gom wrote:Dupas wrote:If theres a superstar " in the making " on this draft his mario hezonja. And i think hes ready to contribute right away. Barça coach is a dummy and spanish clubs do this all the time. They try to hide their young stars so they dont go to the NBA. I would i love for the heat to draft him..
Barcelona just got knocked out of the quarter finals in Madrid - not the Spanish League, but the European cup (Final Four) - by Olympiakos. Do you honestly believe that the reason they don't play Hezonja is to keep him in Spain? He played 40 minutes and made 10 points over the last 3 games when his team *badly* needed a scorer.
Hezonja is a great prospect. He is not good enough yet to be a starter on Barcelona. There is no shame in riding the bench on one of the best teams in Europe when you are 20 years old.
Exactly. I don't know why that is so hard for some people to accept. Just being a rotation player at any given moment in one of the 5-6 major Euroleague clubs at the age of 20 is very difficult to do and very, very few players in NCAA at any given time could ever do that. But some people here take that as some sort of diss by the coach or as some sort of hate by posters to simply state the obvious, if you get benched at critical times because you are 20 and are not ready for absolute top moments at 20 like a playoff series with teams like Olympiacos. This is such strange way of thinking, considering none of the players in the draft would have been ready for that either.
Every single player in this draft would not have been good enough for that level of competition. It's like there is disconnect from where NCAA prospects are and where elite Euroleague teams are. Maybe too many people watch Coach Nick videos or something.
UcanUwill wrote:I would agree not playing Hezonja was a mistake in that series, but he wasn't playing because Barca wanted to ''hide'' him. It was your typical Euro coach not trusting a young guy in season's most important series.
The reason he was not playing when it mattered is because his team defense is bad, he has poor decision making and shot selection, and he turns the ball over about 1 out of 4 times he touches it. It would have been a guaranteed loss against a team like Olympiacos and the last 2 games would not have been so close if the coach played him a lot.
With that being said, Barca got doomed when Oleson tweaked his ankle, as he is a tremendous defender on the perimeter and Spanoulis was just wrecking their defense. Oleson couldn't stop him at all.
Not playing Hezonja had nothing to do with why they lost that series. And not playing Hezonja had nothing to do with the coach not trusting him either. He was just playing bad and was not ready. Pascual gave him plenty of chances in the first two games actually.
But once Olympiacos won the second game and Oleson got hurt, there was no room for experimenting with a player like Hezonja. And that is the honest truth.
gom wrote:From the games that I have seen, the one to sign (& who won't be drafted - he needs to be signed as a free agent) is Marcelinho Huertas, their PG, who is brasileiro and finds the best player at the right time. We should get this guy to be Dragic's backup.
Huertas is very popular with NBA people because he has played very well against Team USA in some games. That is probably why he wants to come to NBA. Probably has some good contracts offered to him. But as someone who has followed Euroleague and ACB for years and also seen him play many games with Brazil's national team, let me say that you do not want him. You want nothing to do with him. And trust me on that.
He is certainly a skilled and talented offensive player without any doubt, and he is nothing at all like Prigioni by the way, absolutely nothing at all like Prigioni.
But he is by far the worst guard defender I have seen in Euroleague and his level of choking in so many games is so big that it would be impossible to even try to remember it all. And weird thing about that is that he has a knack for hitting buzzer beaters, and despite that is such a choker I could not even attempt to remember it all. He is simply worst defender I have ever seen at guard position in Euroleague, a huge choker, and I will go one further on that, he lacks a real outside shot, which is a huge killer in today's game for any PG.
Which again, might seem strange, because he easily has long distance range and he will hit a lot of 3 pointers, make some big shots, etc. I am sure even if you look at clips it will be loaded with 3 point bomb after 3 point bomb, or even that his percentages might look decent. But the problem is that in actuality, he does not have a real 3 point shot. Everything he gets is on broken plays or screens, and he is crazy streaky, and he has a broken shot. He is one of those guys that can easily be left wide open the whole game by the defense, and go 1-8 from the 3, and then on top of it, keep shooting and keep missing.
And he makes a lot of bone headed plays, despite the fact that you would think he should be a smart PG. I am sure he has some big rep in US and NBA as this great Euroleague PG, but I would not sign him if I was a NBA GM. He could definitely score some points and make some assists in NBA, I am absolutely sure about that, and I also guarantee he will give up more points than that on defense in most games he plays in. But, he will also hit some big shots from time to time.
It's kind of sad really that NBA is signing guys like Hertas or Prigioni, when there are many points guards in Europe that are way better than them.
