a force once again, such as Thomas Walkup, Shaquielle McKissic, Kostas Papanikolaou and Moustapha Fall.
There is also the chance that some players entering their second years with the team could come up big, like Isaiah Canaan, who shined during last season's Final Four, and Alec Peters. For Peters, he had to play most of his minutes behind Vezenkov, so he should get a better chance to show what he can do entering the 2023-24 campaign.