Change of costume: surprise guest last season, AS Monaco approaches the quarter-finals of the Euroleague basketball, from Tuesday (8:15 p.m.) against Maccabi Tel Aviv, in the shoes of the favorite to bring France back into the last square after more than 25 years of waiting. The ambitious Rock club, on the upward trajectory for ten years and its takeover by the Ukrainian businessman Sergey Dyadechko, had in 2022 fallen after the fifth and last match, in the electric atmosphere of Piraeus against the ‘Olympiacos (94-88), after making their way to the play-offs in extremis.
So, to allow the “Roca Team” to take a new step and participate in the Final Four of the Euroleague, which no club in the French championship has done since 1997 (Asvel), the Russian naturalized Hungarian Aleksej Fedoricsev , chairman and majority shareholder since January 2022, has decided to work twice as hard. The budget has been increased this season by almost 50% to reach 20.7 million euros, unheard of in France, and the workforce has been reinforced by Elie Okobo (MVP of the last French championship finals with the Asvel), Jordan Loyd (ex-Zénith Saint-Petersburg) or the strong winger John Brown III (Kazan).
Result: ASM will this time have the advantage of the field in the event of a support match, due to its fourth place in the regular season after occupying the top 4 almost continuously. This could weigh against Maccabi, the best team of the eight qualified at home (only two defeats in 17 matches) but weaker outside (five successes).
The Israeli club, which ended the season in a cannonball (seven wins in the last eight matches) also put big resources on the table last summer to regain its glorious past (six Euroleague titles). An American triplet has thus landed on the shores of the Mediterranean: point guard Lorenzo Brown (16.5 pts per match on average this season), European champion with Spain in 2022, point guard Wade Baldwin (36 matches NBA, 16.7 pts) and winger or strong winger Bonzie Colson, MVP of the French championship in 2020-2021 with Strasbourg.
In order to take the advantage before the second match, Thursday still at home, Monaco, the worst team in the Euroleague by three points, will rely on their side on their athletic impact inside (first in terms of offensive rebounds taken) and his “X factor” Mike James, sixth best scorer in the competition (16.3 pts). The latter has lived through the last tormented months, between bloodshed on the ground and a two-week suspension, in March, “for violation of the internal rules” of the team. Who worked well during his absence.
“We will have the best version of him. He has a killer instinct. He’s a great leader, he brings a lot of energy. I have no doubt about that” assured the press on Monday John Brown, one of the strong men inside. James scored 20 points on Saturday in the Coupe de France final against Asvel (90-70), ASM’s first trophy since the Eurocup in 2021, which had allowed him to set foot in the Euroleague.
The victory at Bercy was very lightly celebrated, according to John Brown: “It’s important, but we couldn’t really take advantage of it because the Euroleague is already there. And we want to start it in the best way.” “We will give everything, he added. We know that the stage (of Maccabi) will be superior to everything we have done this season. But we’re not where we want to be yet.”
Either in this last square not frequented by a representative of France for more than a quarter of a century, a time when Monaco was vegetating in the lower divisions, very far from the Euroleague.
