Milutinov included: Olympiacos open their EuroLeague campaign at Buesa Arena

Fernando Buesa Arena sits on the edge of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the Basque Country. It is a concrete block with more than fifteen thousand seats, built so that sound does not escape. On 24 September, at 21:30 Athens time, Olympiacos walk in for their EuroLeague opener against Baskonia. The game is broadcast live on Novasports Prime. What makes Olympiacos' squad list worth a closer read this time is not the venue. It is a name. Nikola Milutinov. The Serbian centre, 30 years old, 2.13 metres tall, is in the travelling party. For anyone who has followed Piraeus over the past weeks, that is the single most important signal before tip-off. At Olympiacos, Milutinov's role goes far beyond a place in the rotation. He is the anchor of the entire half-court system head coach Georgios Bartzokas pursues. In basketball, some signals never make the box score. Applause ringing through an empty gym is a news item too. Milutinov is no newcomer in Piraeus. He wore Olympiacos red from 2026 to 2026, spent three seasons at CSKA Moscow, then returned in the summer of 2026. In both spells he has done one cluster of things, and done them at a level few European centres reach: set the screen, roll hard, finish from one to three metres, and reclaim balls that already seemed lost. EuroLeague numbers show he has repeatedly ranked among the competition's leaders in offensive rebounds. His career two-point shooting rate in the competition sits above 60%, and his free-throw attempts per game rank among the highest in the league. In exchange, he barely shoots threes, rarely creates for others, and converts free throws at just under 65%. For Bartzokas, that is a clear fit rather than a limitation. Olympiacos build around big shooters: Sasha Vezenkov cuts off the ball along diagonal lines, Evan Fournier creates space off the dribble, Thomas Walkup controls tempo and keeps the ball alive. In the middle of that machinery, Milutinov is the man who draws defensive attention in the first two seconds of every possession. On the other side, Pablo Laso's Baskonia play the opposite way. The Basque club push pace, run endless screens and hunt threes early in the 24-second clock. Fernando Buesa Arena amplifies that style. The stands are loud, the referees feel the pressure, and the home side's fast breaks are usually fuelled by both. A road opener in the EuroLeague carries its own weight. The regular season is long and non-elimination, but the standings after 34 rounds decide who hosts the play-offs — an advantage any club that has won a European series understands. For Olympiacos, a team that always targets the top of the table, a defeat in Vitoria would not change the big picture. It would, however, set a different psychological tone for the rest of October. There is a detail in the Baskonia corridor that Greek fans will notice: Nikos Rogkavopoulos, a forward raised in Greek basketball, now stands on the opposite side. Next to him is Tadas Sedekerskis, a tall, mobile forward who can shoot from distance — exactly the type Laso likes to drag opposing centres away from the rim. For Rogkavopoulos, this game carries an extra personal layer: a Greek player facing the strongest Greek club in Europe, on his own floor. The first thing to say about Milutinov is that he creates advantage without the ball in his hands. He creates it with his body and the angle of his screen. In Olympiacos' pick-and-roll scheme, Milutinov usually sets his screen seven to eight metres out, slightly tilted toward the ball handler's right hand. That angle forces the defender to choose: go under, which hands the handler space to shoot a three; or chase over the top, which means getting clipped by half a step — enough for Milutinov to roll and catch before the opposing centre can turn his hips. For a player 2.13 metres tall with long arms, half a step is everything. Most of Milutinov's attempts come within two metres of the rim, where the finishing rate of elite EuroLeague big men routinely clears 65%. His real value lies in what the box score only partly shows: offensive rebounds. Every missed Olympiacos possession with Milutinov on the floor does not end with the miss. It extends by five, seven, sometimes ten seconds. During that stretch the defence must rotate, lose position, and often foul. That is why Bartzokas is willing to sacrifice some pace. Olympiacos' tempo drops when Milutinov plays. So does the team's three-point volume. But attempts inside the paint rise, free-throw attempts rise, and second-chance possessions rise sharply. In terms of rebounding, Milutinov's starting position is almost always opposite the direction of the shot. He does not fight his way through crowds; he reads the bounce and moves a beat early. Against defences that rotate slowly, like Baskonia's, that space appears consistently. It is pressure that never shows up as a technical error, yet erodes concentration possession by possession. For Baskonia, this is a structural problem. Laso's teams have spent several seasons near the bottom of the EuroLeague in relative defensive rebounding — the inevitable cost of playing small, playing fast and pulling big men away from the basket. If Sedekerskis is pushed up to chase Vezenkov while the centre follows Milutinov in drop coverage, Baskonia will be contesting rebounds a man short near the rim. Based on my experience watching games across several EuroLeague seasons, one detail is usually overlooked when analysing Milutinov: his ability to draw fouls comes not from strength but from the timing of his jump. He does not jump early. He waits until the defender loses balance, then lifts the ball. That habit keeps his free-throw percentage low while his free-throw attempts stay high — a paradox found only in centres who understand their own limits. Moustapha Fall is the accompanying variable. The French centre, 2.18 metres, is Olympiacos' defensive anchor. When Fall and Milutinov share the floor, Piraeus have the thickest interior pairing in the EuroLeague — and also a pairing that barely shoots threes. This is the test Bartzokas faces in the opening game. Playing two centres against a small, fast, three-point-hunting team like Baskonia puts you at a disadvantage chasing kick-out passes. Playing one centre removes the offensive-rebounding weapon — the very weapon Baskonia struggle most to contain. The answer may lie in how Milutinov defends. He is not a centre with great lateral movement. In drop coverage he sinks deep and protects the rim, accepting that opposing guards will shoot from five or six metres. Against many EuroLeague teams that trade is acceptable. Against Baskonia, their shooting rhythm is designed to punish exactly that space. The backcourt also matters. Thomas Walkup, Olympiacos' primary organiser, is the type of player who likes to control tempo and attack specific weaknesses. Against a Baskonia defence that switches constantly and pushes opponents outward, Walkup will have to decide quickly: feed Milutinov inside, or stretch the floor with reversals to the wings. And there is one more detail Laso has surely noted: Milutinov's free-throw rate under 65%. Late in a tight game, deliberately fouling him can be a mathematically sound choice. Milutinov has been treated that way before in his career. He has also answered by making the biggest ones — something a season-long stat sheet never captures. There is another reading, and it is uncomfortable. Milutinov's presence on the list does not automatically mean he is ready for 25 high-intensity minutes in a loud Basque arena. A centre over 2.10 metres with a history of foot and ankle injuries belongs to the group of players who need the tightest load management. Putting him into a season opener, against an opponent that plays fast and constantly drags big men away from the rim, is the kind of decision that forces a staff to weigh two risks: losing one game, or losing one man for the season. Loud arena or empty one, the rules of the ball stay the same — only the players change. Buesa Arena will show no mercy to a centre just back. Every drop coverage is an invitation to shoot a three. Every time Milutinov sinks deep, the stands see the gap open. There is one more point, purely tactical: Milutinov's presence can reduce the effectiveness of Olympiacos' own best weapons. Vezenkov lives on cuts into the paint. Fournier lives on dribble penetration into the middle. Both need space inside. When a non-shooting centre occupies the paint, that space narrows. That is the paradox of every classic centre in modern European basketball: they win back possessions, while shrinking the space for their own teammates. Milutinov is in. That is information. The bigger thing the game in Vitoria will answer is how Bartzokas intends to use him — as a twenty-minute anchor, or as a supplementary tool in the minutes when the game must be reclaimed. You call late at night; only at dawn do you hear the answer. For Olympiacos, that answer will arrive in the first five minutes, when we see how Baskonia's defence chooses to handle a 2.13-metre name standing in the middle of the paint. Every podcast episode is a conversation; every game is a reply.