It’s been an up-and-down season for Panathinaikos OPAP Athens so far, with resounding home wins against Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and reigning champion Anadolu Efes Istanbul, but on the other hand, four of its six losses have come by 12 points or more.
In all of that, there has been one consistent factor for the Greens in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, rookie Daryl Macon Jr. emerging as one of the most dangerous scorers in the competition.
Entering Round 9, in which Panathinaikos hosts UNICS Kazan, Macon ranks as the season’s fourth best scorer, averaging 17.4 points per game, and he has done so by scoring at least 13 points in each one of his eight appearances this season.
Macon has been especially productive in the last five appearances. Only one player has scored more points over the last five rounds than Macon, who tallied 100 points for an average of 20.0 per game since Round 4.
A game that stands out is a 34-point performance in a win over Efes, Macon’s sixth game in the competition. It is the most points any player scored in a single game so far this season. He scored between 15 and 18 points in each of the other four games since Round 4.
Macon’s scoring comes behind a superb efficiency and accuracy from all ranges. So far this season he is hitting on 75% of his two-point shots, and knocking down 45.8% from three-point range. Macon stands alone as the only player this season who combines such high two-point and three-point percentages in the entire competition.
To put these percentages into more context, only a handful of players in the EuroLeague this century have managed to score better than 65% of the two-pointers and 45% of threes. However, none have done it at the volume Macon has been making shots, which is among the highest in the league this season: only one player, Darrun Hilliard of FC Bayern Munich, has made more than Macon’s 22 triples this season, and Panathinaikos’s scorer also ranks third this season with 2.8 three-pointers made per game.
Macon will have his first chance to continue on his scoring pace, and help Panathinaikos add more wins to its tally, when the team plays UNICS on Thursday.
Over the last five games, those numbers get a bit more impressive. Since Round 4, Macon is making 71.4% two-point shots, but has increased accuracy to 47.1% from long range, while sinking 3.2 triples per game.
