2023 EuroLeague Final Four Kaunas – Preview, Odds, Prediction, Early Picks

The 2023 EuroLeague Final Four is in less than two weeks in Kaunas, Lithuania. We have all the participants following an exciting Top 8 stage – Barcelona, Real Madrid, Monaco, and Olympiacos and they will compete for the European crown.

Odds

• Olympiacos +210
• Barcelona +220
• Real Madrid +350
• Monaco +700

This season’s @EuroLeague playoffs smashed previous attention records.
2022 🆚 2023
📈 2X website visits
📈 2X SM impressions
📈 2.4X SM engagements

Kudos to the great team behind the scenes! 👏

To be continued at #F4Glory

— Alex Ferrer K. (@AlexGun10) May 11, 2023

Barcelona

Sarunas Jasikevicius is back home, where he plays with his Barca after he eliminated Zalgiris in three games in the Top 8 stage. Barcelona was more than confident against the Lithuanian powerhouse, and they deserved to progress to the next stage. 

Blaugrana has the best team on paper, but over the past three years, they didn’t do anything, losing one final back in 2021 and reaching the Final Four last year as well. Their top player is the former Chicago Bulls forward Nikola Mirotic, who scores 15.9 points with 61.1% FG and 4.6 boards. 

Real Madrid

The Spanish classic in the semis includes Real Madrid, who navigated through the stormy quarterfinals against Partizan Belgrade. The brawl at the end of the second game decided the series, with Sergio Lull starting the incident with Kevin Punter, who was later suspended along with Mathias Lessort. That largely helped Real come back following 0-2 after the opening two events.

On the other side, Lull wasn’t sanctioned, but that’s how it goes when you lead Real Madrid, the biggest and most influential team in Europe. This unit has 11 former NBA players but is without Gabriel Deck and Guerschon Yabusele, which will be problematic for head coach Chus Mateo. 

Olympiacos

The Greek team eliminated Fenerbahce in five games in the previous stage. They have arguably the best player in the EuroLeague at the moment, Sasha Vezenkov, who has the best Player Index Rating with 21.2 per game. He and William Baldwin are the top two scorers with 17.2 points per game, but the Bulgarian had more played games.

Olympiacos fans after their win on Fenerbahce which takes them to the FINAL 4 in Euroleague 09/05/2023 🇬🇷🏀🔥 pic.twitter.com/KmewA71FmM

— 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐔𝐥𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 (@thecasualultra) May 10, 2023

Oly is the team with the most assists in the league, 20.9 and that’s because the Greek veteran, Kostas Sloukas, perfectly organizes the entire Olympiacos team. His 11.2 points with 5.6 assists are crucial besides Vezenkov’s, but we need to add that Sloukas is one of the best clutch players in Europe right now. 

Monaco

The crazy bunch led by head coach Sasa Obradovic is one of the league’s biggest surprises, along with Partizan. They were near the top in the past few years but haven’t been able to take that crucial step and reach the top four teams on the continent. However, this year, Obradovic managed to guide this team through some turbulent periods, with Mike James having bursts and losing his cool.

Though, James is still one of the deadliest players in the EuroLeague, with him delivering 16.2 points per game. Though Jordan Loyds and Ellie Okobo are near with 12.5 buckets, ready to jump in when James hits the wall. We’ve seen that in certain periods of the year once, this crew played without the American but not losing its pace nor spoiling the results. 

Prediction

Barca is the top favorite, but their head coach Jasikevicius is the weakest link of this team, many analysts. Their luck is Real’s problem with power forwards, as both Decks and Yabusele are out, and it is expected to see them overcoming the great rival.

The other semis will be much tougher and leveled. Monaco is an excellent team, but they tend to oscillate, unlike Oly, who is very stable due to the experience of its leading players.  

In the finals between Barca and Olympiacos, the slight edge goes to Barcelona’s side, because of a deeper roster and the fact that they have favorable matchups on several positions. 

Pick: Barcelona wins