ABA Liga: Filip Petrusev is the MVP of October

Filip Petrušev has proven, throughout the month of October, his dominance at the ABA League courts wherever he has appeared and besides the fact that he finished the month as the statistically most efficient player, he deserved himself the award with his contribution to the team’s success – Mega Soccerbet have won three of their five games during this month, which keeps them in the Playoffs race.

The excellent big man in the ranks of the Belgrade squad averaged 21 points, 7.4 rebounds, 1.4 blocks and a valuation of 22.8 during the games of Mega Soccerbet, which puts him on the first place in the rankings in valuation of the month of October.

Petrušev admits that he did not have any specific expectations ahead of his first season in professional basketball: "I did not now what to expect before the season. It is my first time playing for professional team in my career and I did not know what it would look like. I knew that I would be given a chance to prove what I can do. Perhaps the start of the season is better than I had hoped, but I have believed in my work and talent on the floor. For now everything is just fine, the whole team has believed in itself, especially after the preseason, where we have learnt much about each other. We have seen that we have something special as a team. We did not know what we can do with it, but for now we are satisfied with our game, even though there is still plenty of room for improvement."

And what about the ABA League in comparison with the college basketball where he used to play before? "It’s a strong competition, not only theoretically. We have a representative in the EuroLeague, four in the EuroCup, altogether 5-6 teams in a very high level and each of them can upset any other. It’s a tough league to play in and definitely a lot tougher than college basketball, with a lot more contacts. There are older and more experienced players here and the challenge is much greater than in the NCAA," Petrušev told.

Mega Soccerbet is famous for its great work with young players: "Promotion of young players was for sure one of the reasons for my arrival to Mega. It’s the work with young prospects, on which Mega insists, which is the reason for these players to develop great careers, but playing in the ABA League against experienced and great players helps you to make progress. This is one of the best combinations for progress, which you can find. The trust, that Mega has been offering to the young players for years, you can not find in any other place, at least not at this level. The club has offered me a chance and it is my task to take advantage of it."

As Filip explains, his team is hungry for great basketball: "We have started the season well, but we are not satisfied by it. We are a young team, but want to win in every single game and to fight for our place in basketball map. We want to demonstrate that we can play with anyone. We have respect for others, but play to win in every game. We do not want to go too far forward, we just play every single game, try to play as well as possible and to win as many of them as possible."

Check out some fancy plays by Filip Petrušev from the month of October: