He Unicaja is completing a dream season. Not even the most optimistic would have imagined that the team would reach the end of April with its second Copa del Rey title, in the Basketball Champions League Final Four and with the Liga Endesa playoff closed, and the goal to reach fourth place still on the way. But it is that the group of Los Guindos does not only stop there. Ibon Navarro’s squad is making this Unicaja the best scoring version in its history in the Endesa League.
Alberto Díaz, Kendrick Perry, Tyson Carter, Darío Brizuela, Tyler Kalinoski, Nihad Djedovic, Jonathan Barreiro, Melvin Ejim, Will Thomas, Dylan Osetkowski, Augusto Lima, David Kravish, Yankuba Sima and Mario Saint-Supéry. These are the 14 players who are about to lead Unicaja to another stage in ACB history. Until now, the team has averaged 87.57 points scored in the 28 games played.
Right now, it’s the third best attack in the Endesa League. Only Baskonia (91.89 points) and Real Madrid (88.25) surpass him in the offensive aspect. However, the people of Malaga do not need any player who exceeds 12 points per game. No cashier exceeds 12 points per game! Kendrick Perry is the one who leads this statistic with 11.6. Tyson Carter (10.9) and Darío Brizuela (10.5) are the only ones who accompany him above ten. Of course, the extraordinary thing in a basketball team is that everyone who goes out on the court contributes to a score that is on the way to being history.
And it is that this figure of 87.57 points surpasses even that Unicaja that flew over the track at the controls of Bozidar Maljkovic during the 2000/2001 season. That team led offensively by Veljko Mrsic, Danya Abrams and Paco Vázquez scored 84.79 pointsthe best mark so far in all typesetting history.
not even that one magical triennium by Sergio Scariolo (2005-2007) with the Cup, ACB and Final Four titles of the Euroleague he remains just as close. With players like Jorge Garbajosa, Marcus Brown, Daniel Santiago, Walter Herrmann or Berni Rodríguez, Unicaja scored less: season 2004/2005 -the 11th best- with 81.62 points, season 2005/2006 -the 12th best- with 80.97 points and the 2006/2007 season -the 27th best- with 75.82. None of them are in the top 10 for example.
Of these last campaigns, the best is the 2020/2021 with 83.72 points. That year in which the compositor bench saw how Luis Casimiro left so that Fotis Katsikaris could arrive. Well, in those moments of instability, scorers like Darío Brizuela, Axel Bouteille or Jaime Fernández led Unicaja 20/21 to be the fourth best in scoring for compositors in the League.
Season 22/23
It should not be forgotten that Ibon Navarro’s team started the season with serious offensive problems -also caused by the lack of full training sessions-. 70 to Gran Canaria, 71 to Real Madrid, 73 to Girona and 65 to Joventut. With the exception of the first matchday against Baskonia, the team struggled to find some viability in attack that would lead them to have guarantees of victory without being forced to defend at their highest level.
Of course, since then the coach from Vitoria has scored more than 100 points in 7 games. It is said soon, but scoring 100 points in 7 games in an Endesa League, which is one of the most even competitions, is very complicated and deserves to be valued.
Zaragoza, Joventut, Real Madrid, Manresa, Tenerife and Bilbao are the six games that the compositor team has ahead of them. Average for the moment three points more than that season 2000/2001. It will be necessary to see if the compositor attack is capable of breaking the record. It seems that the record of the “Boza era” is in serious danger…