Vassilis Spanoulis named Euroleague MVP

Vassilis Spanoulis has been named the 2012-2013 bwin Euroleague MVP. The Olympiacos Piraeus guard was given the award at the EFES Euroleague Awards Ceremony held at London City Hall, England on Thursday. The Euroleague Final Four is being held as London’s O2 Arena.

All the players from the Final Four teams gathered at the awards ceremony as the awards were also dished out for the All-Euroleague First Team of the season. Spanoulis was joined in the First Team by Nenad Krstic of CSKA Moscow, Ante Tomic of FC Barcelona Regal and Rudy Fernandez of Real Madrid plus former Euroleague MVP Dimitris Diamantidis of Panathinaikos Athens.

Tomic and Fernandez were voted to the All-Euroleague team of the season for the first time, while Diamantidis was selected for the fourth time with MVP winner Vassilis Spanoulis and Krstic for the second time.

However, the night was for the individual awards, and there were others celebrating alongside MVP winner Spanoulis. His Olympiacos teammate Kostas Papanikolaou collected the award for the Euroleague Rising Star, while Bobby Brown of Montepaschi Siena was on hand to pick up the Alphonso Ford Top Scoring trophy. However, the night and ultimately the season belonged to 30-year old Spanoulis.

Vassilis Spanoulis has claimed two Final Four MVP awards in the past, but this was the first time he has been selected as the outright season MVP. The award is well deserved after the player has had a fantastic season with defending Euroleague champions Olympiacos. The player has proven himself as a consummate combo-guard who has controlled his team with his stunning passing and scoring abilities. As you would expect, Spanoulis was among the competitions best in both scoring and assisting, securing averages of 14.7 (4th) points per game and 5.59 (3rd) assists per game.

His impact on opposition defences is highlighted by the fact that Spanoulis was the league’s most fouled player, with 5.41 offenses drawn on average per game.