Thomas Walkup’s arrival brought one of the biggest transfer sagas of the summer in European basketball to an end. By signing the American point guard, Dubai completed one part of its offseason business and opened another, as Xavi Pascual now has to trim a roster that currently includes 19 senior players and decide which group he will take into the season.
Mam Jaiteh is close to leaving for Napoli, Awudu Abass is also on his way out, and the club has already sent several players out on loan this summer. Dubai has built a roster deep enough to legitimately raise the question before the season begins: does it, along with Panathinaikos, have the deepest roster in the EuroLeague? Perhaps even the deepest, depending on how depth is defined.
Walkup Completed a Summer of Major Additions
Walkup is the latest in a series of major moves this summer. Before him came Tornike Shengelia, Elie Okobo, Jaron Blossomgame, Mamadi Diakite and Davion Mintz. Those six additions joined a core that already included McKinley Wright, Džanan Musa, Dwayne Bacon, Filip Petrušev, Mfiondu Kabengele, Davis Bertans, Kenan Kamenjaš, Klemen Prepelič, Justin Anderson and Kosta Kondić.
The list itself helps explain why Dubai’s depth is being discussed differently than it was last season. Wright was one of the leaders of the team that won the ABA League, Bacon extended his contract after a EuroLeague season in which he averaged 16.2 points, Kabengele was the MVP of the regional league finals, while Musa, Petrušev and Bertans already had important roles. Dubai then added Shengelia and Okobo, two players accustomed to the biggest games in European basketball, Blossomgame with 160 EuroLeague appearances, Diakite after an excellent first season in the competition, and now Walkup, who arrives from Olympiacos as a reigning European champion.
The Real Question Is Who Will Have to Accept Less
That is why the main question is not who will play how many minutes, or how Pascual will distribute the ball among Wright, Okobo, Musa and Walkup. It is who, even after the expected departures, will have to accept a limited role. That is exactly what Dubai wanted.
Dejan Kamenjašević recently explained that the change in strategy is a direct consequence of last season. Dubai began the year with 15 players and at one point had nine injured. The club was forced to shop during the season, increased its spending, but did not get what it was looking for. This summer, the idea was to build a roster of roughly 18 players in advance, so that injuries would not force the club to search for someone who would then have to learn the system in the middle of the season.
Pascual should now have enough options to solve certain problems within the roster he already has. That raises an important question: does Dubai, along with Panathinaikos, have the deepest roster in the EuroLeague?
Panathinaikos Still Has the Stronger Top End
The Athens club has registered a final roster of 18 players, and its top-end talent may be the most impressive in the competition. Kendrick Nunn, Kostas Sloukas, Jerian Grant, Sylvain Francisco, Nigel Hayes-Davis, Guerschon Yabusele, Juancho Hernangomez, Isaac Bonga, Mathias Lessort, Moustapha Fall and Dinos Mitoglou give Željko Obradović a huge number of proven options.
If the question of the deepest roster becomes a question of who has the best seven or eight players, Panathinaikos probably has the edge. Kamenjašević made essentially the same point recently in an interview with Mozzart Sport, saying that Panathinaikos’ top six or seven players are, at least on paper, better than Dubai’s comparable group. He also pointed to the other side of that comparison: the drop-off between Dubai’s best players and the rest of the roster should be smaller.
Depth Is About the Drop-Off, Not the Headcount
Roster depth is not simply about the number of players under contract. There is little value in carrying 18 players if the coach already knows in September that four of them will struggle to play meaningful EuroLeague minutes. What matters more is how much the level of the team changes when the starting point guard, leading scorer or starting center is unavailable, and how far down the bench a coach can go without a major drop in quality. By that standard, Dubai has a very strong case…
If Wright does not play, Walkup and Okobo are there. If Musa or Bacon is unavailable, Pascual does not necessarily have to reshape his entire perimeter rotation. At the forward spots, he has Shengelia, Petrušev, Blossomgame and Bertans, while Kabengele, Diakite and Kamenjaš give him several different options inside. They are not all equally good, but even deep into the roster there are players with significant EuroLeague experience or enough quality to avoid becoming emergency solutions.
Fenerbahce Has a Strong Case of Its Own
Panathinaikos is not the only competitor in that regard. Fenerbahce may have the strongest case for third place in this discussion. Šarūnas Jasikevičius has a 17-man roster featuring Shane Larkin, Wade Baldwin, Shavon Shields, Will Clyburn, Talen Horton-Tucker, Nicolo Melli, Johnny Juzang, Trent Forrest, Chris Silva and several other usable options. Much like Dubai, it is difficult to identify the exact point where legitimate EuroLeague players end and simple roster filling begins.
Olympiacos, Real Madrid and Hapoel Tel Aviv also have enough quality that they cannot be left out of the discussion. In recent years, deep rosters have become an increasingly clear trend, as clubs have effectively accepted that it is difficult to get through the current schedule with 13 or 14 players while expecting the same core to remain healthy and fresh until the spring.
Last Season’s Injury Crisis Changed Dubai’s Thinking
Dubai has gone a step further because there is a very specific experience behind that decision. Having nine injured players at one point last season changed the way the club thinks about roster construction. This time, it wanted depth before the problem appeared, rather than after the market had already run out of the best available options.
Dubai spent the previous weeks bringing players in. Now it has to decide who will not stay. Along with the possible departures of Jaiteh and Abass, the club has already built a broad loan network: Aleksa Avramovic went to Bahcesehir, Kevin Kokila to Virtus, Yannick Kraag to Joventut, Simas Lukošius to Unicaja, while a suitable destination is also being sought for Dane Erikstrup.
Dubai Is Building More Than a First-Team Roster
That also shows how much the project continues to change and evolve. Dubai is no longer simply looking for enough players to fill its roster. It is building a network that can provide enough options to complete Pascual’s rotation, while others can go elsewhere for bigger roles with the possibility of eventually playing for Dubai.
Panathinaikos still probably has the stronger top end and, on paper, can be viewed as the leading EuroLeague favorite. Fenerbahce has built a roster deep enough to compete with both. But if depth is measured by how much the quality drops from the top seven to the last several players a coach can realistically use, Dubai does not have many rivals right now.
Pascual Now Has the Problem Dubai Wanted
Walkup’s signing gave Dubai the chance to complete a process aimed at securing in advance what it lacked when injuries hit last season: enough quality options that one or two injuries do not change the entire complexion of the team.
Now Pascual has the opposite problem. Some would call it a good problem to have…
