ATHENS (Greece) - Don't look now, but it looks like The Queen might be back!
Despite losing 83-82 to Dertram Derthona Basket on March 19, they secured the head-to-head and guaranteed their position at the top of Group I. They now roll into the Play-Offs as a top seed with home-court advantage.
For many neutral observers, this might be the best AEK Betsson BC team we have seen since they won the Basketball Champions League in 2018.
We spoke to the mastermind of both that team and this current iteration of AEK, Dragan Sakota, to hear his thoughts on his journey with AEK and what it takes to be a champion.
For Sakota, this is no ordinary coach and club relationship, there is something much deeper driving him to succeed in Athens.
"I am emotionally attached to the AEK Organization. My relationship is not only professional."
"I honor and respect the symbols of this team. I honor and respect AEK fans," Sakota explained.
These statements should probably come as no surprise given that Sakota first came to AEK as a head coach in 2001 and is now working in his fourth separate spell at the club.
Also, not forgetting that his own son, Dusan Sakota came up through the AEK junior teams during the early 2000s and eventually went on to not only play for Greece, but also become an AEK legend as part of that 2018 BCL champion squad.
But for Dragan Sakota the connection pre-dates even that first spell on the sidelines in 2001.
"I was an AEK fan before I came to AEK!" Sakota continued.
"Several of my compatriots had come to play for the AEK football team. Among others, Dusko (Dusan) Bajevic was my father's favorite football player. So, you can understand my joy when the situation led me to become a coach for the AEK basketball team," he explained.
Even during his most recent five-year spell working away from the club, Sakota always held this club in a different esteem, and when the opportunity came to return to the sidelines the decision was always going to be an easy one.
"I have been a professional coach in other teams, but even then I said that I am an AEK fan. From there, of course, you always weigh all the facts before saying yes."
"However, when it comes to AEK, emotion always prevails in a decision."
Character Matters
If we look for similarities between that 2018 team and this year's iteration, the one thing that stands out above all, is that stubborn refusal to ever concede defeat.
After losing six games in the 2017-18 Regular Season and barely scraping out of the group, AEK then lost the first leg of their Round of 16 tie against ERA Nymburk 98-88, at home.
They already looked buried and only a miracle in Czechia could save them.
To make matters even more desperate, Nymburk even held an eight-point lead late in the third quarter of the second leg, meaning AEK needed to claw back 18 points to survive.
Somehow, AEK made the impossible possible, mainly thanks to 36 points from Manny Harris in the game and an incredible sequence where Mike Green had a lane to the basket to level up the series, but kicked it out to Kevin Punter to hit a contested three-ball and win the series outright with 2.8 seconds on the clock.
This year's team is showing remarkable similarities.
On March 11, with qualification to the Round of 16 still not yet secured, AEK Betsson BC went to Wurzburg and pulled off an 84-77 win, but it was far from smooth sailing.
They trailed by 17 points at the end of the first and, in fact, only led the game for three minutes.
That was the fourth time AEK have won a game from 16 points or more behind, more than any other club in BCL history.
To add to that, AEK ended the Round of 16 with a 14-point comeback against Greek rivals Promitheas Patras BC Vikos Cola, eventually winning the game.
It's becoming a habit now.
For Sakota, this is no coincidence.
If you ask most coaches what are the things they look for when recruiting a player, character always comes up high on the list, but when you build a team at a club where you have an emotional connection, it makes sense that character sits at the very top of the priorities.
"All players have talent. What counts for me, though, is the character of the players," Sakota said.
"You don't know that 100 percent until the player comes and you see it up close. Of course, we always get information before someone comes, but we can say something for sure when the team is built and everyone’s character is tested."
It's pretty abundantly clear that the character of these AEK players has been tested this season and the resounding answer has been passing that test when they have needed it the most.
Identity
With a 9-3 record for the season, AEK have the fourth-best record in the BCL this season after La Laguna Tenerife (12-0), Unicaja (11-1), and Nymburk (9-2).
They also got better as the season progressed, another similarity with the 2018 team.
For Sakota, more important than the results is that his team has established a clear identity.
"It is without a doubt that we are an offensive team. When you build a team from scratch, you can't achieve exactly what you have in mind, but we can say that we have acquired an identity," he said, before expanding:
"We are the first team in the world, in scoring with off-ball movement. In the transition game, we are the first in the Greek League. We had understood, that our big guys are really good passers."
Whilst it is a bold claim to make that your team is the best in the world for moving without the ball, when you watch this team play, it is very clear that they are excellent at making reads, reacting to each other, and finding the cutter with a pass.
Watch the clip below and you can see for yourself what that off-ball movement looks like in practice. AEK's offense gets straight to the point.
You won't see any wasted movements. AEK want to put their playmakers in positions to make plays and design actions to make it hard to defend them. It's about the art of making the difficult look simple.
The play above starts with Prentis Hubb in a Drag Screen action with Grant Golden. They have emptied the ball-side corner so there are no help and rotations for the defense to easily make. It's 2v2 and AEK have the advantage.
What we really need to pay attention to in that clip, is what happens after the advantage is created.
As Hubb drives to the rim and draws a help defender, we see not one, but two players cutting to the rim. First RaiQuan Gray from the corner, and then perfectly timed after him, we see CJ Bryce who cuts at the 45-degree angle and eventually scores.
You could watch every other team in the BCL and not see a team cut both weak-side players to the rim and leave nobody on the perimeter for the kick-out pass.
In fact, with 268 three-point attempts all season, AEK have shot the least of any team in the Round of 16. Their approach of making up for that with off-ball movement is unique and poses very difficult questions to defensive schemes.
When we look at the second part of Sakota's quote about his team's identity, we can see that his frontcourt players, Grant Golden, Mindaugus Kuzminskas, and even RaiQuan Gray (who plays outside-in) are often the offensive triggers.
The moment Golden catches the ball on the short roll, perimeter players in the corners know that is their moment to move.
Gray is putting together a season that is possibly flying under the radar in terms of his ability to impact so many facets of the game, but his 1v1 ability in the post might be his most potent weapon.
You will regularly see Gray face up on the perimeter and then drive the ball into the paint, turn his back, and use his strength advantage to create a post-up situation - often referred to as a Barkley Post-up, named after Charles Barkley's brand of bullyball in the 90's NBA.
As you can see from the first clip above, Gray also has great court vision and the ability to make passes off the bounce.
He's dishing 2.8 assists per game on the season and the majority of those have come from post-up situations.
Almost certainly the most challenging thing for defenses about this AEK offense is their ability to get to the free-throw line.
They shoot 81 percent from the line, which is the best in the Round of 16 and they attempt 21.3 per game, which ranks them fifth.
Hunter Hale and Mindaugus Kuzminskas in particular are two of the very best in the BCL at understanding which angles and movements make it almost impossible for defenders to avoid contact and then how to earn trips to the line from that contact.
Hale takes 5.8 trips to the line every game, only Hugo Besson and Derrick Alston Jr get there more often amongst players from the Round of 16.
Hale and Hubb are without doubt the game-breakers in this AEK team.
Both playmakers have the ability to take the game away from an opponent in a matter of minutes, especially in transition.
Reminiscence
The memories of Manny Harris and Kevin Punter taking over games in 2018 instantly come to mind when you see Prentiss Hubb and Hunter Hale doing their thing, scoring 13.6 and 16.0 points each respectively, and also dishing out more than 3.0 assists each to go with it.
This is, however, a very different team.
Ten players on this roster play more than 10 minutes. Players like Bryce, Joshua Obiesie, Dimitris Flionis, Omiros Netzipoglou, and Ioannis Kouzeloglou all bring depth and variety that wasn't really present in 2018.
Sakota himself is keen to steer the conversation away from that team.
"It doesn't remind me of 2018 at all. It was a completely different team at that time. It was also a different era," he said.
Instead preferring to acknowledge how much more of the season there is still to play.
"I want to be down to earth. However, when there is a group that resembles a family, when there's a plan, and of course when there is the players' commitment to the goal and the chemistry between them, you try," Sakota affirmed.
"I am very happy with my team, but we are going step by step."
Sakota is, of course, right to keep his team's feet on the ground and we would expect the same from every coach.
But the closer we get to the business end of the season and the stronger this team looks, the more we will see the inevitable comparisons come up.
When you play for a team like AEK, that kind of pressure to live up to previous teams should be a privilege for this current group of players.
We already know that Dragan Sakota has seen what it takes to get it done when the biggest lights come on.
AEK go into the Play-Offs as a top seed and they are undoubtedly a team to watch.