Mario Hezonja, Real, December MVP: 'We can go to even another level'

Get the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague MVP for December's take on his team's soaring season so far.

In this exclusive interview, Mario Hezonja talks about Real Madrid's historic run, how he has matured with Los Blancos, his relationship with head coach Chus Mateo, and much more.

Hezonja recorded Real's highest PIR in three of the five games he played in December while registering two of the five double-doubles in his 126-game EuroLeague career. Above all, he helped Real reach the regular season's halfway mark with a 16-1 record, which is unprecedented since the round-robin format was started in the 2016-17 campaign.

"It feels great individually and especially as a team, because we had a perfect month," Hezonja said about the award. "We won every game, and I think it was important for us not only to close the year like this, but also stay on our path and continue into the new year with the win."

At age 28, Hezonja is a young veteran who already played the competition with FC Barcelona, Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, UNICS Kazan and Real. He won't forget 2023 easily, the year in which he became a EuroLeague champion and which he finished with a bang, earning December MVP honors. He credits Real coach Chus Mateo for making him mature, growing together as player and coach.

"I didn't know that he's going to be a coach. We met, and then I think we started to grow at the same time, him as a coach and me as a player here," Hezonja said. "So he had a plan the entire way for me. Of course, sometimes you don't like it, sometimes you like it, sometimes good, sometimes it's bad, but this is all part of the process so you go with it. You shut up and you focus on basketball."

Asked about his team's great run, Hezonja believes Real is taking things naturally, as they come, knowing they have everything needed to go all the way again: experience, talent, physicality and a good number of previous EuroLeague champions. Being able to stay focused and wanting more should be the biggest key until the end of the season.

"We want to approach all of them with the maximum respect and then see where we are for the playoffs, and then see where we are for the Final Four. And ultimately we want to win it," he siad. "Also, I believe the team, how it is going for us with the records and everything, it's not getting to our heads, definitely, because there is always more. There is always hunger. There is always this mentality here."

Hezonja also believes this may be only the start, that Real has merely scratched the surface of what it can do in the near future.

"If we manage to keep the main players here, I think this we can start speaking in [the] future about the best team in [the] history of EuroLeague," Hezonja said. "And I hope that this can be achieved, and that we can go to even another level into something much more than just things that we are focused on now."