Prometey – London Lions
International - Eurocup, Group A, Round 3
Wednesday, 18/10/2023 - 18:00 CET
Prometey is a Ukrainian team that plays their home games in Riga, Latvia, due to the war in their country. Despite this, they assembled an excellent team last season and came very close to reaching the finals in the EuroCup. They were stopped by Turk Telekom in the semifinals in a dramatic finish, and now they are even stronger on paper. The team's superstar Caleb Agada stayed, as does Czech center Ondrej Balvin. Compared to the previous year, Prometey has even better foreign players. Marcus Keene stands out as someone with a lot of scoring ability, and Tai Odiase could have perhaps the best season of his career. Davon Reed is still finding his rhythm, but his NBA experience is valuable.
London Lions are progressing rapidly. EuroLeague has been trying for years to find a team in that city that could be part of the elite competition in the future, and it seems that things are gradually moving in a positive direction. Last season, they were eliminated in the round of 16 in the EuroCup, and now they want to go at least one step further. The team's best player, Sam Dekker, is still not healthy and has not played a single game this season, which poses a certain problem. In his absence, the most important roles are played by Gabriel Olaseni and Matt Morgan. They had a lot of success in the low post against Hamburg and Venezia, but in this matchup, it will be by far the biggest challenge as the opponent has strong players.
Prometey won 10 out of 12 games in the EuroCup in Riga last season. Most of those wins were achieved comfortably, while both losses were by one possession. They play with a special motivation when they are hosts, and that obviously won't change. In the first round, they demolished Hamburg by 97:77, a team with very similar qualities to London Lions, as we saw last week in their matchup. Prometey is better than London Lions by seven or eight points even on neutral ground, and at home, this difference could only be greater.