Varese, Jaylen Hands won the Antonello Riva Trophy – Climamio

With a total of 578 points over the course of the 30 days of Serie A Unipol 2024/25, Openjobmetis Varese guard Jaylen Hands won the Antonello Riva Trophy – Climamio, dedicated to the top scorer who scored the most total points during the 2024/25 regular season and followed on the podium by Jordan Ford (Dolomiti Energia Trentino) with 509 points and Michael Forrest (Estra Pistoia) with 492 points.

A winding road for the Lombardy team, concluded, however, with an early salvation achieved thanks to the guidance of coach Kastritis and a varied roster, where each element has performed its task in an egregious manner, with the goal of not giving a disappointment to a historic square and keeping alive that flame that distinguishes the public of the Itelyum Arena. The main protagonist of this adventure responds to the name of Jaylen Hands, combo guard originally from San Diego capable of distinguishing himself not only for his prolificacy, but also for the ease with which he distributed assists to his teammates and his versatility, a characteristic that led him to make himself dangerous on both sides of the court and to ensure constant support under the boards.

The class of 1999 started as a starter in all 30 games played, leading the’Openjobmetis to a 10-20 record, a haul that is not particularly rich but holds splendid memories such as victories over Virtus Segafredo Bologna, EA7 Emporio Armani Milano and Pallacanestro Trieste, teams that qualified for the LBA Playoffs Unipol 2025. In his first season in the Unipol A Series, Jaylen Hands recorded twenty-seven games in double figures for points scored, seventeen of which closed at over twenty and a career high of 42 points scored against Givova Scafati; his longest streak of games with at least ten points scored was sixteen consecutive ones developed in just the first sixteen rounds of the championship. There were 578 total points with which he finished the regular season, or an average of 19.3 per game (24.6 per 40 minutes) with percentages of 46.7% from two (3.6/7.6), 34.1% from three (2.6/7.7) and 87’87.6 percent from the line (4.2/4.8); in 31.3 minutes on the floor, No. 50 of Openjobmetis Varese added 4.8 assists, 4.1 rebounds, 4.0 fouls conceded, 1.3 steals and 18.4 rating to the scoreboard.