Andre Kirilenko-esque prospect: Miikka Muurinen

[SkyHook]

They call him "Slim Jesus", so hopefully he doesnt fill up too much

That might be the dumbest nickname in sports history.

Yeah, now that you mention it. The historical Jesus was fat or what?

White Jesus would be far better.

[lambchop]

I still don't understand the logic behind joining partizan as opposed to playing on a Eurocup team, in Italy or Germany and having a huge role. He was a DNP coach's decision last game. It won't hurt his draft stock, but I never understand the rationale behind choosing to go where you won't play.

He will play lots more than what he would in highschool, under the most demanding coach and most demanding crowd there is. Partizan plays a crapton of matches per season, around 90 matches in all in three different tournaments they are taking part in (of which he prolly won't have much playing time in the Euroleague matches, because frankly he isn't good enough yet to play in Eurolegue full time) plus he will play with the national team (the World Cup qualifiers start this winter). In all he will prolly play around 70 matches before next June, plus some spot minutes in a dozen or so Euroleague matches (if he learns the system, and when the inevitable injuries happen).

Playing in a weaker, non-Euroleague team (like Wemby did, for example), he might get slightly more minutes per game (but fewer games in all), but he wouldn't learn all the tactical things he will/should learn with Partizan. Muurinens great weakness currently is that he has always played in teams where he has clearly been the best player, and thus his tactical awarness pretty much suck (he makes errors on defense, goes for every pump fake, is slow on help defense, etc). He isn't the best player in Partizan, and he won't be the best player in his NBA team when he gets drafted; eventually he needs to learn how to be useful for his team, and apparently he and his agent thought the best time to learn those things are now.

It is risky, for sure. Partizan, their insane crowd and their tomato-head coach, they can be ruthless. If he constantly fails to grasp things, it might break him mentally. Sitting in the dog house game after game and the crowds showing their disrespect, those are not good things to happen for a young kid. So far Muurinen has been having his honeymoon period in Partizan, the crowd loves him even when he doesn't play, they show crazy support even after missed shots, and go absolutely bonkers when he actually succeeds with something. But all that might change very fast, if things go wrong.

You're acting like Partizan is some tactical marvel and that's what separates them from Eurocup teams, when in fact it's the superior individual players that make them better than the average Eurocup team.

Having 1st row seats in front of that Partizan crowd is great, but it doesn't bear playing 15 mpg for a team, like for example Ulm, and getting to play at the end of games, if you actually play well.

Also, the "90 game argument" is somewhat flawed. Those 90 games are:

38 Euroleague games (we're both presuming he won't play much here anyway)

16 ABA liga games (solid playing time here)

Up to 15 ABA liga playoff games (solid playing time in the first 3 to 5 games)

Up to 6 games Serbian league (the level of play is generally considered abysmal)


It just seems as though no effort was made to find an ideal fit. And, given that he hasn't been around Euro basketball, he didn't know why young players avoid Euroleague like the plague.