Euroleague Round 8 MVP: Chris Jones, LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne

A week after Elie Okobo of LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne took Round 7’s MVP award, in Round 8 it was the turn of his teammate Chris Jones to step into the spotlight as he excelled in an 85-82 home win over UNICS Kazan. Jones scored a career-high 25 points with most of his success coming inside, as he converted 8-of-10 two-point attempts. He also made 6-of-7 free throws and 1-of-4 three-pointers. The ASVEL guard added 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal for a PIR of 27, the best of all winning players this week. The two top individual performances in Round 8, though, came from players who ended up on the losing team. CSKA Moscow’s Will Clyburn had a PIR of 34 in his team’s home loss to Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul, combining 26 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocked shots; and Mario Hezonja of UNICS contributed 27 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists for a PIR of 29 in the loss to ASVEL. Derrick Williams of Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv had 21 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals for a PIR of 26 in a road win over Bitci Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz. Completing the list of the top performers in Round 8 are four players with PIR 23: Jan Vesely of Fenerbahce, Guerschon Yabusele of Real Madrid, Tyler Dorsey of Olympiacos Piraeus and Luke Sikma of ALBA Berlin.

Hezonja was the top scorer this week with 27 points, but ASVEL’s Okobo remains this season’s leading scorer with 19.6 points per game. Sasha Vezenkov was the only player to reach double-digits in rebounding, grabbing 10 boards in Olympiacos victory over AS Monaco. Luke Sikma of ALBA is still atop the overall charts, averaging 7.9 boards per game. Monaco’s Mike James and Keenan Evans of Maccabi top the round’s assists list with 8, with Nick Calathes of FC Barcelona ranked first in the competition with 5.4 assists per night. Baskonia’s Simone Fontecchio grabbed 5 steals in his team’s loss to Maccabi, the most this week, while John Brown of UNICS leads the league in steals with 2.5 per game. Ben Lammers returned from injury to register 3 blocked shots in ALBA’s win at Zalgiris Kaunas. A league leader in blocked shots is Walter Tavares of Real averaging 1.4 blocks. Tavares is also the league’s leader in PIR, with 20.9 per game. Vezenkov was the only player with a double-double this week, scoring 10 points along with his 10 rebounds.