2021 FIBA Americas U16

[nolang1]

This wrapped up yesterday with USA winning gold after relatively close wins against Canada in the semifinals and Argentina in the gold medal game. The last U16 Americas had prospects such as Jalen Duren, AJ Griffin, Jabari Smith, Amari Bailey, and Chris Livingston, and even some non-American standouts like Jean Montero, Caleb Houstan, and Shaedon Sharpe - this one seemed lacking in high-end star power, which is somewhat understandable as the high schoolers have yet to play a season uninterruped by Covid. Some standouts:

Ronald Holland (35.3 points, 19 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 4.7 steals, and 2.2 blocks per 40) - 6'8-6'9 PF whose speed and quickness at his size was on another level relative to the competition and even team USA. He defended guards with ease and was often at the head of USA's full-court press, and offensively the best play was often a Holland putback (an absurd 11.4 offensive rebounds per 40). When you're the best athlete in the tournament and also have the highest motor, it's going to lead to crazy numbers like that.

Skillwise he's definitely more of a PF than a combo forward (Canada had a 7'5-ish kid who was super slow and just stayed in the paint against Holland, who went 0-6 on wide-open threes), but he had some nice drives to the basket against opponents who were somehow closing out hard against him. He's ranked a little outside the top 10 for the 2023 high school class, and while he's almost certainly underrated just due to being young for his class (he just turned 16 in July) I can't profess to have seen enough of the top players at this point to say how much higher he should go.

Watch on YouTube

Jalen Lewis (26.9 points, 15.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.2 steals, 3.7 blocks per 40) - Lewis signed a multi-year deal with Overtime Elite for $1 million+ this summer and put up the kind of dominating numbers one expects to see from a 6'10 big in this type of competition. Perhaps most impressive was his 7-12 three-point shooting throughout the competition as well as some ball skills pushing after rebounds, but compared to Holland he wasn't nearly as good a perimeter defender or as consistent in imposing his physical advantages.

Robert Dillingham (30.8 points, 12.2 assists, 4.9 rebounds, 6.3 steals, 1.0 blocks) - by consensus Dillingham was the highest-rated high school prospect on the team and actually won tournament MVP due to his huge game (31 points, 6 boards, 5 threes, 4 assists, 3 steals, 0 turnovers) in the championship. He's a 6'1 combo guard who showed he could distribute the ball pretty well (4.6 assist:turnover ratio) in addition to score.

Watch on YouTube