Fred Cervantez is a linguistics student at Cal State Long Beach who loves basketball and Pau Gasol. He’s also our European basketball correspondent. Every few months he’ll be giving us updates on the draft-and-stash prospects playing ball across the sea. You can follow him on Twitter dot com at @FMCervantez.
The NBA draft has moved to the “dudes from Sweden” portion of the evening
— not great, bob! (@sincethewreck) June 26, 2015
The later picks of the NBA draft are filled with players from overseas. This allows GMs to keep roster flexibility while still drafting a project that may be able to help the team down the road. In general, American NBA fans tend to forget about these players until their teams sign them a few seasons down the line. But believe it or not, these players don’t disappear into the mist. They’re still playing high level, competitive basketball in Europe. Not only were there a record number of international players in the league this year, but the new Rookie-Sophomore game format–the USA vs. the World–shows that it might be worth it to pay attention. Here’s a breakdown of some likely future NBA players and how they spent their summer at EuroBasket.
With the 26th pick in this year’s draft, San Antonio selected Nikola Milutinov. While most fans watching the draft may not have heard of him, the fact that he was drafted by the Spurs, who are no stranger to drafting quality international players, led to some jokes that he’ll come over in 3 years and casually rack up some All-Star appearances. While there may be no NBA MVPs in his future, Milutinov does possess some great physical attributes that make him an intriguing prospect. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to show that off. Appearing in just 6 games of a possible 9, he averaged only 3.5 minutes a game for Serbia. His best game came against Iceland, where he went 2-4 and scored 6 points in 8 minutes. However, this was no fault of his own. As a 20 year old playing behind Raduljica and Kuzmić on the World Cup’s silver medalists, his inclusion on the team is itself an accomplishment. Hopefully we will see some more of him on Olympiacos in the Greek league this upcoming season.
Another Serbian prospect did get playing time, though. Bogdan Bogdanović (Rights: Suns), not to be confused with the Croatian Bojan Bogdanović of the Brooklyn Nets, had a down summer when compared to last year. In 2014, Serbia won silver at the FIBA World Cup, in part thanks to Bogdanović’s 12 points per game on an efficient 47 percent shooting, including a 36 percent mark from three. Which makes his Eurobasket numbers of 8.9 points per game on 39.7 percent shooting and just 27.1 percent from behind the arc look fairly weak in comparison. During EuroBasket, he scored over 10 points only once, a 14-point outing vs. France in the bronze medal game. Bogdanović seemed to really struggle getting into rhythm from three point land throughout the tournament, but it is interesting to note that his percentage from 2 point range was 70%, 10 percentage points higher than his performance at the World Cup. He did look more comfortable in his playmaking ability, averaging 3.2 assists and also pulled down 3.2 boards per game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNlJY21zbso
Croatia had a disappointing tournament overall, but Dario Šarić (Rights: 76ers) continued to show off his versatility. Handling the ball in transition, he threw some beautiful assists to his teammates.
Seeing him run the break and then hit a pretty stepback jumper in the first quarter of the Greece game was a good reminder of why, as a power forward, Šarić has a unique game. He had a pretty good tournament overall, scoring 9.7 points a night on 53 percent shooting, grabbing 6.3 boards, and dishing 2.7 assists per game. Two old concerns remain though. Šarić shot poorly from 3, hitting on only 26.7 percent of his attempts. He also left many points on the board, hitting on only 48 percent of his free throws while ranking 18th in free throws attempted. Outside of threes and free throws, Šarić led Croatia in turnovers, with nearly three per game. Still, his talent was never in doubt. As a 21 year old, the Šibenik native’s second campaign with Anadolu Efes will be a must-follow.
Cedi Osman (Rights: Cavs) was an important part of the Turkish National Team, playing over 32 minutes per game. As a 20 year old playing in a group consisting of Spain, Serbia, Germany, and Italy, that is a pretty impressive feat. During EuroBasket, he showed some improvement to his shooting, scoring 12.7 points on 45 percent overall and 32 percent from three. This is compared to his Euroleague average last season with Anadolu Efes, where he shot at 39.7 percent. Most impressively though, he ranked 13th in offensive rebounds, grabbing 2.3 a game. Osman’s aggressive style of play–crashing the boards and running hard in transition–makes him a player that you can see assimilating really well whenever he decides to come over to the NBA.
Porzingis was not the only player from Sevilla to end up on the Knicks this year. Guillermo Hernangomez of Spain did as well, although he will be staying in Spain to play for Real Madrid this year. This was his first year with the senior national team, and it was undoubtedly great experience for him. Unfortunately, he appeared in just 6 games and averaged only 5.6 minutes per game. On the plus side, he made it count, shooting 83.3 percent and making 10 of 12 baskets throughout the tournament. When given 16 minutes against Turkey, he went 5 of 7 and pulled down 6 boards. After two seasons of being loaned to Sevilla, it will be fun seeing Willy on the Real Madrid senior team.
Italy was a fun team to watch this EuroBasket, and that was in no small part thanks to Alessandro Gentile (Rights:Rockets). Gentile is a flat out scorer, and he showed it this summer. He averaged 16.8 points per game on 47 percent shooting, while also hitting 36 percent from three. Overall, he ranked fifth in points per game, thirteenth in two-pointers made, eighth in field goals made, and tenth in free throws made. Against Israel, he scored his tournament high of 27 points while collecting 5 rebounds. Throughout the tournament he averaged a solid 5 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game.