Olympiacos 'Faster Than Last Year': Donta Hall and a Pace Shift Built on a Single Game

When the Super Cup semifinal ended 92-90 in favor of Olympiacos, most viewers remembered Evan Fournier and his decisive buckets. I stopped at a different line. Donta Hall finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds — a full double-double, but with no three-point attempts listed, just 4/7 from inside the arc and 4/4 from the free-throw line. That is the stat line of a player who does exactly one job and does it well enough. What caught my attention was not the numbers themselves, but Hall's explanation for them: he said the team is playing faster than last year, and that it helps him. A frontcourt player publicly crediting two new guards is a rare detail. Rare enough that I reopened my notes.

To understand why that matters, it has to be placed in the context of the EuroLeague — a competition run under FIBA rules, with no draft and no NBA-style salary cap. Here, a club's strength comes from budget, scouting, and continuity. Olympiacos entered the new season with an established coach, Bartzokas, and a backcourt rebuilt around two names: Montero and Miller-McIntyre.

This is the key context. For several seasons, Europe's biggest clubs have faced the same problem: when opponents set their half-court defense, they stall. The cheapest fix is raising transition speed — scoring before the defense is set. That is not a tactical invention, it is a personnel adaptation. I have watched enough European season openers to know that September pace always looks better than May pace. But that does not make the signal worthless. The question is: what is it saying, and what is it hiding?

The game was played on September 18, in the Super Cup. The final opponent is the winner of the bracket between a Dubai representative and Real Madrid. The presence of a Dubai-labeled club in the bracket is a separate watchpoint I will leave for later.

One thing must be said clearly. Olympiacos' shift is a personnel adaptation, not a tactical invention. European basketball has three ways out of half-court stagnation: elite pick-and-roll creation, developing a top-tier shooter, or running faster. The first two cost money and time. The third only needs a guard who can push the ball. Signing Montero and Miller-McIntyre is an investment in the cheapest option.

Hall is the direct beneficiary, and his stat line reads like a job description. 4/7 from two is acceptable interior finishing, not elite. 4/4 from the line shows he maximizes the trips where he gets fouled. The 12 rebounds are his biggest value source. No three-point attempt is listed. I went back to check my assumptions after the Qatar lesson, and what I found still holds: this is the profile of a pure energy big man — not a creator, not a spacer, just someone who runs, catches, and finishes.

Numbers do not lie, but the people who choose them do. A stat line does not select itself; someone selects it to tell a story. Here, the chosen story is efficiency, and the overlooked part is dependency.

And because of that, Hall depends entirely on the speed of the backcourt.

When Hall says 'we are faster than last year and that helps me,' he is describing a real causal relationship: guards who push the ball create easier finishing chances for bigs before the defense collapses. That is a bright spot, but also a structural weakness. Hall's production is not a constant; it is a function of the form and health of two new guards. If Montero or Miller-McIntyre gets injured, or gets locked up, Hall's numbers drop with them.

There is an underrated detail in Hall's comments that I consider more important than anything else: he says he is still trying to find his form. Placed beside his mention of a long preparation period, this is a signal about accumulated load entering the season. In other words, this double-double came while Hall was not yet at his peak. That helps him in the short term, but it also warns about workload.

At team level, Bartzokas gave two lines I kept rereading. First, he said the game felt like a playoff game. Second, he noted that 'coaches are not magicians.' The first confirms intensity, the second cools expectations. An experienced coach knows that a two-point win in an opening tournament proves nothing about May. This is the kind of media management I respect: players supply the optimism, the coach applies the brake.

But there is a large data gap I cannot ignore. The original report provides no defensive information at all. No Pace, no OffRtg, no DefRtg. For a team committed to running, transition defense is the most important question — because pace always pressures the ability to get back. Ninety-two points scored is a signal, but ninety conceded is also a signal. And I only have one game.

On personnel, I note Fournier's appearance as the clutch scorer, and the media framing of this team as one with 'no selfish players.' In the EuroLeague, with no draft and no cap, signing elite former NBA players is a shortcut to competing immediately. But that is also why claims about team chemistry deserve caution: 'no selfish players' is exactly what every team says right after integrating new scorers.

Now to the part I really want to say.

The entire 'Olympiacos is faster than last year' story rests on one game, decided by two points, in an opening tournament. That is far too small a sample to conclude anything.

But the deeper problem lies in the nature of transition play. In playoff basketball, pace is not decided by the fast team — it is decided by the slower, more physical team. When every possession matters, coaches slow the game down, raise contact, and force everything into the half court. That is precisely when speed loses its value. The advantage Olympiacos just bought with two new guards is the least valuable advantage at exactly the moment it is needed most.

I am not saying they are wrong. I am saying that the 'faster' claim is a preseason indicator, not a durable identity. I once thought I was right. Qatar taught me I was wrong. Maybe I am wrong again, and this is the assumption I am using: that Olympiacos' defense holds up at a high tempo. If that assumption fails, the 92-90 score reads in a completely different way.

Over the next 10 to 15 games, I will track two things: Olympiacos' Pace compared with last season, and whether DefRtg holds steady as Pace rises. If both climb, this story is real. If only the speed rises, they bought something beautiful that cannot be used in May.

When the court is empty, only the data whispers the truth. I have only heard half the sentence.