The votes have been counted and the identities of the five players who make up the 2022-23 All-EuroLeague First Team can be revealed! Members of the media, Turkish Airlines EuroLeague head coaches and team captains, and fans all voted to choose the best players from the 2022-23 season.
The makeup of the All-EuroLeague First Team combines fresh faces with long-standing stars. There are two returnees from last season’s first team in Walter Tavares of Real Madrid and Sasha Vezenkov of Olympiacos Piraeus. This marks Tavares’s fourth All-EuroLeague nomination and his third time on the first team. It is Vezenkov’s second such selection. Mathias Lessort of Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade, Dzanan Musa of Real Madrid and Lorenzo Brown of Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv are all first-time All-EuroLeague members.
Mathias Lessort, Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade
The Partizan center was a force in the paint all season long and went on to lead the league in rebounds (7.1 rpg.) while placing second in average PIR (19.1). Lessort tied for the league lead with eight double-doubles and became one of just 10 players in the last decade to average more than 3 offensive rebounds per game. A model of consistency, Lessort had PIRs in double figures in all but three games this season. His 67.6% two-point shooting percentage was the highest of all players with as many two-pointers (4.3 per game) made. Many of those buckets were high-flying alley-oops and putbacks, which delighted his legions of fans in Belgrade, whom he would ascend into the Stark Arena stands to sing and dance with after home wins.
Walter Tavares, Real Madrid
The man who gives new meaning to the term rim protector, Tavares set a EuroLeague record with 84 blocked shots this season. He led the league in blocks with 2.2 per game and finished third in rebounding (6.6 rpg.) while remaining a force in the paint. That was never truer than in the playoffs when, after missing Game 2 to injury, Tavares roared in Game 3 with 26 points and 11 rebounds for a PIR of 41, which is tied for the second-highest in playoff history. He had the third-highest average PIR in playoff history (26.8) and was chosen MVP for April/May. This is Tavares’s fourth consecutive All-EuroLeague nomination, which places him second all-time among centers behind only Nikola Vujcic.
Dzanan Musa, Real Madrid
Musa was a revelation in his first full season in the EuroLeague. He led Real Madrid in scoring and was 10th in the league with 15.2 points per game despite averaging the fewest minutes per game among those 10 players. On a per-minute basis, Musa ranked fourth with an average of 25.2 points over 40 minutes. He was the only member of Los Blancos to appear in every game this season and ranked second on the team in both assists (2.7 apg.) and PIR (16.4). Musa made at least 10 free throws in a game four times this season and set a EuroLeague single-season record with 175 free throws made. After joining Real over the summer, he was the MVP of the Round three times (6, 9 and 29), which was second-most in the league.
Sasha Vezenkov, Olympiacos Piraeus
Winning this season’s Alphonso Ford Top Scorer Trophy was just the start of the impressive campaign by Vezenkov, who was also the EuroLeague MVP of the month in both November and February. In addition to leading the league with 17.2 points per game, he ranked second in rebounding (6.8 rpg.) and his league-best PIR (21.2) is among the five best full-season marks in the last decade. Vezenkov did it all with impressive shooting marks (65.4% 2FG, 38.5% 3FG, 87.9% FT), too. He tied for the league lead with eight double-doubles and claimed MVP of the Round honors a league-most five times, too. This marks Vezenkov’s second consecutive selection to the All-EuroLeague First Team.
Lorenzo Brown, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv
Brown set career-highs in nearly every major statistical category this season, his fourth in the league, in leading Maccabi to within one game of the Final Four. He was the only player to rank among the top 5 in the league in both scoring (16.4 ppg.) and assists (5.5 apg.) and came within a whisker of a top 10 finish in steals (1.1 spg.), too. Brown had four games with PIRs of at least 30, including Round 5 when he earned MVP of the Round with 22 points and 9 assists against Panathinaikos Athens. His cool head in critical situations gave Maccabi the boost it needed in several big games and helped it turn in a winning season.
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