On the cusp of the regular season's midway point, Ergin Ataman's touch with remaking rosters and making them work is evident in Athens.
Surging Panathinaikos is showing Ataman's touch
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The parallels are worth noting.
Ergin Ataman's revolution at Anadolu Efes Istanbul didn't start when he took over a 3-9 team sharing last place in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague in late 2018. In fact, Efes played even worse the rest of the way that season to finish 7-23, three wins below any other team.
The revolutionary change came that summer, when Ataman purged the roster to sign Sertac Sanli, Vasilije Micic, Rodrigue Beaubois, Adrien Moermann, James Anderson, Shane Larkin and Tibor Pleiss in a span of a few weeks. Among regular contributors, only Dogus Balbay, Bryant Dunston, Krunoslav Simon and Brock Motum survived from the previous season.
Of course, that roster remake led to nearly unprecedented success as Efes won two EuroLeague titles, was runner-up another season, and vastly dominated a fourth one that the pandemic stopped in its tracks.
Another makeover in Athens
Fast forward to latest stop, Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, for which Ataman was already in team-building mode when he exited Efes.
This time, just three regular contributors – Marius Grigonis, Panagiotis Kalaitzakis and Eleftherios Mantzoukas – survived a signing spree under Ataman that saw Luca Vildoza, Mathias Lessort, Kostas Antetokounmpo, Jerian Grant, Aleksander Balcerowski, Juancho Hernangomez, Konstantinos Mitoglou, Kyle Guy, Ioannis Papapetrou, Kostas Sloukas and, finally, Kendrick Nunn alight in Athens.
Most teams lean toward roster continuity. The alternative introduces extra room for error in the player mix and requires more time to build chemistry. That's why large-scale roster revamps are rare and very difficult to pull off.
But as with Efes five years ago, Ataman's special touch at remaking teams can already be seen with Panathinaikos.
After stumbling out of the gate with a 2-4 record, the Greens have risen to 9-7 alongside six other teams, occupying fourth place based on better points balance. That record includes three overtime losses, two more than any other team. Panathinaikos had a shot attempt to win each of them in regulation, but none of the three fell. That luck changed last week when Ataman designed an end-of-game play with 2.5 seconds left that finished with Grigonis burying a game-winning triple to steal a road victory at dangerous AS Monaco.
"For us, it's a very important victory, an emotional victory, because so far we lost three games in overtime. One more game we lost on the last possession in Istanbul," Ataman said coming off the court in Monaco. "Now, OK, we come back from 15 points [down] for the last-second buzzer shot. So, now we have the luck."
Riding the good vibes from Monaco, the Greens completed the double-round by winning at EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, good for a three-game road winning streak that the team has not had since 2019.
Roster resemblances
The parallels between the Panathinaikos and Efes rosters are worth noting, as well.
Grigonis, adept at finding weaknesses in a defense and dangerous if left alone to shoot, would seem to be filling Krunoslav Simon's role at Efes.
Sloukas is a veteran version of Micic, able to drive, shoot or pass with equal proficiency, but most importantly unafraid of late-game responsibility.
Grant is the sort of long perimeter defensive ace with floor-running and scoring ability that Ataman had in Beaubois.
Mitoglou is more of a combination of Moerman and Chris Singleton, who shared the same position at Efes, able to shoot from distance or dominate the boards.
Lessort is like a younger Dunston, though with more of a rim-attacking mindset than a rim-defending one, but the same power in the paint that Ataman likes.
And though he's new to the task, Nunn has lately been supplying the kind of instant offense that Larkin perfected for Efes.
Though no two rosters are alike, the balance that Ataman brought to his Efes roster – able to shoot, defend or run to win – is starting to take form in Athens.
Time will tell
Panathinaikos has matched the EuroLeague's second-best record over the last 10 games, 7-3, despite playing five of the last six games away. The next stretch of seven home games out of 12 at home will be crucial because, in the final stretch of six rounds, the Greens play in Athens just two times.
It is early times in the marriage between Ataman and Panathinaikos. But 16 games into his Efes tenure Ataman was 4-12. Then he got to choose his own roster and the rest is history. He was able to choose his roster earlier in Athens and now history remains on hold to see if it repeats itself.