The Málaga shooting guard at Río Breogán is in the best moment of his career and summer hasn't stopped his run
The performance of the Unicaja academy product with Breogán was one of the most relevant stories in the ACB last season. After being one of Spain's most promising academy prospects, winning consecutive U-20 silver and gold medals and playing a prominent role in the NCAA, Francis Alonso had not managed to make a regular impact in the Liga Endesa until his arrival in Lugo, signed after spending two seasons in Primera FEB.
The 25/26 season has been the turning point for the talented Andalusian player, leaving behind all the doubts his career had generated up to that moment based on his lack of physicality or his defensive performance. With the full confidence of the coaching staff led by Luis Casimiro, he has become by his own merits one of the stars of the competition and not only is he unwilling to lose that status, but everything suggests he is willing to improve it, along with his team.
The walled city's team has had a historic start, becoming the first ACB team to exceed 100 points in the first four matchdays. This 26/27 Liga Endesa season is breaking all scoring records and Breogán is the most surprising club, averaging 107 points, second only to the brilliant 110.5 of Real Madrid itself. Many authoritative voices speak of the best roster in the history of the Galician team and Francis Alonso is the leading scorer with 19.5 points in 23:44 minutes and the most valued with 23 per game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPiOyDHuP1I
The phrase "on fire" doesn't do justice to his streak
Despite his excellent and consistent season last year, this is the first time Francis Alonso has scored over 20 points in consecutive games, posting 27 against FIATC Girona and 24 against MoraBanc Andorra, also adding 30 and 29 in efficiency rating respectively. There is no doubt he has started at his best level and is completely on fire. But this great form already comes from the end of last season.
His last game of last year went somewhat unnoticed as it was the comeback game that left Tecnyconta Zaragoza in the ACB. All the spotlight was on those incredible final minutes that will be remembered forever in Spanish basketball. But that day Francis Alonso put up a statistical masterclass that translated into his personal records in points and efficiency rating with 33 and 35 respectively.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e3VSX0VcY0
Before reaching that point, he had already been scoring double digits in points and efficiency rating for the three previous matchdays, so his averages in the last four games of last season were 20.8 points and 20.3 efficiency rating. So adding the end of the 25/26 season with the start of the 26/27 season, over the last eight ACB matchdays he has averaged 20.1 points and 21.6 efficiency rating, never dropping below 12 in either points or efficiency rating in any of those games.
Strong productivity per minute and without excessive ball usage
Francis Alonso's numbers also stand out in terms of his production per minute played. The Málaga native is sixth in PER with 26.3, fifth in efficiency rating per 40 minutes with 38.8, and fourth in points per 40 minutes with 32.9.
It's also worth noting that he produces these offensive numbers with a USG% of 26.3%, the 29th number at this start of the competition and well below the 37.6 of Alonzo Verge, the 35.2 of Laprovittola, or the 33.3 of Jassel Pérez.
Improving in other areas is taking him to another level
As we mentioned at the beginning, Francis Alonso has had to fight against certain labels and conditions to earn this position. He himself speaks about defense in several interviews and his evolution was already evident last season. Regardless of the ultra-offensive game that predominates in the ACB and of which his team is currently the standard-bearer, working on all aspects is key for any player's court time. At this start of the season there is a statistic that shows this improvement, such as his average of 1.5 steals, when his best figure to date is the 0.7 from last season.
Although he initially played as a point guard, another of his handicaps was having become a rather one-dimensional player, not at all leveraging his talent for finding teammates. At this start of the season he has achieved his assist record twice with the 5 he recorded in the games against Joventut and Girona. He has averaged 3.5 in these four matchdays and his best average in a season is the 1.4 from last season.