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You always bring up 2 FIBA games, but what about an ENTIRE SEASON spent in the NBA? Spanoulis is NBA scrub who is incredibly clutch and his skill level is just made for Euroleague game. Just spend one minute watching Spanoulis film and you can tell he would struggle in the NBA finishing and shooting the ball.

I forgot that Huertas came back to EuroLeague. So Doncic is less athletic than all but one point guard in EuroLeague. He'd be 2nd worst athletically to Huertas.

And this just proves how much nonsense this whole "athleticism and NBA" debate really is. Especially with the claims that it's absolutely impossible to be a point guard in NBA, without being a super athlete.

Marcelo Huertas = terrible athlete
old man Pablo Prigioni = terrible athlete
old man Jason Kidd = terrible athlete
old man Andre Miller = terrible athlete

even old man Steve Nash at the end there was a pretty terrible athlete.

Yet somehow, all of them were regular rotation players in NBA (with exception of Huertas, who was still in and out of rotations).

Teodosic is below average athletically, and so far he's doing just fine in NBA. All of these players listed, much worse athletically than Spanoulis for example.

So that's why Doncic should not really matter in NBA athletically, and why claims like Spanoulis could not play in NBA because of athleticism are clearly factually untrue.

UcanUwill wrote:You always bring up 2 FIBA games, but what about an ENTIRE SEASON spent in the NBA? Spanoulis is NBA scrub who is incredibly clutch and his skill level is just made for Euroleague game. Just spend one minute watching Spanoulis film and you can tell he would struggle in the NBA finishing and shooting the ball.

Spanoulis is either always double teamed, with a 3rd help defender, or if not, he gets a 6-8 to 6-10 guy, with an over 7 foot wingspan, and great athleticism and great leaping ability to guard him.

He is lucky if the guy guarding him is only 6-8 most of the time. He would have it a lot easier in NBA getting his shot off than he does in EuroLeague. It's much easier to get your shot off against 5-10 to 6-3 guys in NBA, than the 6-8 to 6-10 guys he usually has guarding him in EuroLeague.

Yet he is dominating Efes from PG position despite being second most unathletic PG in EL...

What are you talking about? spanoulis is the definition of washing out of the nba. Meaning a player of whom is much expected be it an high pick good euro star etc, who had 2/3 years of chances to prove himself but couldnt get of the bench in the best league in the world.

Im shure they all begged him to stay, really. Everybody needs the 8/10th player on their team

So fact: spanoulis is the definition of washed out. but he is a good player, just not good enough for the best league in the world there only the big boys make it (dragic, parker, drazen )

27/4/4 in 26min, just an amazing start of the euroleague season.
It's pretty crazy to see how much he improved over the summer, I know it's only one game, but you could see he learned a lot from Dragić with those FT line pullups.

Looks like he added a midrange pullup jumper, some cross over moves and he looks much better in the post. It looked like a routine 25+ point game for him, he didnt have to force anything, played at his own pace and just dominated everyone. Its crazy to think he can look so comfortable doing all that at 18. Well done, might be MVP after the 1st round already....

Statistical index 32 (is that what he had?) is usually enough for MVP.

BTW, some of the posts in this thread are hilarious. It's always funny to me to see how some people have no clue what words "fact", "clearly" or "obvious" mean. You just have to ignore completely whatever they say.

I’m afraid he won’t be MVP this round.

Who has him in fantasy? I do, hell yeah

Mirotic12 wrote:I forgot that Huertas came back to EuroLeague. So Doncic is less athletic than all but one point guard in EuroLeague. He'd be 2nd worst athletically to Huertas.

And this just proves how much nonsense this whole "athleticism and NBA" debate really is. Especially with the claims that it's absolutely impossible to be a point guard in NBA, without being a super athlete.

Marcelo Huertas = terrible athlete
old man Pablo Prigioni = terrible athlete
old man Jason Kidd = terrible athlete
old man Andre Miller = terrible athlete

even old man Steve Nash at the end there was a pretty terrible athlete.

Yet somehow, all of them were regular rotation players in NBA (with exception of Huertas, who was still in and out of rotations).

Teodosic is below average athletically, and so far he's doing just fine in NBA. All of these players listed, much worse athletically than Spanoulis for example.

So that's why Doncic should not really matter in NBA athletically, and why claims like Spanoulis could not play in NBA because of athleticism are clearly factually untrue.

UcanUwill wrote:You always bring up 2 FIBA games, but what about an ENTIRE SEASON spent in the NBA? Spanoulis is NBA scrub who is incredibly clutch and his skill level is just made for Euroleague game. Just spend one minute watching Spanoulis film and you can tell he would struggle in the NBA finishing and shooting the ball.

Spanoulis is either always double teamed, with a 3rd help defender, or if not, he gets a 6-8 to 6-10 guy, with an over 7 foot wingspan, and great athleticism and great leaping ability to guard him.

He is lucky if the guy guarding him is only 6-8 most of the time. He would have it a lot easier in NBA getting his shot off than he does in EuroLeague. It's much easier to get your shot off against 5-10 to 6-3 guys in NBA, than the 6-8 to 6-10 guys he usually has guarding him in EuroLeague.

Lol why do you guys arguing about how good Spanoulis was since pages in a thread related to Doncic ? But then again every time i see this Mirotic guy hes in a debate against a European prospect claiming some Greek guy better than him and he should be in the NBA instead of that prospect lol.

Pierre Jackson just exploded for 41 PIR, so no MVP for Doncic this week.

Mulholland wrote:

Watch on YouTube

Like what I'm seeing in terms of scoring aggressiveness. Love that he took some mid range shots and posted up people. His improvement in terms of his handles is paying off, you can clearly see his confidence when dribbling.

By now we all know what he can do, he keeps adding new things to his game and is becoming more versatile offensively. He seems quite a bit more athletic and explosive but that was all to be expected.

Whats the most impressive to me is that he is already a leader on the court. I mean, he is playing with guys 10 years older than him, they are more experienced and some of them are ex NBA players. Its amazing to me how an 18 year old can have such presence on a team like Real. He can only grow as a leader over the next 15 years, he is a natural at it and it will be a huge positive for him in the draft.

XTraderXL wrote:By now we all know what he can do, he keeps adding new things to his game and is becoming more versatile offensively. He seems quite a bit more athletic and explosive but that was all to be expected.

Whats the most impressive to me is that he is already a leader on the court. I mean, he is playing with guys 10 years older than him, they are more experienced and some of them are ex NBA players. Its amazing to me how an 18 year old can have such presence on a team like Real. He can only grow as a leader over the next 15 years, he is a natural at it and it will be a huge positive for him in the draft.

And that’s why I always said we have to take his years and where he’s doing it in consideration, when we talked about him. When people talk about high school kids is all about what player can they eventually become. But when we talked about Doncic, it’s only about what he can or can’t do at the moment, like he’s developed player. And the funniest thing is, that he’s one of the youngest in the 2018 draft. His development looks to even accelerated this year.

He showed a little bit of everything yesterday, step back 3s, mid-range pull ups (reanimator! ), posting ppl, clutch shots, cutting, passing,... and all this came so effortlessly, in the game flow. He didn't force anything and still had 27p (with only 14 shots) in 27 minutes.

I always said I think he will keep improving his skills. I also wrote that his athletic ability will become way better when his body matures a bit and he gets some muscle tone.

What concerned me a bit was his unwillingness to take mid range jumpers off the dribble which he could take and make all day long but he did not. I guess he really learned from Goran, that behind the back move and that cross over were Dragic-like. We havent seen that more than once or twice in the whole last season. Combine that with his more aggressive offensive attitude, more willingness to penetrate and overall leadership, the guy seems more and more ready for NBA.

If he keeps improving during the season which I am sure he will, there is no reason for him to stay in Europe. If you are a top 5 player in EL at 18/19, why the hell would you stay and limit your progress? He needs to go to the NBA ASAP and keep progressing instead of basically stagnating in Europe for another season or two. He is just too dominant and it would be a shame not to see him in NBA next year. And the funny thing is, it looks to me he is not even playing at 100%. He picks his spots, knows what the team needs and yesterday when Real needed to score, he took the ball and did just that.

How is Spanoulis even debated here?

He barely shoots over .30% from the field.. guy is washed up and was never even the best PG in Europe to begin with.. atleast not the consensus 1.

Every NBA free agent was awful so far in first games of EuroLeague, except for Huertas and Rodriguez, which played in EuroLeague before. I don't know why EuroLeague teams keep signing these scrub NBA players. Maybe 1 out of 20 ever pans out.

As far as Doncic's game goes...he shot well, but this game isn't a gauge on anything. Perasovic had a nightmare performance as a coach, made every error possible, and someone like McCollum trying to guard Doncic....McCollum is widely known as possibly being the worst defender at either guard position in Europe, not EuroLeague, Europe.

On the other hand, McCollum did whatever he wanted on offense.

I see all the same things with Doncic in this game.

Has to play at point guard on offense and defense, or he can't handle the size and physicality. Can't play a lick of defense though at point guard. Ability to score points is mainly based on if he can make 3 pointers or not, because he can't beat people off the dribble unless they crowd him. Still not getting much at all in terms of defensive focus from the other team, even without Llull playing.

Has to have the ball in his hands, or he's an average player on offense. And Efes looked like a really awful bad team in that game for EuroLeague standards.

Doncic had plenty of games like this last year. The stats are somewhat irrelevant to me at this point, in terms of where his game is progressing. I want to see actual improvements, and I'm not seeing it yet. Still, if he's not the #1 pick, then whatever NBA team is picking first, their talent people are insane.

He's not actually improving based on this game, for anyone that can technically assess a player, and the game being played scheme wise, etc. But he's clearly proven at this point, that he should be a 100% absolute guaranteed lock for the #1 draft pick. No high school player in USA can do that in EuroLeague, and anyone that thinks otherwise is imagining things.

@Mirotic
Then you might be the only one who doesnt see the improvements. This is nothing else than bias on your part. If you cant see the improvements and versatility, you are blind or a hater. There is absolutely no other option.

We have been saying last year he needs to penetrate more. He did.
We said he needs to use mid range jumper more. He does.
Better post up game. You could see it, he never looked that good in a post up in 80 games last season.
Leadership. Check
He is not as dependent on his stepback 3 as last season anymore and he is much more athletic, more explosive and faster than last season. His handles improved greatly, when have you seen him crossing over defenders last season like he did yesterday?

Now tel me how you can not see any improvement...