Luka Samanic, next big prospect from Croatia

[pohani komarac]

In the best case scenario, I would draft him as a mid/late 2nd rounder and send him into G-league.
You just don't want to repeat mistake called "Dragan Bender" (he's out next season) and go too high on another similar Croatian kid.
If I would be Samanic, I would pass on this draft and go for a next one.

He's playing in a garbage team right now (Union olimpija) in 3rd-tier leagues.
Although his team is pretty much dead last in all competitions, nothing really stands out on him. He had a few bursts this season, his 3PT% looks promising, but there is really not much to show at this moment.

https://www.aba-liga.com/induvidualstatistics.php
http://www.championsleague.basketball/18-19/playerstats

I would like to warn US people not to go too high on Europeans because of recent Doncic case. He was special and his skill-set at his age can't be just copied.

Better to stash him in Europe than sending him to gleague.

He isnt ready for the NBA. Unfortunately signing for Olimpija wasnt a good move. That team has been terribly run for years. This season alone they just got their 3rd coach (finally someone decent though), have no quality veterans Luka could learn from, has no good point guard. Team has a terrible director running things who has no clue how to evaluate talent.

League itself isnt bad for young players, ABA league is ok for developing players. You had a ton of current NBA players go through it (10+). But Olimpija just isnt one of the systems that are good at developing them.

Olimpija is perfect for him. He has good role and good minutes in all competitions. He doesn't need anything better than that, and he should stay altlest one more year.

Dragić, Nurkić, Bojan and Bogdan Bogdanović, Jokić, Šarić, Žižić, Bjelica, Marjanović etc...all made name for them self in ABA league then went to NBA

[JPF]

Šamanić started the season slow. It was obvious he lacked any kind of playing time badly and had to adapt to the level, especialy on the physical aspect of senior euro basketball. I wouldn't call his transfer to Olimpija a bad move, quite the opposite, they have been very patient with his development and he has so far shown steady progress every two months or so.

The game is still a bit too fast for him, you can see that from some moves he could eventually pull out on a regular basis, that in combination with lack of strenght combined with average athleticism for an NBA PF (or better said what most people consider as athleticism, his mobility is pretty good for his size), makes me believe he wouldn't profit much from going to NBA/GLeague next season already.
He has a visible room to grow on the level he is playing at right now and if he would continue improving with this pace, I think he is a legit 1st rounder, potentialy even a lottery pick in 2020 draft. Since he had to adapt to ABA league physicality at the start of the season, needless to say NBA within 1 season already would pose even a tougher job.
Put him on a too high of a level right now and there is a danger of a Bender effect, he would settle for fewer go-to moves, need a year or two to adapt, when his team would probably already give up on him. And that is basicaly one of the very few actual comparisons you can make between Šamanić and Bender. Along with both being from Croatia.

Consider him as a potential stretch PF, that isn't nearly as good of a shooter as Markannen and Porzingis are, but can make up for that by being able to put the ball on the floor. That's still no SF by my criteria, but some will likely try to present him as such.

He will reportedly stay in this years draft, for his development I think it's optimaly to stay in europe for another year. I wasn't wrong on Musa, regarding the optimal timing of departing europe, for some very simmilar reasons, I don't think I am wrong on Šamanić either.

[Elrod is Back]

Thanks for this update. Seems like the best course is for a team to take him late 1st or early 2nd round in 2019 and let him play one or two seasons in Europe before bringing him over.

Where would you rank him compared to the other Euros likely to be in the 2019 draft?