101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
Midway through that season, he decided to return to action
and accepted an offer from Virtus Roma. He played
27 games there, with his usual numbers: 14.5 points,
5.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists. To everyone’s surprise, at
the end of that season, he returned to Maccabi, where
he would become a key player in the coming years, a
true star. I remember a talk with Dusan Ivkovic, coach of
CSKA between 2002 and 2005, in which he admitted to
me that it was a mistake of his not signing Parker, who
had been offered to the Russian club. Parker was a player
that could turn any contender into a champion.
In the 2003-04 season, Maccabi and Zalgiris faced
off in the final game of the EuroLeague Top 16 with a
spot in the Final Four at stake. The game was in Tel Aviv
but Maccabi won 107-99 after Derrick Sharp’s miracle
three-pointer forced overtime. Zalgiris legend Arvydas
Sabonis, who was back to his boyhood club at 40 years
old, was brilliant, and he admitted in his published
memoirs that it was one of the toughest losses of his
career. Maccabi entered the 2004 Final Four in Tel Aviv
as the big favorite, and it lived up to the expectations.
In the semis, Maccabi won 93-85 against a very strong
CSKA team with 27 points from Parker, who had great
shooting accuracy: 7 of 12 twos, 2 of 3 threes and 7 of 8
free throws to go with 6 rebounds and 2 assists. In the
title game, the record-setting 118-74 rout of Skipper
Bologna, Parker scored 21 points in 29 minutes. There
was no doubt about the Final Four MVP: Anthony Parker.
Of course, Parker made the All-EuroLeague First
Team after having averaged 16.0 points, 5.7 rebounds
and 3.5 assists. There would be no season-long MVP
award until the following year, or else Parker might have
won that, too. His career highs in the EuroLeague were
a performance index rating of 47 against ASVEL Villeurbanne
on November 18, 2004, and 33 points in the same
game, plus 10 assists early that year against Zalgiris. It
was a pleasure to see him in action. He had elegance,
technique, shooting, rebounding, passing, blocks and
fighting spirit. Parker was an all-around player, someone
who, even if not winning by himself, could change the
course of a game, set the rhythm and find the path to
victory for his team. And Pini Gershon, his coach those
years, knew how to use those qualities very well.
The 2004-05 season was a copy of the previous one:
a double crown in Israel and another EuroLeague title. At
the 2005 Final Four in Moscow, Maccabi defeated Panathinaikos
in the semis 91-82 with 20 points by Sharp, 14
by Maceo Baston and 13 each by Sarunas Jasikevicius
and Parker. In the championship game, on May 8, Maccabi
outplayed a powerful Tau Ceramica 90-78. Tau,
coached by Dusko Ivanovic, featured Jose Manuel Calderon,
Arvydas Macijauskas, Travis Hansen, Luis Scola,
Pablo Prigioni and Tiago Splitter. However, there was a
great team on the other side: Jasikevicius (22 points in
the final), Baston (18), Nikola Vujcic (13), Nestoras Kommatos
(13), Parker (12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists), Tal
Burstein (8) and Sharp. With two titles in as many years,
Maccabi became the first team capable of repeating as
EuroLeague champion since Jugoplastika Split had won
three in a row from 1989 to 1991. Although Jasikevicius
was the Final Four MVP, Parker was chosen as the Euro-
League’s first full-season MVP.
In the 2005-06 season, Maccabi just fell short of
matching Jugoplastika’s three-peat. The team reached
the championship game again at the Final Four in
Prague, but CSKA Moscow managed to win that night by
73-69 for its first continental crown in 35 years, a title
that was dedicated to legendary head coach Alexander
Gomelskiy, who had died a few months earlier. Parker,
however, claimed his second full-season EuroLeague
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