LUKE23 wrote:DH34Phan wrote:Wasn't Yaroslav Korolev supposed to be awesome?
Yaroslav Korolev
Fran Vazquez
Tiago Splitter
Alexsandr Radojevic
Pau Gasol
Nickoloz Tschvili
Vlad Rad
Maciej Lampe
Fred Weis
Andrea Bargnani
Darko Milicic
Mikael Pietrus
Andris Biedrins
Thabo Sefolosha
I know people hate when I reference the high hype Euro players, but these are the guys that were either hyped as lottery picks for a full offseason or were taken in the lottery in the last decade. I think it is relevant given that these players are going against a different level of competition than college players are. I'm not saying there aren't busts out of the college ranks, there obviously are, but look at that list and you will find one guy you'd really call a star player, Gasol. You have several big time busts and then a couple after thoughts. The rate of bust moving from Euro to NBA seems higher than college to the NBA, even though the sample is obviously much smaller.
You're comparing apples and oranges here.
Korolev, Vazquez, Skita, Lampe, and Darko were completely unproven in Europe. Weis, Bargnani, Sefolosha, Pietrus and Biedrins had shown something, but nowhere near as much as Galinari. Only Gasol and to a lesser extent Splitter were proven Euro stars.
(I don't know how good Radojevic and Radmanovic were)
If you want to evaluate past American picks, you don't lump them all together either; you make a distinction between pure upside straight out of HS-kids (Kobe, Gerald Green) and proven college stars (Beasley, Hansbrough).
Unproven Europeans definitely tend to bust more often than Americans, but those who proved themselves in Europe have been doing reasonably well.
Now I'm not saying the Bucks should draft Gallinari, but if you want to estimate his chances of succes in the NBA, you cannot compare him to Darko or Skita.
And there's no way the level of competition in Italy isn't at least as good as the NCAA tournament. The talent level might be slightly lower, but the experience, physical maturity and professional playing environment more than make up for that.