Stephane Lasme is the player to be named top Euroleague defender for the 2012-13 season. The voting was committed amongst Euroleague team coaches and it was a win by an inch, as Lasme would ultimately prevail over a teammate: Dimitris Diamantidis.
Lasme, born in Gabon, had 1.76 blocks per game, while being fourth on the list of rebounders, with his 6.14 boards in average. And all this with Panathinaikos being the second best team in backcourt, having suffered only 69.8 points from its opponents per game. He is the second clover player to conquer the title after captain Dimitris Diamantidis, the latter to have been named best defender six times and have let only two other players gain the title: Andrei Kirilenko and Victor Khryapa. Diamantidis tied at second place with Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Shaun James for best defender this season, while Montepaschi Siena’s David Moss followed in the line.
This season was Lasme’s third in Euroleague, player to have competed in the league with three different teams (Partizan, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Panathinaikos). He did not compete in the Greens’ opening night this season and had only 3 minutes time in this year’s second game, having been added to the team slightly later than the others. In the first game which he had a regular participation versus Olimpija Ljubljana on the road, he tallied 8 rebounds and 5 blocked shots and continued down the same root up to play offs game 5. He mounted 100 blocks during the Top16 and one of his most memorable moments his block on Juan Carlos Navarro to seal the deal of Panathinaikos’ victory versus Barcelona in Spain, in playoffs game 2.
