2019-20

01/07/2020

The new season, with the prize of playing the fifth Euroleague in our history, had continuity on the bench, with Jaume Ponsarnau's second season as head coach.

 

The staff did undergo changes. In the starting position, the departure of Antoine Diot and Sergi García was offset by the arrival of Quino Colom, who would join Sam Van Rossom and Guillem Vives in the position.

 

In the SG position, the losses of Matt Thomas (Toronto Raptors) and Rafa Martínez (Bilbao) gave way to the arrivals of the North American Jordan Loyd (precisely from Toronto) and the young Serbian Vanja Marinkovic. At the small forward, the triple formed by Alberto Abalde, Fernando San Emeterio and Aaron Doornekamp remained for the third season.

 

In the interior game, the loss of Will Thomas was supplemented by the arrival of two players, Senegalese Maurice Ndour (Unics Kazan) and Australian Brock Motum (Anadolu Efes), with the continuity of Louis Labeyrie, Bojan Dubljevic and Mike Tobey.

 

After combining a tough start to the season in the Endesa League and Euroleague, the first great event of the season would be the Copa del Rey to be played in Malaga. In a superb first quarter-final game, Valencia Basket would beat FC Barcelona. However, the strength of the picture was capital, falling to Real Madrid in the semifinals.

 

At the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, Valecia Basket was off to a difficult start and was included among the top eight finishers who could ensure their presence in the next edition for several days. In the Endesa League, the harshness of the competition itself and of the European calendar made the Taronja position oscillate between fourth and eighth place for much of the league.

 

Then everything changed. The coronavirus pandemic reached all competitions worldwide, forcing first to play a Valencia Basket - AX Armani Milan at the Fonteta behind closed doors, and having to brake later in all competitions. The Turkish Airlines Euroleague was definitively suspended a couple of months later, taking the resolution to repeat the next edition with the same teams, and therefore, guaranteeing the presence of Taronja in the following season.


On this time, we mourned the loss of Martín Labarta, our historic court delegate.

 

The Liga Endesa would be resumed, in an Exceptional Final Phase format that would be organized in the city of Valencia and that would house the top 12 finishers of the Endesa League in two groups of 6 teams each, semifinals and final single match. 14 days of competition that took place in Valencia between June 17 and 31.

 

In the first stage of the tournament, Valencia Basket would achieve the first position of its group, after finishing with a balance of 4-1 over San Pablo Burgos and Real Madrid. In the semifinals, a defeat by just 2 points against Baskonia would leave the Taronja on the brink of their third Endesa League final, a competition that Baskonia would win against FC Barcelona.


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