Parker, Vujcic among All-Euroleague candidates

Parker led Maccabi, averaging 14.8 points, 7 rebounds; Vujcic made history on opening night with 11 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
parker 298.88 (photo credit: Associated Press)
parker 298.88
(photo credit: Associated Press)
Maccabi Tel Aviv stars Anthony Parker and Nikola Vujcic were among 10 players chosen by a panel of journalists for the All-Euroleague teams, which will be announced on Saturday at the Final Four in Prague. Parker, the reigning league MVP, and Vujcic were both selected to the All-Euroleague first team last season as they helped the yellow-and-blue to their second straight Euroleague title. Parker led Maccabi averaging 14.8 points and 7 rebounds and was second with 3.8 assists and 1.7 steals in another stellar season. He shared the player of the week MVP award in Week 6 and won it outright in the opening week of the Top 16. Only two of the four players nominated at the shooting guard and small forward spots will be selected for the first team. The remaining two will automatically receive second-team honors. Parker will compete with Barcelona's Juan Carloss Navarro (15.1 ppg), Vasilis Spanoulis (14.5 ppg, 3.1 apg) of Panathinaikos and Trajan Langdon (18 ppg on 58.3% 3FG and 2 spg in quarterfinals) from CSKA Moscow for the honor. Vujcic, who was a second-team choice in both 2003 and '04, made history on opening night with 11 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists against Prokom Trefl Sopot, representing the first-ever triple-double in modern Euroleague history. He finished the season with averages of 12 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. Vujcic's 4.6 assists per game in the regular season marked a Euroleague best for centers and ranked him second only to Tau playmaker Pablo Prigioni. Vujcic's competition in the power forward/center class includes Zalgiris's inside force Darjus Lavrinovic (14.6 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 2.1 bpg), Tau big man Luis Scola (14.8 ppg, 6.4 rpg) and Jorge Garbajosa (14.8 ppg, 6.9 rpg) of Unicaja Malaga. The other nominees were at point guard, where either Prigioni (Euroleague record 6.4 apg) or CSKA spark plug Theo Papaloukas (8.4 ppg, 4 apg) will claim the first-team position.