Deni Avdija

[Frichuela]

Monster game from Deni at Eurobasket. 23 points, 15 Rebs, 2 blocks, 3 assists. Clutch!

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?s=21&t=TdgrCAmvnf1U3q8fLWRnHQ

[MinnieRon]

A great game for Deni for the Israeli national team game in the EuroBasket.

Beating Markanen's Finland with an impressive 23pt-15rb double-double.

[UcanUwill]

what a crazy game. I used to be Avdija skeptic when he was coming into the draft, but man his defense is elite, completely changed the game as soon as he was switched to Markannen in the second quarter, FInland and Lauri were running away with it.

[nate33]

Found some good highlights:

Watch on YouTube

Avdija looks terrific! Of course, they don't show the misses so it's hard to really know. He made some sweet passes in traffic though. Markkanan looks really good too.

[AFM]

Deni going BEAST MODE! If he keeps this up I can see us winning 38 games this year!

[Pistol King]

Great performance by Deni. He scored, he delivered, he defended. I loved that he was clutch, always asking to be the one who takes the last shot, and had that beautiful off the dribble clutch three in the last 35 seconds. His dribbling seems improved. Also he had some nice 1v1 play when he has finished with his left hand after driving to the left side. All I'm asking from him is to show improvement and today I certainly got what I wanted. Shotout to Drew Hanlen, maybe two weeks of training with him start showing. Keep going Deni.

[doclinkin]

Finland beat Israel last week,
Markannen had 28/9r on 40% shooting, 33% from 3
Deni had 8/4r/2s on 30% shooting, 1 of 5 from 3.


Israel beat Sweden on Sunday.
Deni had 13/5r on a 1:5 asst /TO ratio. On the plus side he shot 4/8 from 3.
Sweden has zero NBA players.

In all though, not standout stats from Deni. Unless he was playing really good D and it doesn't show in the box score.

[DCZards]

Avdija looks terrific! Of course, they don't show the misses so it's hard to really know. He made some sweet passes in traffic though. Markkanan looks really good too.

Deni's passing and defense are special. I was really impressed by how he improved last season. Kid has a world of potential.

[Dat2U]

Deni going BEAST MODE! If he keeps this up I can see us winning 38 games this year!

[UcanUwill]

Deni was second best performer of day 2 of the Eurobasket (based on EFF)

Top 5 individual performances from SEP 2nd.

#1 Lauri Markkanen (FIN) : 33 points (8/19 FG : 3/6 3PT : 14/15 FT); 12 rebouns ; 1 steal ; 2 blocks (33 EFF)
#2 Deni Avdija (ISR) : 23 points (7/15 FG : 3/8 3PT : 6/9 FT); 15 rebounds ; 3 assists, 1 steal ; 2 blocks (31 EFF)
#3 Giannis Antetokounmpo (GRE) : 27 points (9/24 FG : 0/4 3PT : 9/11 FT): 11 rebounds ; 6assits, 1 steal ; 3 blocks (30 EFF)
#4 Tyler Dorsey (GRE) : 27 points (9/17 FG : 5/9 3PT : 4/4 FT); 5 rebouns ; 2 assists ; 3 steals (27 EFF)
#5 Achille Polonara (ITA) : 12 points (4/7 FG : 2/3 3PT : 2/2 FT); 11 rebounds ; 5 assists ; 2 steals ; 1 block (27 EFF)

Join our discussion here if you enjoy Eurobasket (we discussed Deni and the game on page 49)
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2203330&p=99776014#p99776014

[Dat2U]

I won't buy Deni's shot creation until i see it against NBA comp. I do however think he can be our Otto Porter 2.0 if his 3pt improves to 35% or better. Basically just a winning player, that makes few mistakes and is always in the right place. Will likely never shoot 40% from 3 but his playmaking and individual defense is significantly better than Otto.

[nate33]

I won't buy Deni's shot creation until i see it against NBA comp. I do however think he can be our Otto Porter 2.0 if his 3pt improves to 35% or better. Basically just a winning player, that makes few mistakes and is always in the right place. Will likely never shoot 40% from 3 but his playmaking and individual defense is significantly better than Otto.

Yeah, he'll never be a star. But if he can hit 36% from 3, he might get good enough to be the 3rd best player on a .500 team. or the 4th best player on a contender. I could see him becoming a player not that different from Warriors-era Andre Iguadola - not quite as good defensively, but perhaps a bit better as a shooter and floor spacer.

[Dolevi]

The wiz have no idea how to market...Deni my SOs favorite player and she didn’t even know what he looked like when we went to the game. But she her family are so proud of Deni...

[Dolevi]

what a crazy game. I used to be Avdija skeptic when he was coming into the draft, but man his defense is elite, completely changed the game as soon as he was switched to Markannen in the second quarter, FInland and Lauri were running away with it.

Yes, and Finland are one guy team of Markkanen. If you shut him down - they don't have solutions. Easy.
Big game by Deni, and also by Guy Pnini (the goat!) and Tomer Ginat
Hope for more performances like that.

[prime1time]

I won't buy Deni's shot creation until i see it against NBA comp. I do however think he can be our Otto Porter 2.0 if his 3pt improves to 35% or better. Basically just a winning player, that makes few mistakes and is always in the right place. Will likely never shoot 40% from 3 but his playmaking and individual defense is significantly better than Otto.

It's not a negative to not buy his shot creation lol. And he was never slated to be that. Secondary playmaker, great defense and outside shooting. Any shot creation he gives us would be extra. I mean with consistent shot creation he's basically Luka Doncic. No need to introduce extreme and unrealistic goals in an attempt to take away from what has been a massive improvement.

[Pistol King]

Look at that first clutch bucket. Luka lite vibes.

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[doclinkin]

Watch on YouTube

The lateral movement on that running block was nice. Tough to do, keep pace with a defender, running diagonally backwards, then elevate with timing to tap it in bounds.

Drew Hanlen doing good work with Deni. His dribbles for space to get a shot up are reminiscent of Beal.

Watch on YouTube

https://www.fiba.basketball/eurobasket/2022/game/0309/Netherlands-Israel#tab=boxscore

Dutch names never fail to make me smirk. They sound like sound effects. Kloof. Kok!

Still 5 TOs for Deni, against 1 ast. Granted teams can load up on him to force him to pass since he is key to everything Israel is doing, but yeah you want to see him improve in that ratio. Especially on this level. If he can carry a team both in shooting and playmaking, could be he can become a leader at the next level.

[Dolevi]

Another great game yessirrrr

[tleikheen]

This is what I was hoping yet expecting from Avidja ,improvement and more confident play. With Pride of Country and so many stars from the NBA playing in this tournament this is not some 2nd rate basketball being played .There's alot at stake for these guys and they play to win and excel.
The way KP played gives you insight on what to expect from him this year and that goes for Avidja as well. His wanting the ball and wanting to do something with it is not going to be different when he gets to the Wiz for training camp. His game is maturing as he is.

[arusinov]

Deni Avdija highlights from game against Netherlands (on Israeli sport5 site)

https://www.sport5.co.il/articles.aspx?FolderID=7867&docID=413916

As you can see - Deni looks very tired at the end of the game as he played whole 20 min of 2nd half.

Speaking about the team performance... While several players of Israel NT (starting SG Yovel Zoosman for example) had embarrassingly bad games the biggest by far problem is the coach.

Guy Goodes never was a great coach, and didn't really impress at any time but this campaign his decisions are crossing into realm of weird and illogical.

It seems that Goodes refuses to accept that new times arrived and the keys should be firmly placed in hands of young generation e.g. mostly Deni and Yam Madar. Disappointedly he decided to cut from the squad without giving real chance both 20 years old PG/SG (all-star five member of this summer Euro U20) Noam Dovrat and 22 years old PF/C Gabriel Chachashvili (played in this year summer league for Warriors).

As Chachashvili was released the only real "big" in the team is Roman Sorkin - quite athletic guy and good rim protector. In the preparation games (not much relevant because of low level of opposition but anyway) with Deni out with Corona / struggling after Corona Yam Madar was the best player of the team and Sorkin played most minutes at C. For whatever reasons in the first EuroBasket game Goodes decided to play most of time Nimrod Levi and Jake Cohen - both can't defend inside at all as Levi is 6'10" but thin guy with SF-like build, and Cohen was soft and bad defender whole career. Not only Sorkin played just 3 min, Madar got only 7 minutes

And as several people already said it looked as if Goodes tried to prove that he can win without Deni and limited his minutes and role as games started, and it pretty much looks as if Deni had just to decide to take over games by his own decision and then Goodes had no choice but to go with it.

And in the case of the game against Netherlands seemingly afraid of huge embarrassment which losing to one of weakest teams in the Euro would cause - Goodes finally fielded Deni, Yam and Roman Sorkin for almost whole 2nd half which Israel won by 15 pts... but then he overplayed Deni (which played all 20 min) and he was exhausted as the last minutes came...

All in all. Current Israel NT has not much chance against top level team like Serbia but there's no real reason (if Deni will continue play well) why they wouldn't win both against Poland and Czech Republic, finish 2nd in the group with favorable matchup in 1/8 and maybe got to QF as a warm-up for a future medal run in like 4 years from now when Deni and Yam will be in their prime and several younger players like mentioned above Dovrat, 7'1" Gilad Levy , and Noam Yakov (Euro U18 all-star five selection) and Ben Saraf (best scorer and Euro U16 all-star five selection) join in... but having Goodes as the coach may prove to be too big obstacle.