Choker wrote:We have a draft thread over on the Raptors board, and I'm heavily leaning towards Bender if the pick we got from the Knicks is in the lottery; I don't think he'll be a star that can carry a team, but he looks like he can be a taller Draymond Green if he keeps on improving as a shooter and defender. A lot of Raptors fans took one quick look at his stats and dismissed him as a bust.
For those that keep an eye on him, what's the reason for his low stats?
He's an 18 year old kid playing in Euroleague, which is an extremely high level of basketball. Pretty much every rotation player in Euroleague at his position is either bigger, stronger, or more athletic than him, or some combination of those things. Every 18 year old kid struggles and plays awful in Euroleague. Including ALL of the hyped up players by US sports media and on this forum, like Rubio (who was awful in Euroleague at age 20), Mirotic, Hezonja, etc.
Porzingis was 19 and was not even playing at Euroleague level. Antetokounmpo came from Greece's version of the D-League.
Even the Israeli League, where Bender plays half of his games, and which is one of the worst national leagues in Europe, even that league is better than the D-League. Much better than the D-League.
The simple reason is that high school kids can't compete at Euroleague level, other than to be scrubs rounding out a bench. That includes high school kids in USA. They are too young and just not physically able to compete at a level like Euroleague. Basically just about every single NBA draft pick from Europe is either a scrub in Euroleague, or a scrub from a lower level European league, as in lower level than Euroleague.
It's a myth that somehow a lot of people think players drafted from Europe are all "dominating Europe", when in reality, you are mostly getting guys not in the top 300-500 players in Europe at the time they are drafted. They are almost all projects, prospects, talents, in Europe.
There are rare exceptions of guys already producing in good European leagues like Porzingis, when they are drafted, but even Porzingis did not play at the Euroleague level (he played in 2nd tier Eurocup). I know, I know, ESPN regularly claims on TV that he played in Euroleague, I have seen it many times. But they are wrong, he did not. And he played on one of the by far worst teams in the 2nd level Eurocup. So even in the rare case like Porzingis, even he was not one of the top players in Europe in his last season there. Far from it actually.
