BiE supposes the only suspense with this award this year was how close things would get and who placed second. So, after the ho-hum announcement that Pau Gasol was chosen FIBA Europe Men’s Player of the Year for a second consecutive time, we today know the answers. In order, then: Not very close at all, and Dirk Nowitzki.
Nowitzki finished second in the final tabulation with a 0.078 rating against Gasol’s mark of 0.335; Milos Teodosic was third at 0.050. The public saw things a little differently than the experts, however, with Nowitzki just fourth in the popular vote, with The Dastardly One topped by Marcin Gortat (who finished 12th overall) and Erazem Lorbek (5th overall). Meanwhile, fourth-place overall finisher Vassilis Spanoulis got no respect from the voters, earning just enough ballots to place 14th with the crowd. (And you thought NBA All-Star Game voting was weird!)
Check out the final standings as per FIBA’s calculations, with the players’ finish in the popular vote for the award in parentheses following.
Gortat: The fans love him!
2. Dirk Nowitski (4)
3. Milos Teodosic (8)
4. Vassilis Spanoulis (14)
5. Erazem Lorbek (3)
6. Rudy Fernandez (9)
7. Juan Carlos Navarro (10)
8. Tony Parker (12)
9. Hedo Turkoglu (6)
10. Ersan Ilyasova (7)
11. Nikola Pekovic (13)
12. Marcin Gortat (2)
13. Novica Velickovic (5)
14. Ioannis Bouroussis (15)
15. Igor Rakocevic (11)
16. Lior Eliyahu (16)
And now the suspense may begin anew, but with the Los Angeles Lakers certainly on an inside track to the NBA Finals and Team Spain expected to go far in the FIBA Worlds. If Pau plays in the latter, surely the threepeat is inevitable…
