Given the way wins and losses have shaken out until now, getting a more in-depth feel on which teams have stood out with half of the season in the books requires more nuance. The graph above plots every team in the EuroLeague in offensive and defensive efficiency relative to the league average. It provides some insight into which teams have stood out and, more than usual, what ladder the group sitting outside of the playoff picture will have to climb to get into the playoff picture over the second half of the year.
Olympiacos Piraeus holds the league's top efficiency differential, which is in step with its spot atop the standings and fitting of its status as the competition's most efficient offensive team. Offensive efficiency has never been more important of a differentiator on the court compared to defense in the EuroLeague than it is right now. That has less to do with an evolution on the offensive side than it being extremely difficult for teams to find a competitive advantage on the defensive end this year.
That is not to say that teams have been less effective defensively than they have been in recent seasons, but rather that it has been dramatically more difficult to get a meaningful edge on the rest of the league through defense. Real Madrid – this season's top ranked defense – is a good example of that. Real is allowing 0.95 points per possession. Not only would that mark have placed it just sixth last season, but no team to lead the EuroLeague in defensive efficiency over the last three seasons has allowed more than 0.92 points per possession. A difference of 0.03 points per possession may not seem like a lot, but it is roughly the difference between the first and ninth ranked defense this year.
Digging deeper into the current efficiency landscape reinforces sentiments about parity, but also reveals the outliers. Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade is perhaps the league's most unique team on paper, ranking third in offensive efficiency but last in defensive efficiency while holding the league's seventh-best overall efficiency differential. While Partizan sits just 11th in the standings, it has the same point differential as AS Monaco, which is fifth. If Partizan can find some answers defensively in the second half, its explosive offense figures offer the team a path to the postseason.
The opposite is true of EA7 Emporio Armani Milan which may have more tangible solutions on the horizon. Ranking second in defensive efficiency but last in offensive efficiency, the pending returns of Kevin Pangos and Shavon Shields could put Milan in position for a late push if it can continue to stay connected to the pack in the standings until those moments arrive.
While those two teams have clear routes moving forward, it will be fascinating to watch how the cluster of teams around them sorts out in the coming months. Panathinaikos Athens, FC Bayern Munich, Zalgiris Kaunas, LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne and Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade have their own strengths and weaknesses and fall anywhere between eight and seventeenth in the standings but have played to a remarkably similar level on both ends of the floor through the first half of the regular season.
The league efficiency landscape suggests there is more separation between the teams currently in the playoff picture and those on the edge of it than the standings suggest. It is possible that the contenders could begin to separate themselves going forward, but that level of dominance has completely eluded them to this point. On paper, the last three months of the EuroLeague have been some of the most competitive in European basketball history and it seems perhaps more likely that the chaos in the standings now will lead to one of the most exciting playoff pushes in recent memory.