Alimpijević Scrapped the EuroCup Core on Purpose
Last season’s Beşiktaş moved the ball well and pleased the eye. The Tatavla Sport panel put the problem plainly: that fluidity buys nothing once you walk into a EuroLeague arena. A closeout turns into a collision. A fight over a screen exit turns into a wrestling match. A rebound becomes a shoving contest. The front office chose a radical break, building the summer around Dušan Alimpijević’s philosophy rather than around continuity for its own sake.
Judging these signings without that context gets you nowhere. Alimpijević wants a defense that switches one through four, denies the opponent air, and turns a dribble hand-off into a wrestling match.
The Wings Carry Interior Mass
Dak Jeffries stands 1.96m and weighs 101kg. Omorui measures 1.98m at 106kg. For perimeter players those numbers are structural. A 106kg wing can defend the post, absorb a switch onto a big and stay on his feet with his back to the basket instead of getting buried.
Switching as the Foundation
The scheme rests on that bulk. When the opponent runs pick-and-roll, Jeffries or Omorui switches, survives a possession against a four and holds up against a five because he can wall up. The panel’s image was apt: they build a concrete barrier in front of the ball handler. Wenyen Gabriel supplies the vertical athleticism behind it, rim-level explosion backed by 68 EuroLeague appearances.
Furkan Korkmaz gives the rotation an elite catch-and-shoot threat honed over years in the NBA, and his gravity stretches the floor for everybody else. Metecan Birsen adds versatility. The Turkish skeleton of this roster is sturdier than it was a year ago.
The Backcourt Was Rebuilt for Shot Creation
Jayen Nell led the Puerto Rican BSN in scoring at 22 points per game on 41.5% from three. David DeJulius averaged 17.7 points in the ACB. Scotty Wilbekin arrives as a known EuroLeague quantity from his Fenerbahçe years, and Devon Dotson brings an explosive first step. That gives Alimpijević four guards who can generate a shot without a play call.
He hands Nell or DeJulius the ball and gives him a green light. Isolation, self-created offense, and the tactical logic holds. With five seconds on the shot clock, elite EuroLeague defenses lock up complex sets and the ball becomes a live grenade. Nell’s contested mid-range pull-ups and DeJulius’ balance-breaking penetrations supply the oxygen, with Wilbekin as the cold-blooded late-clock scorer he has been for years.
The preseason open-air friendly against Partizan at Kalemegdan offered the proof of concept. Wilbekin scored 18, Nell added 16, and both picked jammed sets open with individual talent. In transition this group is dangerous. Get them the ball before the defense sets and the possession is over.
The Flaw: Small Guards Behind a Heavy Front Line
Beşiktaş lost that Partizan game 89-71. The offense functioned and the defense hemorrhaged. That points at the aerodynamic weakness of this armored vehicle. DeJulius and Dotson are compact guards, and outside Wilbekin this group has little experience of the EuroLeague’s ball pressure.
EuroLeague coaches hunt that pressure. Mismatch hunting is policy at this level, not a gimmick. Guards like Nick Kalates, Thomas Walkup or Codi Miller-McIntyre, 1.95m ball handlers with almost small-forward shoulders, call for the switch and go to work. Partizan showed the blueprint: Carlik Jones attacked Beşiktaş’s small guards over and over, broke the perimeter at will, scored 22 and forced the whole rotation into scramble mode.
An easy-to-puncture point of attack leaves one remedy: an elite rim protector parked in the paint. Late rotations in the second and third help positions are unforgivable in the EuroLeague unless somebody behind them erases the mistake.
Sissoko’s Frozen Contract and the Empty Paint
This is where the roster breaks. Madi Sissoko, 25, arrived from Real Madrid as the athletic rim protector the team needed. The club froze his contract after problems surfaced in his medical examinations. The remaining bigs do not fit the job description.
Ante Žižić lost lateral mobility after arthroscopic shoulder surgery. He no longer has the foot speed to sprint across from the weak side and close a gap once a guard gets beaten. Gabriel brings energy and vertical pop, yet he cannot carry the five spot through a 38-game EuroLeague schedule without drowning in foul trouble; referees whistle his aggressiveness early. Beşiktaş needs a hard rim runner who rolls with force and covers weak-side rotation. Without one, a breakdown in front of the ball becomes a layup or a dunk.
Where They Land
Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Real Madrid and Fenerbahçe separate themselves on budget and experience and walk into the playoffs. Below them sits the play-in knife-fight: Crvena Zvezda, Barcelona, Maccabi. The guard size deficit, the EuroLeague inexperience beyond Wilbekin and the Sissoko uncertainty put Beşiktaş in the 13th to 15th band. They can beat up the teams beneath them, and a thick wall separates them from the tier above.
The Verdict
Roster engineering has a lesson here. The wings and the domestic core are playoff-caliber construction, and one missing center makes the other components malfunction. Land a genuine rim-running, rim-protecting five and the armor connects to the engine, which would make 13th to 15th look conservative. Fail, and Alimpijević’s switch-heavy system will keep generating the breakdowns it was built to prevent.
