One of the brightest players in “Prometey” history DJ Stephens is leaving our club after spending three great seasons in it. “Titans” collected a great collection of titles during this time: the championship of Ukrainian Superleague and Latvian-Estonian league, the Super Cup of Ukraine. Besides that, “Prometey” has proven itself at the European arena. In the 2021/2022 season, “red and white” reached the second group round of the Champions league. Only Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine prevented wonderful Ronen Ginzburg’s team from developing this success. Instead, last season turned out to be a historic one for “Prometey”. After “Budivelnyk”, it become the second Ukrainian club to advance to the Top-4 of the EuroCup, the second most prestigious European club tournament.
DJ Stephens was fully involved in all these successes. The forward signed a contract with our club in the summer 2020 and became the first player in its history with NBA experience (Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies). Already in his first season in "Prometey" (2020/2021), DJ partly managed to realise his potential. According to the results of the season, he entered the symbolic five best players of the Superleague (48 matches, 25.3 minutes, 12.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists. RE 15.5). By the way, together with the future “Prometey” player Issuf Sanon, who then represented "Dnipro". In the playoffs, DJ was particularly successful in his matches against “Dnipro” at the decisive moment, with a tie of 1:1 in the semi-final series. In the third match, Stephens scored 14 points against the main rival, and 21 points in the fourth one.
It is impossible to leave unnoticed DJ’s contribution to the historic advance of “Prometey” to the Champions League. In the super tense and dramatic final of qualification against Russian “Parma” (67:65 in favour of “titans”), it was DJ, who scored almost third part of the team’s points (20). In the Champions League regular season, his productiveness reached the mark of “10+” four times. A decisive match of “Prometey” against Israeli “Hapoel Jerusalem” at the play-in stage was an outstanding one: 15 points, 75% accuracy from the field and 22 points of efficiency rating.
However last year, our “air” forward became the true leader of the team. When DJ got real courage, he was unstoppable! For example, this was the case in the home EuroCup matches against Slovenian “Cedevita Olimpija” and French “Bourg”. In both matches, he scored 28 points and each time he managed to hit 6 times from the arc out of 9 attempts. Stephens twice reached the performance mark of 28 points in the LEBL (a home match against “VEF Riga” and a road one against Estonian “Keila”).
His brilliant performance in the EuroCup was properly appreciated. Following the results of voting by fans, journalists, head coaches and teams’ captains, our forward entered the first symbolic five of the tournament. At the group stage, 32-year-old Stephens scored on average 13.2 points, made 5.9 rebounds and had RE of 15.1. In the postseason, “Prometey” player even improved his results of the regular season: 14.0 points and 7.0 rebounds. In addition, DJ ranked fourth in the EuroCup with 72.8% of two-point shots accuracy.
However, all these figures cannot even come close to reflecting the real magic created on the court by this unbelievable forward. His performance was a genuine unique show! For example, in the 7DAYS EuroCup, DJ’s crazy slam-dunks and blocked shots got into selection of the best moments almost after each game week.
Now, after his cooperation with “Prometey” is over, we want to address this wonderful forward with only warm words of gratitude and appreciation. Thank you, DJ, for the basketball miracles you have given us for all these three years! Good luck in your future career!
