Biggest Winners and Losers from Star-Studded 2025 EuroBasket Tournament
EuroBasket 2025 is wrapped after Germany outlasted Turkey in Sunday's championship game 88-83.
The tournament featured some predictably excellent performances from NBA stars, but also some stunning runs, including from vet journeyman Dennis Schröder, who managed to steal MVP honors in a tournament that included plenty of one-name icons like Giannis, Luka and Jokic.
Schröder, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Dončić, Alperen Şengün and Franz Wagner all earned All-Star Five honors, but we have some additional kudos to hand out, as well as some L's.
Loser: Nikola Jokić
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FIBA games are eight minutes shorter than their NBA counterparts, and Nikola Jokić only averaged 27.0 per game. In that context, his tournament averages of 22.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists look pretty solid.
But Serbia is fresh off a bronze medal at the 2024 Olympics, where they nearly upset the juggernaut Team USA. And they entered EuroBasket as the favorite to win it all.
A hamstring injury to Bogdan Bogdanović severely hampered their ability to live up to those expectations, but going down in the round of 16 still feels like a significant failure for the near-consensus best player in the world.
And though coaching certainly contributed to Serbia's inability to counter Finland's strategy in that game, Jokić's struggles to track shooters on the perimeter were a big part of the team's loss.
With three MVPs, a Finals MVP and a championship, it's difficult to pick at the big man's NBA resume, but he's now nearing a point in international play where fans can wonder if he'll secure a gold in a major FIBA tournament.
Winner: Luka Dončić
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Luka Dončić's Slovenian team only made it one round further than Serbia, but they did that with a less stacked roster. And Luka's more aggressive offensive approach was crucial in taking his country as far as it could go.
Over the course of seven EuroBasket contests, Dončić averaged 34.7 points, 8.6 rebounds and 7.1 assists.
He even received high marks for his defense, something that's long been the subject of criticism during his NBA career.
This tournament was our first test run with the new "Skinny Luka" that debuted earlier this summer. And the way he played on both ends of the floor should have the rest of the league taking notice ahead of 2025-26.
Loser: Spain
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For years, during the 2000s and into the 2010s, Spain was an international basketball powerhouse that seemed like the biggest (and sometimes, even the only) real threat to Team USA's dominance.
But all of the mainstays of that era—the Gasol brothers, Ricky Rubio, Juan Carlos Navarro and others—are all gone. The current Spanish national basketball team is led by Santi Aldama. Willy and Juancho Hernangomez both have NBA experience, but it's become clear that they're not the Gasols.
And in today's FIBA landscape, it's almost impossible to win major tournaments without players who have achieved star status in the NBA.
For Spain, specifically, not having such a player meant not even escaping the group phase at EuroBasket, a result that would've been nearly unspeakable in past decades.
The country that was long the standard for the sport outside the United States appears in need of a cultural and developmental revolution.
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Winner: Miikka Muurinen
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Lauri Markkanen could easily have been the subject of this slide, but we've seen massive FIBA performances from him in the past. His 23.6 points and 7.9 rebounds during EuroBasket weren't all that surprising.
What was surprising were the highlights and overall performance of 18-year-old Miikka Muurinen. The 6'10" forward had some of the tournament's most spectacular blocks and finishes above the rim.
He went 6-of-14 from deep and was something of a chaos agent on both ends of the floor.
His role for Finland was limited, but he clearly had an impact. And at 18 years old, there's still plenty of time and room for further development.
Muurinen was already on the radar of NBA scouts and draft experts, but now he has significantly more fans thinking about where he'll be headed in 2027.
Loser: France
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France didn't reach quite the same heights as Spain over the last couple decades, but they're coming off a silver medal run at the 2024 Olympics. And the country has produced multiple top-two picks over the last few years, including Victor Wembanyama, Alexandre Sarr and Zaccharie Risacher.
But Wemby didn't play in this tournament. Rudy Gobert missed it, as well. And the other top-two picks, Risacher and Sarr, both failed to average double-figures. Bilal Coulibaly, another recent lottery selection, contributed just 6.3 points and shot 41.2 percent from the field.
The future doesn't feel quite as dire as it does for Spain. Most of the aforementioned talent still has a lot of developmental runway. But following up that silver medal with a round-of-16 loss to Georgia is undoubtedly a disappointment.
Winner: Giannis Antetokounmpo
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Giannis Antetokounmpo surely entered EuroBasket hoping for gold. And in that narrow sense, the tournament likely comes with some disappointment.
His lackluster (at least by his standards) performance in the semifinals, in which he totaled 12 points on 13 field-goal attempts, probably hurt too.
But on balance, he is unquestionably one of the winners of this tournament.
His Greek team didn't have a single other NBA rotation player, and it won bronze anyway. In the third-place game, Giannis had 30 points on 9-of-11 shooting. For the tournament, he averaged 27.3 points, 10.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists.
As he typically is in the NBA, Giannis was EuroBasket's most physically imposing force. And willing his team's way all the way to bronze makes him a worthy addition to this side of the ledger.
Winner: Alperen Şengün
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Turkey came up just shy of the gold in Sunday's EuroBasket final, but Alperen Şengün was still one of the tournament's biggest winners.
Beyond securing a silver medal, Şengün averaged 21.6 points, logged a triple-double in the quarterfinals against Poland and fell shy of five assists in just one of his nine games (which happened to be that final).
It was already clear that Şengün was on star trajectory in the NBA. He just made the All-Star team in 2025. But after this appearance at EuroBasket, where he was his team's alpha as both a scorer and distributor, it looks like the Turkish big man is ready to be an even more dangerous and committed leader.
Kevin Durant may average more points in 2025-26, but the Houston Rockets will be Şengün's team.
Winner: Germany
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This one is a bit of a "duh," but Germany's inclusion as a team (rather than an individual slide for Franz Wagner or Dennis Schröder) is a testament to the way it plays and its place on the world stage.
No star is bigger than the whole (though those two shone pretty bright throughout this tournament). Five players beyond Schröder and Wagner averaged at least eight points at EuroBasket. The Germans have multiple dangerous shooters, including Andreas Obst and Tristan Da Silva. And they have a pair of serviceable big men in Daniel Theis and Johannes Thiemann.
The formula has led to gold at both the 2023 World Cup and now 2025's EuroBasket. And they aren't likely to fade away from international relevance any time soon.
Wagner, who averaged 20.8 points in this tournament, is just 24 years old. Schröder, who put up 20.3 points and drilled a pair of clutch buckets to bury Turkey in the final, is 31 and likely has a few more major tournaments in him. Isaac Bonga and Da Silva are 25 and 24, respectively.
Germany is now a world basketball power. Its recent additions to the trophy case prove it.
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