MIES (Switzerland) - Season 11 of the Basketball Champions League, powered by Ameresco SUNEL is already nearly upon us.
With that in mind, we decided to look back on the last 10 whirlwind seasons of this competition and celebrate the players who have graced our courts and helped to make our first decade so entertaining.
You saw the Team of the Decade, but let's expand it a bit more than that.
Who are the best 50 players in this competition throughout the last 10 trips around the sun?
Now, obviously, this list and ranking are subjective, and of course, there will likely be some of your favorite players that didn't make the list or that you are sure should have been higher up the list, but allow us to explain our logic a bit and also remind you that this isn't an official awards list.
Team success
Individual awards
Longevity
Impact
The following 50 players were chosen and ranked based on the above criteria. We already covered numbers 50-41 here, 40-31 here, 30-21 here, 20-11 here, and 10-6 here.
So, without further ado, let's jump into the final 5 names.
#5 Vojtech Hruban (ERA Nymburk, Cholet Basket)
Year on year, if you opened the Basketball Champions League record book and looked at the very top of the scoring charts, there was one ever-present name staring back at you: Vojtech Hruban.
Hruban is the poster child for longevity and consistency in this league.
He was part of the BCL from the very beginning with ERA Nymburk and became the league's all-time leading scorer during the 2019-20 season, overtaking Kevin Punter. At that point, he had 752 points in just 55 games.
The record has since changed hands, but nearly a decade later Hruban is still third on the all-time scoring list with 1,279 points. Only Giorgi Shermadini and Marcelinho Huertas have scored more. We will come to those two, shortly.
That's the thing about Hruban. His place in the Top 5 isn't built on individual awards and BCL titles; it's the accumulated weight of years and years of production.
That's not to say, however, that he hasn't earned any rewards in this league. He was averaging 14.9 points per game for Nymburk in 2019-20 when they went 14-2 in the Regular Season, and he made the Star Lineup First Team that season.
He was also, of course, rewarded for his tireless excellence with a place in the Team of the Decade this Spring.
When you talk about what it means to be a Basketball Champions League player, there might not be anybody who represents the first decade of this competition better than Vojtech Hruban.
He's not just third all-time for scoring, he's second all-time for games played (117), fifth all-time for rebounds (403), fifth all-time for made 3-pointers (174), and sixth all-time for steals (99).
Nine BCL seasons. More than 1,200 points. Always a threat offensively in every phase of the game and in every area of the floor. And always impactful on the defensive end against any type of matchup.
That is longevity with a capital L.
#4 Giorgi Shermadini (La Laguna Tenerife)
We call him Sherminator. For a long time there was an idea that Giorgi Shermadini wasn't overly fond of that nickname, but after so many years of destroying opponents, it became so undeniable that it has even apparently grown on the big Georgian himself.
At 2.16m tall, with hands softer than most point guards, and an almost unfair ability to make moves that look simple almost completely unstoppable, Shermadini is undoubtedly the best offensive center we have ever seen in this competition.
A hook shot here. A perfectly timed roll there. Another defender fooled into committing a foul. Two free throws. Rinse and Repeat.
By April 2026, Shermadini had become the all-time leading scorer in BCL history with 1,416 points and the chances of anyone catching him up in the short term are looking pretty slim.
But there is another point we just need to revisit here on that scoring: A center is the highest-scoring player this competition has ever seen. Not too bad when you factor in that nine of our ten Regular Season MVPs have been guards.
And unlike many prolific scorers, Shermadini has done it without dominating possessions or taking difficult shots. His entire game is built around efficiency, timing, footwork, and an almost telepathic understanding with Marcelinho Huertas in the pick-and-roll.
The pair arrived together in Tenerife in 2019 and have been tormenting BCL defenses ever since.
Shermadini made the Star Lineup First Team in three consecutive seasons: 2020, 2021, and 2022. But that wasn't enough for him, he had to go and make the Star Lineup again in Season X.
At the awards ceremony in Badalona, in true Giorgi Shermadini style, he informed us that he has a room full of these when he collected his award. He also collected his award for earning a place in the Team of the Decade that day.
Undoubtedly, however, there's no doubt his favorite BCL trophy was when he steered Tenerife to win the BCL title in 2022.
There have been more explosive centers. There have been more athletic centers. There has never been a better BCL center.
The all-time leading scorer. A champion. A multiple-time Star Lineup selection. Team of the Decade First Team.
The Sherminator didn't just dominate his position.
He defined it.
#3 Kendrick Perry (Nizhny Novgorod, Unicaja)
If you want to understand Kendrick Perry's Basketball Champions League career, you could probably do it with one missed shot.
Malaga. 2023. Semi-Finals against Bonn.
Perry had the chance to win it but missed.
Bonn went on to win the BCL; Unicaja's Final Four on their own floor ended in heartbreak. Perry had to endure an entire summer going over it again and again in his mind. A lesser player and lesser man could have been scarred or broken by that miss.
Fast forward twelve months.
Belgrade. 2024.
Same player. Same stage. Very different ending.
Perry scored 12 points in the Semi-Finals against UCAM Murcia, then produced a team-high 17 in less than 20 minutes in the Final against Tenerife. When Unicaja needed somebody to take control in the fourth quarter, Perry scored five straight points and came up with a steal.
Unicaja became BCL champions. Kendrick Perry became Final Four MVP.
That's who Kendrick Perry is in the BCL, and that is why he's a Top-3 player all-time.
Unicaja returned in 2024-25 and did it all again, becoming only the second back-to-back champions in BCL history after San Pablo Burgos. Perry scored 13 points in the Final against Galatasaray as Unicaja won 83-67.
That second title elevated Ibon Navarro's Unicaja group into a different category altogether.
Across those championship seasons, Perry was their floor general, their point-of-attack defender, their tempo setter and, when called upon, clutch shotmaker.
The thing about players in that Unicaja team is that nobody put up eye-catching numbers because the minutes and shots were always shared. But despite that, KP's recognition from his peers tells the story of his impact on this league.
He made the Star Lineup Second Team in 2023, the First Team in 2024, and the Second Team again in 2025. He was the Final Four MVP in 2024 and the Defensive Player of the Year in Season X.
By April 2026, he had also climbed sixth all-time for assists with 325, and 13th all-time in scoring with 877 BCL points.
Kendrick Perry didn't avoid the biggest moments of the decade, he searched them out and made sure he was always a part of them.
#2 Kevin Punter (Rosa Radom, AEK Virtus Bologna)
Before Kevin Punter became one of the most feared scorers in European basketball, he was doing unspeakable things to Basketball Champions League defenses in a Rosa Radom jersey.
And when we say scoring, we do mean scoring. Punter averaged 20.6 points per game for Rosa Radom in 2017-18. AEK noticed because that's what AEK does.
A few months later, Punter was standing in front of an iconic crowd in Athens as a BCL champion, having scored 16 points in the most memorable Final in BCL history.
Most players would probably take that as a pretty successful BCL career. Punter decided to do it again. He joined Virtus Bologna the following season, averaged 16 points per game across 20 appearances, led them to the title, and was named Final Four MVP and earned a spot in the Star Lineup.
Two seasons. Two different clubs. Two BCL titles. The second one with a Final Four MVP trophy tucked under his arm.
By the time he finished his final season in the BCL, Punter was the best scorer we had seen in the Regular Season, the best scorer we had seen in the Play-Offs, and the best scorer we had seen in BCL Finals.
Not a bad couple of years.
His career BCL numbers are equally absurd: 17.7 points per game across his time with Rosa Radom, AEK and Virtus Bologna.
He doesn't have the longevity, but when it comes to impact, Punter is unmatched.
#1 Marcelinho Huertas (La Laguna Tenerife)
Did we really need to tell you who was going to come in at #1?
After 49 names, there was only ever going to be one left at the top of the mountain: Marcelinho Huertas.
The GOAT.
He joined Tenerife in 2019 at 36 years old. Usually, players are entering the final chapter of their careers at that age.
Marcelinho obviously didn't see it that way.
He made the Star Lineup First Team in his first BCL season in 2019-20. Then came another Star Lineup selection, the 2022 BCL title, and Final Four MVP after leading Tenerife to glory in Bilbao.
We still remember the emotion and relief on the faces of Huertas and Coach Vidorreta after that Final. The understated celebrations with a few beers on the side of the court told the story of one of the BCL's most humble champions, but also one of the most hungry champions.
Forget the ages of the members of that team; nobody in that Tenerife team was ready to call it a day yet. Especially not Marcelinho Huertas.
From that season on, things started to get silly. At 40 years old, Huertas averaged 16.4 points and 8 assists during the 2023-24 season and became BCL MVP.
At 41, he did it again. In 2025, Huertas became the first player in Basketball Champions League history to win back-to-back MVP of the Season awards.
During the 2025 Quarter-Finals against Derthona, he averaged 21 points and 11 assists. At forty-one. That's not human.
And that's just describing the achievements and not even talking about the marvel on the floor.
The manipulation of pick-and-roll coverage. The one-legged midrange shots. The impossible angles to find a pass. The way defenders know exactly what is coming and somehow still couldn't stop it. The way that no matter how physical teams got with him, the game was always played at his pace... Every minute of every game was a clinic.
755 assists make him first all-time (obviously); 1,337 points make him second all-time (only Shermadini sits above him) on the all-time list.
Marcelinho Huertas joined this competition aged 36 and still became its second-highest scorer. Cool.
Add a BCL championship, a Final Four MVP, two Season MVP awards, repeated Star Lineup selections, and a place in the Team of the Decade First Team, and the argument starts becoming very difficult to have.
The only mark you can put on Marcelinho's record is that he only has one BCL title, but add in the FIBA Intercontinental Cup in 2020 and 2023 and the absurd collection of MVP and Star Lineup awards, and there are no questions left to answer.
Nobody has controlled the Basketball Champions League like Marcelinho Huertas. He is the BCL's point god and undeniable king of this competition's first decade.
The Basketball Champions League's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA or the Basketball Champions League.
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