Petr Benda – League’s top Czech player

Nymburk forward Petr Benda has been recognized as the top Czech player in the 2012/13 VTB United League regular season. The player was honored today in Prague before the Nymburk – CSKA contest. Benda received his award from famous center and current Czech Basketball Federation vice-president and VTB United League official Euroleague representative Jiri Zidek.

This season the VTB United League inaugurated individual prizes for the top players from each of the nine countries featuring at least one League club (the prize is awarded by citizenship, not club allegiance). In the six countries represented by only one club (Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Belarus, Czech Republic and Kazakhstan), the honoree will be determined by a panel of League experts. The top player from Russia (nine clubs), Lithuania (three clubs) and Ukraine (two clubs) will be chosen by the League in partnership with a leading sports media outlet in that country: Russian information agency R-Sport (RIA Novosti), Lithuanian website basketnews.lt and Ukrainian website basket-planet.com.

Petr Benda is the first to be honored. The rest of the players to be recognized will receive their awards during the final regular-season games and playoffs. This season Benda has played 15 games for Nymburk and averaged 8.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.1 steals and a 10.1 efficiency rating.

- I’m happy to receive this honor, - said Benda in an interview with our website. – I always try to give maximum effort, but I think that my teammates are responsible for a lot of my success. Thanks to them, I’m the player that I am today.