Karadrys30
Well-Known Member
Part of it could be his volleyball training. In blocking drills you jump off both feet to limit drift in the air in order to prevent coming down on someones foot.
Jazz players at the World Cup
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Part of it could be his volleyball training. In blocking drills you jump off both feet to limit drift in the air in order to prevent coming down on someones foot.
Meh, Rudy was too far behind if Exum actually got the ball to the glass directly instead of trying to float it up. Took off way too early and way too slowly. He has a weak body right now.
Exum probably maybe got a foot off the ground on that layup attempt. He is probably tired as hell right now and his legs are dead. Pretty crazy that he went from playing 0 competitive basketball to playing 3 straight weeks of 4-5 games (if not more) per week.
Yep, once again Turkey beat Puerto Rico 94-73. Only 2 wins in 9 games and both of them against PR. That should say something about the US prep games.
Fortunately though, USA won't face a serious opponent in the tournament too since all the top Euro teams having problems as lastly Lithuania have lost their PG. The only teams left that I see as possible threats to USA are Spain and maybe to a degree Serbia.
Croatia has been getting better lately too. I watched them against Lithuania, if Bogdanovic has a night he can light up pretty much any team and Saric has been really impressive as well. Tomic has been a real disappointment for me. I don't think he'd even crack the rotation with the Jazz with his current level of play. All our PF/C are better right now. I'd take Gobert over Tomic any day.
I like Croatia as well but I never trust them in this kind of tournaments. Their biggest weakness is that they are usually mentally weak. Besides, I don't like their PGs too. Roko Ukic who has played for three years in my team(Fener) is a tremendously talented player yet he almost always manages to ruin his team with his ridiculous decisions in the games. Other guard Lafayette is more stable but he is a very mediocre PG for this level, in fact I've never understood why they naturalized such an ordinary American guard while they could do a lot better.
I definitely agree about Tomic. He struggles so far. Also, I always say it here. He's certainly a decent player with good offensive talents but he's overrated and mostly a product of his team. He just plays around such a talented group of players.
And I also agree about Saric and Bojan as well. Saric is one of my fav young players along with Hezonja. Both are tremendously talented players and can have very good careers in the NBA. I hope their coach will play Hezonja meaningful minutes. And Bojan Bogdanovic, who has also played in Fener for three years, is really a good player. He is one of the rare SGs/SFs that can post up and score efficiently over opponent guards and small forwards. And of course he's one of the best shooters around.
In short, in my opinion, Croatia can do well if their guards play well and stable. I believe Saric/Hezonja/Bojan will do their parts and Tomic most probably will gear up and contribute on the offensive side.
Would not count out France or Brazil either. No Parker but France still got game. Of course Brazil has the trio of NBA big guys. Got to get better backcourt play than they did in USA game though.
OK, EnesCTYA (and anyone else with Euro knowledge), I just don't get it. Barcelona's Papanikolaou just got signed by Houston and some pundits are thinking he is a reasonably decent replacement for Parsons. And Barcelona's Lorbek (at 30 years old and seeming declining production), just got bought out by San Antonio. Yet here we are wondering whether Tomic can even survive in the NBA.
Tomic's stats were much better than Papanikolaou's or Lorbek's (or virtually any other of his Barcelona teammates for that matter). And I could go on with examples of Euro players with legit NBA talent whose production he's exceeded or equaled. He is both prolific and efficient (by Euroleague standards). Yet every time I've been paying attention to him in international play he falls terribly flat against NBA-caliber centers.
What gives? Is he just someone whose effectiveness curve will take a sharp dip at anything higher than the Euroleague level? Is it a kind of Jimmer phenomenon (where his game only really works if there's no one more talented on the floor and if the team scheme revolves around him)? Or might he have a real chance at productivity on the NBA level? Is he someone who's game will look better on a team over the long term versus on a hastily-assembled national team?
My disclaimer here is that I haven't watched much of him with Barcelona and can't make a realistic comparison. All I've watched of him this season is the 3 or 4 pre-world cup games I've seen of him with Croatia in which he's looked thouroughly outmatched in pretty much every game by the opponents' center and outplayed by his in-team competition like Zoric.
You can see he's pretty skillful and has good hands for a 7'2'' player, but his body just seems bad and he's slow - Rudy for example is MUCH faster. People bully him in the paint. Valaciunas was scoring whichever way he wanted against him - posting up and backing him up, facing up, using his quickness to go to the rim, he even hit some jumpers. I don't think his game translates well at all. You can have skillful centers, but most of them are either fast(for height) or physical(strong). He's neither. He's doesn't have lateral quickness to defend successfully, he's slim and weak(at least against NBA-competition - read Valanciunas, Mahinmi, Gobert). Imagine what an Anthony Davis or Dwight Howard would do with him. His offensive game is not bad. He has some skills, variety of post up moves - up and under, hook-shots, his hands are good, but sometimes he seems to go overly flashy with weird behind back passes, etc. But again, you simply cannot expect that he'd be able to even get in the paint with ball in his hands against much stronger and faster centers. For example I can't imagine him successfully posting up and backing up 90% of the centers in the NBA so he can use his nice skills inside. He hit a 15-foot jumper the other day against Lithuania, but I haven't seen enough to know if he can consistently hit that jumper.
I think the biggest thing for me not liking his potential in the NBA is simply the translatability of his skills and ability to defend NBA-caliber centers.
Lets see how he does in games that actually count.
Yep, they are relatively higher tier teams. But I just can't see them threatening the US. Maybe Brazil but I just didn't like their game in the prep games, they will have to improve in the cup.
France will miss Parker too much and the PG play is just too important in this kind of tournaments. That's why I'm not expecting anything from Lithuania anymore and for the same reason I'm not high on Greece as well. If they had Spanoulis however, I'd say they would be a definite F4 candidate because the Greak Freak has started to settle within the team well and they have improved their game lately.
Anyway, we will see all soon. Maybe I will be wrong about all of them, it's basketball after all.
I understand your confusion sir. But I could shortly answer about the performance difference of him between in the NT level and in Barcelona. In my opinion, the differences of the levels is a small factor because there isn't much gap in the first place since they don't play against NBA caliber players most of the time in the NTs. It's even the contrary when it comes to the Euroleague level because Euroleague level is definitely higher than the Fiba World or Olympics level in every aspects of the game. So "the levels" is not the main problem. But you are spot on with the sentence I bold-ed. Main reason to me as well, is the fact that Tomic is a player who is extremely dependent on the team play and team system. He needs to be adopted to his team very well in a long period of basketball time. It's just that he can't have that adopting time he had with Barcelona in his NT runs. I actually recently read an article generally about him and his game but also explaining his underachievement in NT tournaments. Unfortunately it's in Turkish and too long to translate but it says the same thing more or less. https://www.yarisaha.com/rapor-ante-tomic/
As for the NBA, it's all about the expectations and the translation of the game. I posted tons of things about Tomic on this board. In none of them, I said he can't play in the NBA or he is a stiff. On the contrary, I've always thought he would be a good complementary big man in the teams that need a big body with soft hands who can contribute to the offense. However they should know how to use him a la Barca and they shouldn't expect unrealistic things like the JazzFanzers would do considering their hype about him for years. For example, they would expect him to be very good on the boards which would never happen or have some blocks from him every night whereas they would be lucky if he'd have 0.5 per game. Obviously there are more reasonable fans who don't expect those things but they also think and expect that he would be a solid starter with the Jazz in the NBA. That's where they are wrong imo. Although I do think he could be a starter in the NBA with some teams, the word "solid" is the key here. He would be the weak link of the FC in any NBA team he is starting in. The team starting him at C would need a star or superstar PF with excellent defense to not to be a weak front court team. And as far as I know there are only very few PFs in the entire NBA like that, such as Anthony Davis, Serge Ibaka or aging KG.
Someone might rightfully say Favor's name here, but then my main objection arises that most of the Tomic fans don't seem to understand. Kanter > Tomic, period. It's in almost every parts of the game, from lateral quickness to free throws or to shooting range, and Kanter is much younger than Tomic also with a higher upside. I just can't over-emphasize it, if you don't like Kanter, you won't like Tomic. If you think Kanter doesn't play to his size and length, you will hate to see how a 7'2" guy plays like a 6'10", if you don't like Kanter's vertical your eyes will be bleeding while you watch Tomic jumping total of 8 inches, If you don't like Kanter's defense good luck with Tomic's matadoresque defensive skills, if you think that Kanter doesn't hustle or too slow, then you will think that Tomic doesn't even move. Plus to all this, Tomic is strictly bound to the C position while Kanter can play both C and PF to a degree.
The only two things Tomic is better than Kanter at this point, are his basketball IQ and passing skills. But I wouldn't rant about it much because Tomic didn't have a better BBIQ when he was 22 than Kanter has now and he is not like Marc Gasol at passing as some of the Jazz fans like to think. Actually not even close, he is just a decent/average passer.
So, I don't like him as a starter in the NBA and especially over Kanter, but would I like him as a role player on the team and would he be content with a secondary role in the NBA such as coming from the bench etc? I've also written about this before. My answer is, respectively, not while we have Gobert and not while Tomic has a main role in his team in ACB and earning a lot of money.
As for the Lorbek example, just heard about the buyout from you. Lorbek was a late bloomer and Spurs was interested in him since 2009 and apparently got his rights in 2011. But like I said it's all about the expectations, are the Spurs bringing him to replace Duncan or Splitter? Of course not, they will use him as a contributor to the Spurs system which I believe he can do only in a small role.
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zyzz
Well-Known Member
Ian Mahinmi will be out for 2 or 3 months according to team doctors. Rudy's probably gonna get some more playing time
https://twitter.com/Kasvilovic/status/505273318178836481
https://twitter.com/Kasvilovic/status/505273318178836481
France have been playing Lauvergne a lot instead of a typical center. But hopefully this injury will give some minutes to Rudy, indeed.
Thanks. I can always count on you for thoughtful, insightful answers.
Agree with your earlier post about Croatia's lack of PG play. If they could get a top level PG they could be a serious challenger to US in the future.
Yeah, good choices of games. I'll watch the opening game as well, Croatia-Philippines, since I want to see Saric/Hezonja/Bojan/Tomic playing.
I heard that ESPN3 will somehow air all the 63 games, probably some of them will be from the tape. But I couldn't find anything about ESPN3's schedule. However ESPN/ESPN2 and NBATV are also airing quite amount of games. I've posted the links to their schedules in the other FIBA thread on the General Discussion forum. https://jazzfanz.com/showthread.php?29180-Spain-2014-FIBA-World-Cup&p=896790&viewfull=1#post896790
Ah, i will check out the general discussion. Well ESPN 3 in online so they can do it. I am sure you will have to have a cable plan with ESPN so may only be Americans who can watch. I doubt Hezonja will play much except for blowouts. Watch out for Blatche for Phillipines. Got to love the naturalized citizen rule. I think Spain should probably go with Mirotic instead of Ibaka to give them the stretch 4 type.
Yep, unfortunately young players can't get much time in important tournaments. But Hezonja is a special talent so I hope at least for some meaningful minutes. I know Turkish coach will play Cedi quite a lot who also is 19 years old because he was the MVP of U20 EC and had very good performance in prep games.