Well, since Utah has so many second round draft picks let me introduce a player of my country, who is projected in some mock drafts to be in the second round of next year's draft.
That's Aleksandar Vezenkov. He's a 19 year old, 6'9'' small/power forward whose best attribute is his shooting... and he's a leftie. He's the son of one of the prominent Bulgarian basketball directors Sasho Vezenkov. He grew up in Cyprus and has never played in Bulgaria, he started his career in the Greek Aris a couple of years ago. Last year he declared for Xavier University, but later decided to stay in Europe and turn pro. He's been dominating the FIBA U16, U18 and U20 European championships for the past 5 years or so. In 2011's U16 FIBA Euro Championship he averaged 27 and 10. In 2013 he lead the U18 FIBA Euro Championship in both points and rebounds with 22.4 and 10.2 respectively, and just a month or so ago he repeated the same feat this time at the U20 Championship with 19.3pts and 11.2 rebs per game. He's been playing for a weak Bulgaria national team but still his high usage comes with pretty high efficiency. He also made the first team of the tournament. In all his international play he averages about 50%FG, 40% 3p FG and about 80% FT.
Last year he played for the Greek Aris in the first Greek basketball division and got a lot of playing minutes averaging 11.1pt, 6rb, 2.1 ast, 0.9 steals in 26 minutes of play as an 18 year old. His shooting %s were 49/39/76.
For the past month or so he's been with Bulgaria's Men national team, playing qualies for Euro Championship. He's been the leader of the team there as well, which was really surprising to me. I didn't believe his transition would be so seamless. He's averaging 17pts, 6rb, 2 assists in about 33 minutes of play(%s are 51/38/83). Last week he dropped 18 on Omri Casspi and today he had a 26 pt game vs the Netherlands. He's been getting better with every game, too.
His strengths are his shooting and rebounding, he seems to have very good basketball IQ as well, he's willing and able passer as well. Main weaknesses are his athleticism, quickness and on-man defense. Here's a scouting report that was published on him yesterday:
A lot of people say he's playing style is more suited to the Euroleague than to the NBA, but he's said on numerous of occasions that his goal is NBA and he believes in due time it will happen. In the DraftExpress mock draft he's listed in the second round in 2015.
