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So I was wondering if this kid made his National team and sure enough with Dirk out the kid ends up getting a start.

I haven't watched the entire games yet but the kid has a nice sequence pretty much right off the bat in the first quarter. Looking at the box score the kid played fairly well.

12pts, 4rebs, 1dime and 1blk.

He was playing against Argentina who started Scola, and Oberto. So two legit NBA guys in the front court. Not sure if all of his 16minutes were against them because I am still watching the game.

In the pregame the announcer kind of rips on him a few times and then by the end of the sequence I was talking about, the announcer is in disbelief. It's kind of funny.

Here's the link to the game.
http://espn.go.com/espn3/player?id=2874 ... =condensed


Also side note to old Sonic fans Mikael Gelabale played great for France in their defeat against Spain. Bringing good D on Navarro and pulling in 16pts and 6rebs. Looks like he made a nice comeback from his ACL injury.

Pleiss has a lot of work to do. He's long, moves well for his size and has a decent touch, but there's not much there beyond that. He obviously has some intriguing physical characteristics, but someone like Ibaka who had super athleticism is more conditioned to succeed right away than someone like Pleiss whose physical gifts don't carry over the same way.

Pleiss is like Mullens. Interesting skill set and physical attributes, questionable talent for the NBA game. Presti doubled down on talent with these two; I think Mullens has more of a shot at succeeding than Pleiss.

Nice to see Gelabale contributing...

I just got done watching te first half Pleiss had 8pts, 3rebs and 1 blk.

He was the only German big who could do anything.

He had a nice dunk, a jumper just inside the international 3pt line and a couple bunny's. Also blocked a shot by Scola.

He just missed a turn around jumper that looked pretty fluid. The kid is REALLY tall and long. The kid's only 20years old I like his up side.

slick_watts wrote:Pleiss has a lot of work to do. He's long, moves well for his size and has a decent touch, but there's not much there beyond that. He obviously has some intriguing physical characteristics, but someone like Ibaka who had super athleticism is more conditioned to succeed right away than someone like Pleiss whose physical gifts don't carry over the same way.

Pleiss is like Mullens. Interesting skill set and physical attributes, questionable talent for the NBA game. Presti doubled down on talent with these two; I think Mullens has more of a shot at succeeding than Pleiss.

Nice to see Gelabale contributing...

Ahhh remember last Summer Slick when you were saying Ibaka couldn't shoot because he didn't take very many 3's? lol. Ahhh good times.

What's Ibaka's Synergy rating for his 3pt shots Slick? He made half his 3's this season in the NBA so I imagine his rating would be through the roof.

live 2nd quarter germany-serbia: http://www.fromsport.com/v-0/4/54/v-45435.html

english announcer.

could have been a direct krstic-pleiss matcup. pleiss plays starting c for germany.

wiff wrote:Ahhh remember last Summer Slick when you were saying Ibaka couldn't shoot because he didn't take very many 3's? lol. Ahhh good times.

What's Ibaka's Synergy rating for his 3pt shots Slick? He made half his 3's this season in the NBA so I imagine his rating would be through the roof.

wiff in the last five years you have seemed convinced that Robert Swift, Johan Petro, Saer Sene, Serge Ibaka, and now (I guess..?) Tibor Pleiss will be solid players. It's easy to be right eventually when you tout every prospect that comes through the gates.

I think I said he's not a three point shooter, which he isn't.

I like Pleiss he could be a good player if he develops correctly.

I did like Robert Swift, it was too bad Reggie Evans broke his nose, because before that he was actually play fairly well during his second year an then the ACL injury obviously crushed his career.

Petro has a nice little elbow jumper. And when Chris Wilcox was due for a new contract I was thinking I'd rather just take my chances with Petro because Wilcox is/was under achieving.

I liked Sene because the guy could tie his shoes without bending over. But I was very aware he was a large project.
But Sene could run the floor really well and was crazy long so I was crossing my fingers the dude could pick up the game.

But it's pretty obvious from the get go that Serge is far and away a better prospect than the three of those guys.

And Pleiss? I don't know what he is going to become, but his height, length and touch are all positives.

From the little I have seen of him he doesn't seem like a relentless rebounder though. Hopefully he can add that to his game. But to me rebounding is a mentallity and either you have it or you don't.

So I guess you could say I have"liked" the 21' of garbage Wally Walker drafted the last three years he was in Seattle, but I think I was looking at the glass half full not empty.

No offense Slick but you're a bit of a Debbie Downer. Sure guys have their flaws but at times I wonder why you even follow hoops because it seems like every one sucks.

EDIT I'm not a big fan of DJ White, or Byron Mullens. Sure I hope they end up playing well but Mullens is as soft as a baby's butt and White is a little meh to me. You can say I have liked all the prospects Slick but that's not the case.

But when the Sonics needed a Center yeah I was crossing my fingers they would pan out.

Oh but for the record Slick I wanted the Sonics to draft Al Jefferson not Robert Swift. Petro was a good pick where he was drafted around 21 I think. And I would have rather had Brewer over Sene. So it's not like I was targeting these guys before the draft.

I'm not a huge Aldrich fan either. I think he looked like a complete ass when he was playing with the kids in that youtube video. I still hope he plays well and gives the Thunder what they need in the middle though.

wiff wrote:No offense Slick but you're a bit of a Debbie Downer. Sure guys have their flaws but at times I wonder why you even follow hoops because it seems like every one sucks.

The last time I made the mistake of getting overhyped on big man talent was when the Sonics had Vladimir Stepania and Jelani McCoy. McCoy blocked everything in sight and shot something like 70% in his rookie season and some Sonics fans were (delusionally, in retrospect) comparing Stepania to Dirk.

I'm pretty high on the prospects I like. I like Harden a ton and was excited when we picked him. I'm happy about Aldrich, I think he'll be a contributor. It's just that, usually, most of the great posters here point out all the good stuff so all that's left for me to point out is what they have to work on. wiff you've had plently of nasty things to say about Krstic, for example (aside from the brawl). Dont' see how that's any different...

slick_watts wrote:

wiff wrote:No offense Slick but you're a bit of a Debbie Downer. Sure guys have their flaws but at times I wonder why you even follow hoops because it seems like every one sucks.

The last time I made the mistake of getting overhyped on big man talent was when the Sonics had Vladimir Stepania and Jelani McCoy. McCoy blocked everything in sight and shot something like 70% in his rookie season and some Sonics fans were (delusionally, in retrospect) comparing Stepania to Dirk.

LMAO hahaha i was one of those guys. good times.

Jeff23 wrote:LMAO hahaha i was one of those guys. good times.

This happened in 1998-1999. Both Dirk and Stepania were rookies, I remember this like it was yesterday. Stepania had 17/10 and had a vicious dunk on Dirk's face and there was a three hundred page thread about Dirk vs. Stepania on the Sonics ESPN board.

Even the next two years when Dirk got better and better and Stepania kept sucking there were still Sonics fans who hyped Vlad up.

I'll admit to being intrigued by Sene.

I thought we had a future allstar in Stephania

I have since stopped hoping for good thing from 7 footers - they disapoint more often than not.

I really wanted Sherl Ford to pan out. But we had a stacked team and he was a rookie who wasn't that good.

slick_watts wrote:

Jeff23 wrote:LMAO hahaha i was one of those guys. good times.

This happened in 1998-1999. Both Dirk and Stepania were rookies, I remember this like it was yesterday. Stepania had 17/10 and had a vicious dunk on Dirk's face and there was a three hundred page thread about Dirk vs. Stepania on the Sonics ESPN board.

Even the next two years when Dirk got better and better and Stepania kept sucking there were still Sonics fans who hyped Vlad up.

dont laugh at me man i think i realized in his third year that he has no chance to be better than dirk.

Clangus wrote:I'll admit to being intrigued by Sene.

I thought we had a future allstar in Stephania

I have since stopped hoping for good thing from 7 footers - they disapoint more often than not.

I think Sene fooled us all. He was such an athletic beast how couldnt you believe in him.

I'm watching this germany game. Pleiss cant set screens he's offensively lost.

So I was checking the German box scores and today was without a doubt Tibor's best game.

23pts, 9rebs, 2stls and 1 block.

He went 7-12 from the field and 9-10 from the line.

I haven't had a chance to watch the game yet but I'm putting the link here so I can watch it when I get some time.

http://espn.go.com/espn3/player?id=3524 ... =condensed

So I finally had a chance to watch the Germany vs Jordan Game.

Pleiss has great hands. He seems to be able to handle a hot pass really well.

The kid does most of his damage in the first quarter. You really don't need to watch more than the first. He starts off the game with Germany's first 7 or 9 points.

He gets a fair amount of points in the second half but they are mostly at the line for free throws in the 4th. But he sinks them.

I like the fact that he plays with his back to the basket. Not the typical Euro Center ala Nenad,

The kid looks to be a very solid prospect.

He was even on a island at one point where he was caught having to guard a little guy. Jordan cleared out and he managed to keep up and forced the little dude to pass. Again in the first quarter.

It will be interesting to see where this kid is physically in a few years. He is one big kid.

wiff wrote:I like the fact that he plays with his back to the basket. Not the typical Euro Center ala Nenad,

Did you watch any Serbia games this year? Krstic plays in the low post a lot more often in FIBA play, he was even posting up the likes of Marc Gasol.

Pleiss looked a lot more raw than I had anticipated after hearing Rob Hennigan talk about him post draft. Hennigan made the connection to Rik Smits, which is still possible considering Pleiss' age (and it took Smits awhile to get going, too), but I'd say that's a little hopeful.

He's a nice prospect and like you said wiff it'll be interesting to see how his body develops.

Little heads up on Tibor:

doesn't play more minutes than last year, but is absolutely balling so far. It's only been 3 games (they won all three), so we shouldn't put too much into this, but he's looked great, so here are his stats:

Mpg: 19:28 mpg
Ppg: 9.0
Rpg: 10.7 (1st in league, 2nd with 8.7)
Bpg: 2.7 (1st in league, 2nd with 2.0)
Spg: 1.0
Apg: 0.3
TOs: 1.7
PFs: 2.7
FG%: 0.556
FT%: 0.700
EFF: 18.3 (4th in the league)
EFF/40: 37.67 (by far leading the league, next one has 30.21)

all that while getting virtually no touches in the post.

His team is going to play in the Euroleague this year right?

dream_catcher_9 wrote:His team is going to play in the Euroleague this year right?

Yep. They're in group B with Olympiakos, Real Madrid, Unicaja Malaga, Virtus Roma and Spirou Basket Charleroi. Four of those six teams advance to the next round which means they will probably have to battle with Malaga and Roma for the fourth spot.