The most valued player from the last Liga Endesa season won't play in Europe. Luka Bozic has signed with the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese league, ending an entire summer as one of the most prominent free agents on the Spanish market.
The Numbers from 25/26
What the Croatian did last season at Coviran Granada is unprecedented in recent times. He finished as the league's most valued player with an average of 24.26 rating points, the highest figure in Liga Endesa in nearly two decades and a record never seen in Granada basketball.
He was also the second-leading rebounder (6.56), the fourth-leading scorer (16.18), and the player who made the most free throws (6.97 per game). He fell just three rating points short of breaking Arvydas Sabonis' record for consecutive games with over 27 in rating.
His final stretch was simply extraordinary. From matchday 22 onward, he strung together twelve games with these rating numbers: 33, 30, 35, 32, 33, 27, 29, 33, 32, 35, 37, and 35. His peak came precisely against Baskonia, with 24 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, and a 37 rating, despite a heavy defeat.
All of this, moreover, with his team relegated. He was Player of the Matchday on three occasions, April's Player of the Month, and member of the Liga Endesa All-Star Five alongside Jean Montero, David DeJulius, Mario Hezonja, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot.
What This European Market Exit Says
Here's what deserves its own paragraph. A player who just signed the best individual season in Spanish league history in eighteen years spent the entire summer without a team and has ended up leaving for China.
It's not an isolated case. The Chinese league has been capturing players from the ACB sphere for years with financial offers that no mid-budget Spanish club can match, and this summer the European market has been especially congested in the frontcourt, as seen in the desperate moves of recent weeks.
That no one in the ACB or EuroLeague found a spot for the unofficial MVP of the season says quite a bit about the state of the market. At 30 years old, and with that kind of performance on display, Bozic opted for the path that compensated him best.