Philly Sports Jabronis
Typically, the Transatlantic Tracker serves as a catch-all for news surrounding each of the five international players whose rights are held by the Philadelphia 76ers. But when news broke that Dario Saric had been awarded the bwin Euroleague MVP award for the month of November, we decided to make this edition all about him.
After Anadolu Efes lost center Nenad Krstic to a broken arm during a Turkish League game on November 2, some questioned how the undermanned club would respond. Despite his relative inexperience, a 20-year-old Saric was thrust into the starting lineup to provide Efes with some much-needed size in the frontcourt. The 6’10” forward gave them that plus a whole lot more.
Saric had averaged 9.0 points, and 2.5 rebounds in 17.5 minutes through the first two games of the team’s Euroleague season, but with a more consistent role came more consistent results for the 12th-overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. In four Euroleague contests in the month of November, Saric averaged 15.5 points on 56.1% to go along with 7.8 rebounds in 24.5 minutes per game en route to a 3-1 record. He averaged the most rebounds and third-most points of any player on a Euroleague team with three or more victories last month.
At 20 years and 7 months old, Saric becomes the youngest Euroleague MVP of the Month ever. The previous youngest was Bulls forward Nikola Mirotic, who won the award in December of 2011, when he was 20 years and 10 months old.
