The 2026-27 EuroLeague season is almost here, with all 20 teams entering the final stages of preparation for another ten months of relentless competition. While every contender will start the campaign with its own ambitions, each will also carry at least one reason for concern.
Some of those fears are objective. Injuries, for example, are an unavoidable part of a long season and can affect every team to a greater or lesser extent. Others are far more specific, ranging from the quality of the offseason work and the balance of a roster to trust in a new system, coaching staff, or the roles given to key players.
No team is without a potential reason to disappoint, regardless of how high its expectations are. For some, that could mean missing the playoffs. For others, it could be falling short of the Final Four or failing to challenge for the title despite having the talent to do so.
Anadolu Efes: A one-dimensional frontcourt
Anadolu Efes may have plenty of talent and depth in the backcourt, but its center rotation is a different story. Bruno Fernando has the physical tools to punish opponents inside and can attack from the post, yet his two previous seasons in Europe, with Real Madrid and Partizan, were underwhelming. Kai Jones offers athleticism and an ability to finish above the rim, but there is little else to his offensive game at this level.
Brice Dessert is another center with a similar profile, leaving Anadolu Efes with three available options who largely offer the same things. Georgios Papagiannis, currently sidelined with an injury, is a somewhat different player, particularly because of his ability to stretch the floor, but his own recent form has hardly made him a reliable answer, while his return date remains uncertain. If he is unavailable for a significant part of the season, Anadolu Efes could be left with a frontcourt that is not only weaker than the rest of the roster, but also too predictable for EuroLeague defenses to handle.
Asvel: A shaky foundation
Asvel may have already experienced its biggest disappointment before the 2026-27 EuroLeague season even began. The club entered the summer promising a massive financial upgrade, with a projected budget of around €58 million and an ambitious recruitment campaign built around Sylvain Francisco, Armoni Brooks and Nick Weiler-Babb, while Tony Parker also announced plans to bring in Daniel Theis. But the financial backing behind that project never materialized, forcing Asvel to drastically reduce its budget and rethink almost everything.
The consequences were immediate. Francisco, Brooks and Weiler-Babb all left the club without playing a single EuroLeague game for Asvel. The club was therefore forced to build a completely different roster from the one initially envisioned, effectively turning a summer of ambitious promises into a financial and sporting reset. Asvel has already had its first disappointment of the season – the question now is whether the instability that caused it will continue to affect the team once the games begin.
Barcelona: Too many unproven bets
Barcelona has taken a radically different approach to roster building this summer, moving away from the proven EuroLeague veterans who had made up much of the team in recent years and opting instead for a collection of younger, less established players. The club brought in 11 new faces, with only Kevin Punter, Dario Brizuela, Joel Parra and Juan Nunez remaining from last season. Justin Robinson and Josh Nebo are the exceptions, with both having EuroLeague experience, although Nebo has considerably more than Robinson.
That approach could ultimately be the biggest reason for Barcelona to disappoint. A large portion of the new roster comes from the NBA and G League ecosystem, but having the physical tools or strong numbers outside Europe does not guarantee an immediate EuroLeague impact. If several of those gambles fail to translate at the same time, Barcelona could find itself without enough proven production to compensate. If too many of these unproven bets fail to pay off, Barcelona could be in for a disappointing season.
Baskonia: Not enough reinforcements
Baskonia appears to have one of the weakest offseason transfer windows in the EuroLeague on paper. The club lost several of the players who carried much of its production last season, including Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Trent Forrest and Mamadi Diakite, while also parting ways with Khalifa Diop, Markquis Nowell, Eugene Omoruyi, Gytis Radzevicius and Jesse Edwards. Replacing that much experience and production was always going to be difficult, but Baskonia’s incoming group has not yet come close to matching what left, either in quality or quantity.
Kenneth Faried, Damion Baugh, A.J. Lawson, Chris Duarte and DJ Stewart were among the additions, with Alex Len now also joining the frontcourt, but the roster still looks considerably thinner than it did a year ago. Baskonia therefore enters another EuroLeague campaign without having adequately replaced the players it lost, and if the new additions fail to overperform their expectations, the team could be headed for another poor EuroLeague season and another major disappointment.
Bayern: Limited top-end talent
Bayern has several quality individual players, but the roster does not appear to have the same level of top-end talent as the EuroLeague’s leading contenders. There is no obvious star who can consistently raise the team’s ceiling on his own, meaning Bayern may need almost everything to go right to compete with the deepest teams in the competition. That lack of high-end individual quality could become a problem when the season reaches its most demanding stages and the margins between teams become smaller.
The challenge becomes even greater with a new coach and a new system. Bayern must turn a collection of relatively good individual players into a team capable of consistently getting more out of its parts than the talent level suggests. That process may take time, and there is little room for the team to underperform while its new ideas are being established. A limited talent ceiling combined with the challenge of building a new system could leave Bayern falling short of the expectations surrounding the team.
Besiktas: No clear star
When looking at Besiktas’ roster, it is not immediately obvious who will be the team’s go-to player on the court. That role belonged to Jonah Mathews for much of the club’s recent rise, with the guard becoming the centerpiece of a team that reached the EuroCup Final last season. Mathews is now gone, leaving Besiktas without the one player who clearly stood above the rest of the roster in terms of offensive responsibility.
Besiktas has added several guards, including Scottie Wilbekin, Jaylen Nowell, DaQuan Jeffries and David DeJulius, but none arrives with the profile of a player who immediately stands above the rest. Instead, the roster appears to be built around a group of players whose individual level is relatively close, which could make it difficult to find someone capable of consistently changing games at the highest level. If that star never emerges, the lack of a player who truly separates himself from the rest could be enough for Besiktas to have a disappointing EuroLeague season.
Crvena Zvezda: What if Navarro’s system does not click?
Ibon Navarro arrives at Crvena Zvezda with a clear basketball identity and a proven track record of building successful teams around his ideas. His work at Unicaja showed just how effective that approach can be when players fully embrace the demands of his system. But the challenge in Belgrade will be considerably different. EuroLeague expectations, constant pressure and a much larger budget mean that Navarro will have far less room for a prolonged adjustment period, especially with several established EuroLeague names expected to adapt to a new way of playing.
That adaptation could become one of the defining stories of Crvena Zvezda’s season. Navarro’s basketball requires players to accept specific roles, quick decisions, frequent changes and a deep rotation, and there is no guarantee that every star on the roster will be equally comfortable with those demands. If the team struggles early while everyone is still learning the system, pressure could build before Navarro has had enough time to establish it. And if the players never fully buy into his ideas, Crvena Zvezda could spend the season with a talented roster that never reaches its potential.
Dubai: Too many players, too few minutes
Dubai enters the season with one of the deepest rosters in the EuroLeague, with around 19-20 players competing for minutes across almost every position. On paper, that gives Xavi Pascual an enormous amount of talent and flexibility, but it also creates a problem that cannot be solved simply by having more quality. Most of these players have been important contributors throughout their careers and are accustomed to playing a certain number of minutes. In Dubai, many of them will inevitably have to accept smaller roles.
That could become a serious test of the team’s chemistry. Players can accept reduced minutes when the team is winning and everyone understands their role, but frustration can quickly grow if expectations are not met or certain players feel they deserve more opportunities. Even without a major conflict, dissatisfaction over playing time and roles could create tension inside the locker room and undermine the team’s cohesion. For a club that has invested so heavily in building a competitive EuroLeague roster, disrupted chemistry could ultimately be the factor that turns an ambitious season into a disappointing one.
Fenerbahce: Finding new roles for Shane Larkin, Will Clyburn and Shavon Shields
Fenerbahce has added an unusual amount of individual talent to an already established core, bringing in Shane Larkin, Will Clyburn and Shavon Shields after years in which all three were accustomed to being major offensive options. Larkin spent eight seasons as one of Anadolu Efes’ primary creators and scorers, while Clyburn and Shields have also spent much of their careers carrying significant offensive responsibility. That will be different in Istanbul, where Wade Baldwin and Talen Horton-Tucker already occupy prominent roles and the roster offers quality across virtually every position.
The challenge will be finding roles for those new additions without disrupting the balance that made Fenerbahce successful in the first place. None of Larkin, Clyburn or Shields needs to be a first option to remain highly effective, but all three will have to adjust to having less of the ball, fewer shots and potentially fewer minutes than they were used to. With so much proven talent competing for responsibility, even a small imbalance in the hierarchy could affect established core. Fenerbahce needs to integrate its new stars without weakening what was already working, or an impressive offseason could ultimately become a source of disappointment.
Hapoel Tel Aviv: No real home-court advantage
Hapoel Tel Aviv has spent the past year constantly adjusting to where its home actually is. The team began last season playing in Sofia, with selected EuroLeague games also moved to Botevgrad, before briefly returning to Tel Aviv when the competition allowed Israeli clubs to resume hosting games at home. The situation changed again in March, forcing Hapoel Tel Aviv back to Sofia, while its playoff series against Real Madrid was ultimately played in Botevgrad. Even within Bulgaria, the club has had to move between two different cities and arenas.
That kind of constant relocation creates logistical challenges and makes it difficult to establish anything resembling a normal home-court advantage. Hapoel Tel Aviv is again set to split its home games between Sofia and Botevgrad this season, meaning there will be no single environment the team can consistently call home. In practical terms, that can make a 38-game EuroLeague schedule feel much closer to 38 road games, and the lack of stability could become a significant obstacle over the course of the season.
Maccabi Tel Aviv: Too many questions in the backcourt
Maccabi Tel Aviv has built a strong frontcourt, but there are considerably more questions surrounding the backcourt. Yam Madar showed flashes of the player the club hoped to get last season, yet consistency has been an issue throughout his career, making it difficult to know whether he can sustain the level required to lead a EuroLeague team into the playoffs. Jimmy Clark also had stretches of strong play last season but struggled to maintain that level, while Keaton Wallace arrives from a limited role with the Atlanta Hawks and will now be asked to handle much greater responsibility.
Iffe Lundberg gives Maccabi Tel Aviv another proven option and had a productive season when healthy, but injuries interrupted his campaign, while his previous stint at Partizan also showed how inconsistent his level could be. Maccabi Tel Aviv therefore has several talented guards, but fewer certainties than it does inside. The frontcourt may provide a strong foundation, yet too much uncertainty in the backcourt could become a problem over a long EuroLeague season, particularly when Maccabi Tel Aviv needs consistent creation and decision-making to reach the playoffs.
Milano: Can its secondary stars become primary options?
Milano is asking several players to take on significantly greater responsibility than they had with their previous teams. Marko Guduric was an important piece of Fenerbahce’s title-winning roster, but he was not its primary offensive option, while Devon Hall returns to Milano after playing a supporting role on another Fenerbahce team loaded with established scorers. Alec Peters was a highly efficient player for Olympiacos, but mostly operated within a limited role, and Moses Wright also arrives with the potential to take on more responsibility than he had at Zalgiris.
That is where Milano’s biggest question lies. The club has added players with plenty of quality, but much of that quality now has to translate into primary or near-primary production. Guduric already struggled to consistently reach that level in his first season in Milano, while Hall, Peters and Wright will also be expected to step beyond the roles they previously occupied. The talent is there, but Milano needs those players to turn potential into consistent high-level production. A failure to do so could leave the team with a roster full of good pieces that never produces enough top-end impact to match its ambitions.
Olympiacos: A thinner rotation at the “3” and “4”
Olympiacos has kept most of the core that carried it to last season’s success, but the departure of Alec Peters left a noticeable hole in the rotation. The club did not replace him with another player of the same profile, leaving Sasha Vezenkov as the clear primary option at power forward, with Mbaye Ndiaye now expected to provide depth despite offering a very different skill set from Peters. The situation is similar on the forward, where Tyson Ward is the only natural small forward behind veteran Kostas Papanikolaou.
That leaves Olympiacos with less proven depth at the 3 and 4 than it had a year ago. The overall roster remains deep, but the loss of a player who could reliably contribute without demanding the same role as the team’s stars means there is less room for injuries, fatigue or dips in form. Over a long EuroLeague season, that thinner rotation could become a significant problem, particularly if Vezenkov is forced to carry an even greater workload than before.
Panathinaikos: Too many stars
Panathinaikos may have assembled one of the most individually talented rosters in EuroLeague history, with an extraordinary amount of proven talent competing for minutes, touches and responsibility. On paper, that makes the team almost impossible to ignore, but it also creates a completely different challenge: turning a collection of stars into a team. Players who have spent most of their careers being major offensive options will have to accept different roles, fewer touches and, in some cases, reduced numbers for the greater good.
That is where the biggest risk lies. Superteams have repeatedly shown that individual talent does not automatically translate into the best possible team, particularly when established players have to put their ego aside and sacrifice parts of their usual roles. Panathinaikos does have Zeljko Obradovic, a coach with extensive experience managing star-studded rosters, but can even he make every piece fit perfectly? The more talent there is to manage, the more difficult it becomes to keep everyone satisfied while building a clear hierarchy. For a team with such enormous expectations, failing to turn its individual quality into a cohesive unit would make an otherwise exceptional roster one of the reasons for disappointment.
Paris: Too many EuroLeague unknowns
Paris is once again taking a major gamble on players who have little or no meaningful EuroLeague experience. The club has kept several important pieces from last season, including Nadir Hifi, Jared Rhoden and Sebastian Herrera, but most of its offseason additions remain unproven at this level. Frank Ntilikina and Terry Tarpey have EuroLeague experience, although neither played a meaningful role last season, while Nobel Boungou-Colo, Alize Johnson, Tyson Etienne, T.J. Warren and Maozinha Pereira have yet to play a EuroLeague minute.
That leaves Paris with a roster full of question marks outside of its established core, with Hifi once again standing out as the clearest proven offensive threat. The French guard has already shown that he can carry a significant scoring burden in this competition, but Paris will need several of its less established players to immediately translate their qualities to the EuroLeague. The number of unknowns could become a major issue over 38 games, particularly with opponents likely to focus heavily on limiting Hifi’s impact.
Partizan: No second star next to Carlik Jones
Partizan enters the 2026-27 season with one obvious centerpiece in Carlik Jones, but there is no equally clear second star next to him. The club made several additions to its roster, including Ethan Thompson, Kyle Allman, Luca Vildoza and Alessandro Pajola, yet none arrives with the established profile to immediately be identified as the team’s second offensive option.
Much of that responsibility could fall on Thompson, who arrives after playing in the NBA and G League but has never appeared in the EuroLeague. That makes him an intriguing option, but also a significant unknown in such an important role. Partizan can rely heavily on Jones, but asking one player to carry the team’s offensive burden without another proven star alongside him could become a major problem over 38 games. Should Thompson or another newcomer fail to emerge as that second option, Partizan could find itself too dependent on Jones and ultimately fall short of the expectations surrounding the team. Those expectations are always extremely high in Belgrade, especially when it comes to playing in front of Partizan’s passionate home crowd.
Real Madrid: What if Campazzo and Tavares decline?
Real Madrid has relied on Facundo Campazzo and Walter Tavares for years, and both remain central pieces of the team heading into the new season. However, their level already appeared to dip at times last season, particularly in the connection that has made them such a difficult duo to contain for so long. That is a natural concern given their age, and another step down from either player could have a much greater impact this time around.
Last season, Real Madrid had Mario Hezonja and Trey Lyles to provide major production alongside them, with both players leaving the club this summer. Their departures put more pressure on the rest of the roster to replace that lost scoring and versatility. Real Madrid has added several new pieces, but none has yet established himself as a proven replacement for what Hezonja and Lyles provided. A further decline from Campazzo or Tavares, combined with an inability to adequately replace those two departures, could leave Real Madrid without enough production from its established core to meet its ambitions.
Valencia: Too much reliance on T.J. Shorts
Valencia is coming off the first Final Four appearance in club history, but the team that achieved that breakthrough has undergone a major transformation over the summer. Jean Montero, Darius Thompson, Brancou Badio, Braxton Key and several other important pieces are gone, while T.J. Shorts arrives as the new centerpiece of the roster. That makes his level one of the biggest variables in determining how high Valencia can climb this season.
Shorts was one of the EuroLeague’s most influential offensive players during his time with Paris, but he did not reach the same level last season at Panathinaikos. He struggled to fully establish himself in Ergin Ataman’s system and was often in and out of the coach’s rotation. Valencia should offer a much more natural environment for his style, but there is still a major question surrounding whether he can rediscover his Paris form. With so much of the previous roster gone, Valencia may not have enough individual quality to compensate for a drop in Shorts’ production, making its dependence on him one of the team’s biggest potential problems.
Virtus: A lack of quality
Virtus may simply lack the quality needed to compete at a consistently high level in the EuroLeague. The roster has undergone another major overhaul, but unlike some of the teams around it, Virtus has not added enough high-end talent to significantly raise its ceiling. On paper, it looks like one of the least talented rosters in the competition, which immediately puts the team at a disadvantage before the season even begins.
There is certainly room for several players to exceed expectations, but Virtus cannot rely on that happening across the roster. The gap in individual quality could become particularly obvious over a 38-game EuroLeague season, when depth and top-end talent are tested repeatedly. In the simplest terms, Virtus’ biggest reason for disappointment may also be the most obvious one: there may simply not be enough talent on the roster.
Zalgiris: Handling a new level of pressure
For years, Zalgiris has been one of the EuroLeague’s most reliable underdogs. The club has regularly beaten bigger teams when expectations were against it and consistently found ways to compete for a place in the playoffs without carrying the same pressure as the competition’s biggest clubs. That dynamic has changed this season. Zalgiris has assembled one of its strongest rosters in years, raising expectations significantly and turning the playoffs from an ambitious goal into something the team will be expected to achieve.
That creates a completely different challenge in Kaunas. The team will also spend much of the season as the favorite against opponents it would previously have approached as an underdog. For perhaps the first time in many years, Zalgiris will have to deal with the pressure that comes from being expected to win rather than simply exceeding expectations. That change in mentality and responsibility could prove difficult to navigate, and failing to handle it could make the weight of expectations one of the biggest reasons for a disappointing season.
