European Hoops Wrap-Up: Click for dunking devastation

The holiday season is upon us, and European basketball gifted us with plenty of holiday cheer. An exciting final week of Eurocup’s opening round set the table for the Round of 16, which retained most of the quality NBA potential from the original 20 rosters. Meanwhile in FIBA Champions League action, Cibona and Mega Leks dominated the NBA fans’ conscious for another week, but not in the way you’d expect. And in Euroleague, it was another stellar week for the league’s best point guards, led by Baskonia’s Shane Larkin.

The Eurocup Round of 16 is set

The first round of Eurocup play has ended, and the field was narrowed from 20 to 16 teams after this week’s games. Gone are Buducnost, MZT Skopje Aerodrom, Bilbao, and Union Olimpija Ljubljana, meaning we lose NBA hopeful Josh Scott from Skopje and 2017 NBA Draft prospect Blaz Mesicek from Olimpija.

The remaining 16 teams have been reconfigured into four new groups, containing one team from each of the old groups based on standings. We will preview the next round when play resumes, but here’s a brief overview.

Group E: Gran Canaria, Fuenlabrada, UCAM Murcia, Lokomotiv Kuban

Kuban got the short end of the stick in this draw, as the only Russian team having to travel to three ACB teams. This is also probably the weakest group overall, and Gran Canaria should run through the group easily, much like the first round.

Group F: Khimki Moscow, Bayern Munich, ratiopharm Ulm, Lietkabelis

Not a very interesting group from an NBA perspective, but Khimki Moscow and Ulm are entertaining enough to give this group a few exciting games.

Group G: Zenit St. Petersburg, Hapoel Jerusalem, Nihzny Novgorod, Lietuvos Rytas

Zenit and Hapoel are both high-ceiling teams with former NBA talent that should fight over the group lead. Rytas gets to try to prove their inconsistencies and penchant for close games in Round one was a fluke.

Group H: Valencia, Cedevita, Alba Berlin, Unicaja Malaga

Plenty of prospective NBA talent here, between Dzanan Musa at Cedevita, Bojan Dubljevic at Valencia, and Nemanja Nedovic of Malaga. This should be the most tightly contested group of the four.

Eurocup games will resume on January 4, and the groups will play a round robin with the top two teams from each group advancing to the playoffs.

Shane Larkin saves Baskonia

Shane Larkin looked slightly out of place in the NBA. In three seasons with the Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets, Larkin alternated between overwhelmed starter and fringe rotation player, never really settling into a role on three NBA teams. The Miami point guard developed into a decent offensive player for the Nets, but he couldn’t cut it defensively, and was left without an NBA deal this summer.

Larkin’s offense has taken another step forward for Baskonia this year, and his improvements were on display in the Spanish side’s 92-91 win over Unics Kazan. Larkin went 8-of-11 from the field for 22 points, dished out 6 assists, and generally commanded the Baskonia offense, keeping a step ahead of Unics throughout a tight contest. He had a pair of big plays to help Baskonia stay in striking distance late: An and-one layup with three minutes left to halve a six-point deficit, and a very clutch pull-up three over Artisom Parakhouski after generating a questionable switch:

Larkin’s play highlighted the strengths he’s shown all year in leading a surprisingly stout Baskonia squad. While he hasn’t been the most consistent 3-point shooter (32 percent in Euroleague play), he’s been decent shooting off the bounce, enough that he’s still a threat if he gets separation. More importantly, he’s the driver of what is a very strong pick-and-roll game with Baskonia’s bigs: Johannes Voigtmann popping to the 3-point line, Andrea Bargnani and Kim Tillie rolling to the rim, or in this game, a spacing nightmare caused by pick-and-rolls with Ilimane Diop:

Here, Unics has to defend an NBA-caliber point guard driving, while also accounting for Diop (6-foot-11 with at least a 7-foot-3 wingspan) rolling to the rim, and Toko Shengelia (who murdered Unics on drives from the perimeter and Jaka Blazic (37 percent shooter) spacing. That’s what makes Baskonia’s offense so terrifying, and Larkin does a fantastic job of commanding it.

There’s another strong prospect at Cibona

The Cibona/Mega Leks rematch in the FIBA Champions League wasn’t as exciting as the first matchup between the two teams. Mega Leks rested their two best NBA draft prospects, Kostja Mushidi and Alpha Kaba, and Cibona capitalized with an 87-77 win. This was despite a near triple-double from Grizzlies stash pick Rade Zagorac of Mega Leks, who had 16/10/8, and a disappointing early start from Ante Zizic. The Celtics stash pick, Zizic, had just 14 points and 8 rebounds, which are solid numbers but below his usual standard, which was strange with a significant size advantage over Mega’s active roster. But Cibona handled their business anyway, thanks to the emergence of 19-year old Nik Slavica.

Slavica, a 6-foot-7 Croatian, had 25 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists in the victory. He did this without attempting a single 3-pointer, instead out-muscling Zagorac on drives to shoot 10-of-14 from the rim. He was devastating in transition, gathering a pair of his assists on the break and finishing with an array of shots at the rim. But the highlight was perhaps the European dunk of the year, as he absolutely destroyed Marko Tejic on the break:

Slavica has gotten buzz as a potential NBA draft pick in the past, entering and withdrawing from the 2016 NBA Draft. At 19, he still has plenty of potential to grow, and his measurables are enticing at 6-foot-7 with a strong frame and great athleticism. He’s a strong passer and an off-the-dribble threat, and he has strong defensive potential as well. However, that lack of 3-point shooting is a major concern. Slavica is hitting just 14.8 percent of his 3-pointers and he has virtually no outside jumper to speak of. He’s also struggled to make a consistent impact, scoring in double-digits four times in Champions League play, but making very little impact in the other five games. These issues are likely to keep him from being a significant player on the NBA Draft level. However, he’s still a nice little player, and a name to keep an eye on for the future.

It was Timma Time in St. Petersburg

Zenit St. Petersburg needed a win over Malaga to secure first place in Group C on Wednesday. They got there, winning 82-72 on the back of Orlando Magic stash pick Janis Timma. The 6-foot-7 Latvian had his best game of the year, exploding for 33 points on 12-of-23 shooting, with 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks in the victory. It was the cap on what has been a very successful start to the season for the 24-year old, who is enjoying a breakout campaign.

Timma, like fellow countrymen Kristaps Porzingis and Davis Bertans, offers a nice combination of length and shooting from the perimeter, and both were on display in this matchup. In addition to his 10 rebounds, Timma was the primary outside threat for Zenit, hitting seven of their 11 3-point makes as the Russian side’s primary floor spacer. Timma’s a fantastic weapon shooting off the catch, and Zenit was able to free him up on screens early on to get him going:

Timma has a very strong stroke, and he’s been shooting 40 percent from 3 this year, on a whopping 9.6 attempts per 40 minutes. It’s his best performance of his career on the highest volume, and it gives him a strong NBA projection, as the theory goes that he would hit a similar percentage on a lower volume with better spacing in the NBA.

Timma’s a prototypical European combo forward, meaning that he has NBA small forward size, but plays in the style of a stretch four. He has a strong post game as a result, and Zenit likes to free him up off screens for these types of looks as well. He probably won’t rely on this if and when he comes to the NBA, but he’s a solid passer out of these looks, and has the strength and agility to score with a finesse move against a mismatch:

Timma’s enjoyed a breakout year, averaging 17.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 2.9 assists per game for a strong Eurocup team. With continued success as the competition heats up, it’s not unreasonable to expect that the Magic will look to bring the 24-year old over for Summer League in 2017. In theory, he’s a great fit for this roster, which lacks shooting and playmaking from the forward spots. Timma could slide in as a fun antithesis to Aaron Gordon at the three, and help to fill out the depth as an alternative to Damjan Rudez.

Maccabi Tel Aviv is once again a complete mess

Maccabi Tel Aviv won Euroleague in 2014. This is a sentence that I have to remind myself of regularly, because it is completely and totally baffling three years later.

Things were looking up this year for the Israeli Euroleague representative. After a smoldering tire fire of a 2015-2016 season, that saw two coaches, a top-five NBA Draft pick go to waste, and a bouncing from the tournament’s old group format and subsequent flame out of Eurocup, things seemed to be improving. Three weeks ago, Maccabi was 5-5, right in the thick of the playoff race, with a decent offense built around Andrew Goudelock and Sonny Weems. They had just upset Olympiacos, and looked like they finally had a strong head coach in Rami Hadar.

Since then: 86-77 loss to Efes, 85-70 loss to Bamberg, 83-58 blowout loss at Red Star. Maccabi regressed hard, dropping the games in increasingly ugly fashion, and finally fully fell off the rails this week, shooting 26.1 percent from 3 and allowing Red Star to collect 11 offensive rebounds. Weems had 7 turnovers, D.J. Seeley added 6 of his own, and Maccabi allowed the front line of Marko Simonovic, Milko Bjelica, and Ognjen Kuzmic to combine for 37 points. Oh, and Hadar resigned after the game, meaning former assistant Lior Luban is now the sixth (SIXTH!!!) head coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv since David Blatt took the Cleveland Cavaliers job.

I get it. This is a proud club with a proud history. It’s hard to accept failure, domestically or internationally, when you have an image to maintain. But Maccabi over the last three seasons has simply been a caustic situation, because of the pressures placed on the team by fans and management. The belief is that Maccabi needs to be able to be a winner no matter what their roster is, even if they’re trotting out Taylor Rochestie as their best guard (last year), or a bunch of score-first wings who don’t work together (this year) as their roster. No coaching change is going to fix this situation if rumors of firings are going to come with every losing streak. The change to improve Maccabi must instead come from within, both from a roster fit and culture perspective. And that’s on management. Until then, this team will continue to short-circuit at random in this competition.

Elsewhere around the continent

Marvel with me for a second at the Barcelona/CSKA Moscow box score. It’s one of the oddities of the season. Barca shot 53 percent from the field for the game. They hit 11 threes. They outrebounded CSKA by 12. They held CSKA to 12 two-point baskets. They turned the ball over 24 times. They were were outscored by 16 at the line. They lost by 16. Simply put, I have never seen a team so thoroughly dominate that many aspects of the game while also getting outclassed in that many others en route to a double-digit loss. This Barca season is so strange.

Panathinaikos beat Fenerbahce 81-70, behind Nick Calathes’s 16/8/11/5 line. I remarked earlier in the year that Calathes would be the biggest beneficiary of Panathinaikos hiring Xavi Pascual as coach; this is now his sixth game this year with a points/assists double-double. A lot of that has come because Pascual has given him the keys to the offense, with more opportunities to drive and more options off of his initial actions. Pascual has been the runaway Coach of the Year to me, and Calathes is second in my MVP rankings behind Milos Teodosic. Their symbiosis has been simply outstanding.

I’m sure after Nick Slavica destroyed Marko Tejic that was enough cool dunks for one wee- OH HELLO TYLER HONEYCUTT!

Rest in peace Daniel Theis. We hardly knew ye.

Gran Canaria didn’t need to beat Skopje Aerodrom by much in Eurocup, so that meant plenty of time for their backups. This was nice for NBA Draft scouts, because it meant we got to see big minutes for Anzejs Pasecniks. The Latvian big man had 8 points and 3 rebounds in the win, showing off some impressive pick-and-roll finishing that hints at his potential in the NBA. The 20-year old should be a second round pick this summer, and reminds me a lot of Timofey Mozgov with the way he moves and is able to both throw his weight around and glide in the air. He’s a name to keep an eye on in the next round of Eurocup play.

Home/NBA