On the night he was presented with the MVP trophy for the month of October, FC Barcelona forward Nikola Mirotic had one of the most efficient games of his career as he led his team to a big 93-67 win over Bitci Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz and earned the MVP of the Round 9 honor in the process. Mirotic spent only 18 minutes and 20 seconds on the floor on Thursday night, but still finished with 25 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal. Impressively, Mirotic knocked down 4 two-pointers and three-pointers apiece on perfect shooting, and also made 5-of-6 free throws. He finished with a performance index rating of 37, tied for his career-best, and the highest in Round 9. In that same game, Baskonia center Steven Enoch had a PIR of 35. He collected 22 points plus 8 rebounds, 1 block and 8 drawn fouls. The next best index rating, 28, belongs to the 2020-21 EuroLeague MVP Vasilije Micic of Anadolu Efes Istanbul. In a 63-90 road win over ALBA Berlin, Micic shined with 19 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds and 4 steals. Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade forward Nikola Kalinic had a career-night in a 73-67 win over LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne. He matched his career-high with 22 points, along with 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals for a career-best PIR 27. Rounding up the list of Round 9’s top performers are two Croatians – Efes guard Kruno Simon and Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv center Ante Zizic, who both accumulated PIR 26. Zizic collected 16 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks in a 74-73 road loss against CSKA Moscow, and Simon had 18 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals in the win over ALBA.
Individual highs: Georgios Papagiannis, Panathinaikos OPAP Athens, 17 rebounds
Mirotic’s 25 points were the most by any player in Round 9. Elie Okobo is the EuroLeague scoring leader with 19.2 points per game. Panathinaikos OPAP Athens center Georgios Papagiannis pulled down a club-record and career-high 17 rebounds, also jumping atop the rankings for the season, averaging 7.8 rebounds. Lukas Lekavicius of Zalgiris Kaunas had a career-best 10 assists, more than any other player this round. Nick Calathes leads the EuroLeague with 5.6 assists this season. Nicolo Melli of AX Armani Exchange Milan had a career-high 6 steals, the most of any player so far this season. John Brown III of UNICS Kazan leads the league in steals with 2.8 per game. Four players had 2 blocks in Round 9: Zizic, Matt Costello of Baskonia, Moustapha Fall of Olympiacos Piraeus and Donta Hall of AS Monaco. Hall took over as the season leader, averaging 1.4 blocks per game. There were three double-doubles this round: Papagiannis collected 14 points and 17 rebounds; Youssoupha Fall of ASVEL 11 points and 10 rebounds, while Lekavicius had 12 points and 10 assists.
