His energy and hustle on that side of the ball are skills that all teams want and a successful season for Fenerbahce could vault Pierre into contention to be named EuroLeague Best Defender for the first time. Widely regarded to be one of the toughest defenders to come up against in the EuroLeague, Fenerbahce's Dyshawn Pierre should take to Coach Itoudis's defensive instructions like a duck to water. Another similar campaign – or better – could see Papagiannis take home the EuroLeague Best Defender award. Papagiannis also led the league in defensive rebounds with 6.0 per game and doubled his number of steals from 11 in 2020-21 to 23 in 2021-22. The 25-year-old took his game to the next level in the last campaign as he recorded 50 blocks in 29 games, which gave him the highest blocks average in the league. In addition to leading Panathinaikos Athens as its team captain, Georgios Papagiannis also inspires his teammates with his defensive effort on the court. Georgios Papagiannis, Panathinaikos Athens The arrival of Brandon Davies should mean that Hines can play slightly less, which then frees him up to exert even greater energy on the defensive end of the floor. The expectation levels have gone up at Milan over the summer after a number of notable additions were made to the roster, so head coach Ettore Messina will hope that Hines can turn the clock back once more.

Calathes already knows new Fenerbahce coach Dimitris Itoudis well from the Greek national team, which should put him in good stead to be a defensive force at the guard position.ĭespite now being 36 years of age, last year saw Kyle Hines anchor Milan's defense en route to his third EuroLeague Best Defender award. Last year, the 33-year-old finished in third place in the EuroLeague Best Defender race, so he will be determined to bring that same level of defensive activity to Ulker Sports and Event Hall. Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul has undergone plenty of changes this summer, with one of its signings being Nick Calathes from FC Barcelona.

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