Dr Mufasa wrote:erudite23 wrote:Its just a matter of time, based purely on probability. Rubio was talked about as a #1 overall pick for two years before declaring. He slipped all the way down to #5, in what was thought to be a weak draft at the time. Why? Only because he was a Euro. He got nitpicked to bits, which is what usually happens. Vesely and Motiejunas went back last year, and I think this is a big part of the reason why.
I think with what Valanciunas and Kanter have each shown, that they would have been squarely positioned as the top 2 picks in this draft if we were back in 2003. I think the skepticism we see has purely to do with the track record between 02 and 07 of top international prospects in the draft. Common sense tells you its just a matter of time until we see the next Euro superstar. Dirk came in 98, Manu came in 99, Pau came in 01, and we've seen a bit of a drought since then. Bargs is good, but maddening. Darko busted. Yi busted. Skita busted. Rubio is on hold. Its just a matter of time until the next big thing from Europe comes along. When it happens, all the anti-Euro sentiment will likely push him down the board. JV could very well be that guy. I mean look at the combination between the skill set and the productivity at the highest level at such a young age. 8 years ago people would be going crazy for this guy. As is, all people can do is talk about what he can't do. And he's 18 freaking years old.
I generally agree with this, but I'm not seeing Valanciunas as the guy to break the trend. Call it my 7 foot skinny scrub-dar.
Vesely on the other hand I think could be a legit prospect who's getting ranked too low. That guy is an athletic beast and his post game is showing me huge upside. Imagine that guy bulking up to be strong enough to be a PF... he could be a beast
Fair enough. I don't watch enough Euro games to feel confident in making strong assertions on the matter, but I have seen game film on him from multiple matches, and the guy has a lot of things that jump out at you. But there are things to give you pause as well. But Euros are due. The next big one is coming, and he's coming soon.
I think its similar in many ways to the PG drought that we experienced between 96 and 2004. 9 straight drafts of the best PG prospects either busting (Jay Williams, TJ Ford, Antonio Daniels, Dajuan Wagner, Shaun Livingston), flaming out after promising starts (Francis), proving to be more of a shooting guard than a true point (Terry, Ben Gordon) or just not quiting becoming the great players that many expected them to be (Bibby, Baron Davis, Jason Williams). For so many years the great PGs in the league were Nash, Kidd and Payton (with Chauncey sneaking in at some points) who were long in the tooth but remained unchalleged by the up and coming young guns. Then in 2005 the numbers game finally caught up and we've been deluged by not just good, but
great PGs. CP3 and Deron came in 05. Rose and Westbrook came in 08 and Wall came in 2010. That's 5 PGs who could all reasonably challenge for an MVP. It was just a matter of time after a lull in the pipeline, and now we have a bevy of great young PGs in the league.
I think we'll see something similar with Euros before too long. We actually have less big time Euro players in their primes right now than we did 8-10 years ago, and the popularity and quality of competition overseas has grown exponentially in that time period. The dam is going to break at some point, and I think that when it does the teams who don't have the anti-Euro goggles on are going to benefit massively from it. In much the same way that Dallas did with Dirk Nowitzki in 98. This could be the year. Especially with 4 young stud European players coming over. When teams look at JV, they see a guy like Martinas Andriuskevicius (once pegged as a possible top overall pick, who fell deep into the 2nd round and was never heard from again). When they look at Vesely, they see another Bargnani (skilled big guy who wants to play on the perimeter) or Maciej Lampe (inside outside PF who narrowly missed being picked in the top 10 before doing squat in the NBA). When they look at Kanter, they see shades of Darko and Tiago Splitter. And when they look at Motiejunas I guarantee they see visions of Skita :O.....they can't help it. Combine this with the natural sense for distrusting that which is alien or foreign, and you have deeply seated instinctual drives that are depressing the stock of European players, even though in many instances the personnel guys themselves wouldn't even admit it in the privacy of their own minds. To this point, it hasn't led to a big-time burn. But its going to, and its past due.
