Real Madrid forward Nikola Mirotic, chosen as the 2010-11 Turkish Airlines Euroleague Rising Star, made history at the European under-20 Championships in Bilbao, Spain. Mirotic, chosen as the tournament's MVP, led the Spanish national team to the gold medal and broke the competition's scoring record, averaging 27 points and 10 rebounds in 9 games. He led Spain with 29 points and 11 rebounds to an 82-70 win against Italy in the title game on Sunday. Mirotic had done even better - 37 points, 8 rebounds - in the semifinals against Russia and helped Spain to finish the tournament unbeaten. Read more: http://www.euroleague.net/news/i/86866/180/rising-star-mirotic-shines-at-under-20s
ESPN3 has a series of Real Madrid's Euroleague games on demand. They offer a good opportunity for us to see where Mirotic is at when compared to elite European talent. The links are here: May 8. 2011: Real Madrid vs. Montepaschi Siena (Italy) (3rd Place) May 6, 2011: Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv vs. Real Madrid (Semifinal #2) April 7, 2011: Real Madrid vs. Power Electronics Valencia (Playoffs) March 22, 2011: Real Madrid vs. Power Electronics Valencia (Playoffs) March 3, 2011: Real Madrid vs. Montepaschi Siena (Italy) (Top 16) December 2, 2010: Real Madrid vs. Unicaja (you have to do a separate search to find this game) I've watched the games (so you don't have to) and came away with a jumble of thoughts. -- Preps to Pros. My largest takeaway is that Mirotic looks like the classic preps-to-pros project. Mirotic is 19 and playing against veterans so this should not have surprised me, I suppose, as much as it did. Someone mentioned Tyson Chandler when discussing Mirotic (was it Denny?). Mirtoic would make a beautiful pass followed by a bad decision; his game was extremely limited but you would see little flashes of genius; and he would go long stretches without seeing the ball. -- Mirotic is a power forward. Mirotic differentiated himself from most prep projects in that he semi-earned a ton of minutes, my concerns about his lack of refinement aside. Mirotic was a relatively consistent ten minute sub in the first half of games, playing from the 5:00 mark of the 1st quarter through the 5:00 mark of the second quarter. He was also good for around 7 or 8 minutes in the second half of games. He earned the minutes because he played surprisingly good interior defense and rebounded the ball relatively well. Mirotic did the same things in European league play that would earn him time in the NBA, with the qualification that European bigs don't guard the hoop or chase ball like they do in the NBA. That is to say, Mirotic already has proven himself to be average or slightly above average at rebounding and defending the hoop as compared to the best players in Europe, but the bar for these two skills in Euroleague play is noticeably lower than it is in the NBA. I mentioned that Mirotic only semi-earned the minutes because, as stated above, he committed a lot of mistakes. The coach of Real Madrid seems to have a higher tolerance for mistakes than I am used to. The point guard for Real Madrid is twenty-one year old spark plug named Sergio Llull. The guy can get hot and put up points on the board but makes a ton of bad decisions and doesn't manage a game half as well as I would like. He would feed players at the wrong times and leave players who were hot out to dry. I initially wondered if Mirotic had received a minutes guarantee, but it looks like European coaches, or at least Real Madrid's coach, is willing to put up with mistakes made due to a lack of experience. -- Real Madrid had a lot of talent on its front line. The best player on Real Madrid was its twenty-two year old center, Ante Tomic. He may have been the best center I saw in Euroleague play this past season. Utah owns Tomic's draft rights, and Tomic apparently is still publicly stating that he plans on eventually joining the team. I have my doubts. Tomic has amazing hands and length and makes a ton of really smart easy conversions. The closest comparison to Euroleague play is probably NBA 2K11 in that the players get up and down the court at a blistering pace that is so quick they don't use full sets. You end up with a lot of two man play, often between a center and a guard. Tomic is perfect in that he makes great passes, moves off the ball extremely well, can finish in a ton of ways and at a lot of different angles. The one unfortunate thing for the development of Mirotic is that it sounded like, at least from the broadcasts, that Tomic was planning on joining Maccabi Tel Aviv after the season. I said I have doubts about Tomic leaving for the NBA because as good as he was at the things he needed to do in Europe to be successful, he was not especially good at guarding the hoop and his rotations on the defensive side were just bad at times. ESPN ran an interview a couple of days ago with a American-born European lifer and he made the interesting comment that there are a ton of Euroleague players who couldn't play in the NBA and a ton of NBA players who couldn't play in the Euroleagues. That might be the case with Tomic. I also liked Real Madird's backup center D'or Fischer who could probably earn a spot on an NBA roster, but for less money and playing time. He's better on the boards and guarding the hoop than Tomic and has a surprisingly versatile offensive game, if not quite as good as Tomic. -- U-20 play and college. I'm really happy that Mirotic had a chance to shine on Spain's U-20 team. As you may be able to tell from my rundown, I'm not thrilled at the prospects for Mirotic improving quickly on Real Madrid. I think the preps-to-pro era in the NBA showed that its brutally difficult for many players to make the jump and that many aspects of their games are slow to develop. I share with many of you morality-based concerns with college ball but it does prepare its prospects well to play in the NBA. Euroleague and Spanish ACB are tough places for a prospect to flush out their skills. Mirotic played an extremely limited game with Real Madrid in that he rarely handled ball and didn't get many scoring opportunities outside of long jump shots. He occasionally would drive from the corner but that was about it. Mirotic got the ball on the U-20 team in a ton of different spots and created all types of opportunities. I just wish Mirotic had more opportunities to lead a team against a slightly lower caliber of players. -- Bottom line. We should have some concerns about the chances that Mirotic continues to quickly improve on Real Madrid. He's no sure thing as strong as he has played at times. Trying to develop in Euroleague and ACB is not ideal and could retard Mirotic's growth. I also have some worries about whether Mirotic will ever want to play in the NBA -- though this concern is obviously somewhat tied to Mirotic's potential for improvement. You have to imagine that if Mirotic is dropping fifteen to twenty points a game two years from now that there's a relatively good chance that he will want to apply his skills in the NBA. Mirotic was a good pick at 23 (or 28 and 43) and he's the bast highschool-aged talent in European basketball. But he's not in an ideal situation to flush out his skills and grow into his body. I also have concerns about Mirotic's inconsistency in his play with both Real Madrid and Spain's U-20 team. Mirotic would either shoot very well or poorly from the field and there was not a whole lot of in between. The good news is that Mirotic would continue to take shots, even if he had missed two or three in a row from the field. I just wish he had less feast or famine games.
A fan of Spain's national team has posted nice long game 15-20 minute game summaries on Youtube. If any of you know of links to the games in their entirety, please share. v. Italy (finals): [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/0/NtPBInFEWUg[/video] v. Rusia (semi-finals): [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/1/bhMD4b1KK8E[/video] v. Latvia: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/2/90Rzgr2wVpA[/video] v. Italia: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/5/oCltDrWEXuQ[/video] v. Germany: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/6/kEtdj6yTmjo[/video] v. Ukraine: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/7/6pYnIFZ9AEo[/video] v. Austria: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/8/sFNGpPvZu5g[/video] v. Greece: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/9/buCwF_UvJWM[/video] v. Turkey: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/10/vhzAtJCb8xM[/video] v. Poland: [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/CRAKOLI2011#p/u/11/a2pLbHp9jOc[/video]
Thanks for the great info, SST. My point about Chandler is they tend to hype up young guys and when we actually get to see them, our expectations aren't met. The hype is just unrealistic.
I don't think the hype is as much unrealistic as it is improbable. Mirotic is a five tool player. He's both a shooter and a scorer, he distributes the ball well, he rebounds, handles and defends. Mirotic doesn't have a ceiling. The problem is that he doesn't do anything at an NBA level, and for every Derrick Rose there are 100 Eddy Currys. I mean, I hope Mirotic continues to refined his game -- I understand why he was drafted where he was -- we've just seen a lot of players with a similar level of talent amount to nothing.
Maybe Tyson Chandler isn't the only example. http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/bulls-introduce-james-johnson-and-taj-gibson The Bulls Monday introduced their two 2009 No. 1 draft picks, versatile ball handling forward James Johnson from Wake Forest and lanky 214-pound power forward Taj Gibson. They’re not Scottie and Horace, who were selected Nos. 5 and 10 in the 1987 draft and went on to be the forwards for three championship teams in the early 1990’s. But I was at that 1987 draft, and the similarities are remarkable. Johnson is the talented question mark, much like Scottie. He’s got amazing skills with his ability at 6-8 and about 260 to rebound, handle the ball, go full court and finish strong. Just for skills, several teams had him ranked among the top three in the draft. So how did he get to No. 16? No one is quite sure how hard he will play or how much he wants to play. Those were the questions about him in college. You don’t want to read anything into an introductory press conference after more than a month of airplane flights everywhere around the country and the excitement of draft night. But Johnson often came across Monday like a 33-year veteran accountant waiting for the 6:15 home like he has every day. He’ll need to be pushed, and those who’ve worked him out around the league this spring say while he didn’t always dominate workouts he was impressive and coachable and seemed willing to learn. He was a tough interview Monday at the press conference in the United Center, even saying at one time how he’d work hard to get into the rotation and if he couldn’t he’d be a great practice player. My guess is someone told him to say that. Wrong answer. I understand about not being too arrogant or overconfident, like Brandon Jennings has been in calling Ricky Rubio a fraud and appearing on a video last week run by Sporting News in which Jennings trashed the Bucks guards. Actually, he sounded a bit like Scott Skiles when he was drafted by the Bucks and couldn’t understand why he wasn’t starting ahead of Ricky Pierce, Paul Pressey and Sidney Moncrief. OK, no one really wants too much brash and cocky. But a bit of earnestness would be nice. That said, I believe the kid has special talents from what I’ve been told by scouts and coaches in the ACC. They say he’s a monster to play against. I like the pick a lot at No. 16 and think he has a chance to be a star and draft surprise. There had been talk the Bulls might take Tyler Hansbrough, and I think they lucked out when Hansbrough was taken No. 13 by Indiana. Hansbrough should be a fine player. But never elite. Johnson may not be, either. But he can be. I like the idea of taking a shot with a guy who could be special. With his size and speed Johnson could also play against the small power forwards who’ve become the rage these days in the NBA, and it seems incumbent Bulls power forward Tyrus Thomas has taken notice.
^^^ They mention two Bulls players who were hyped way beyond what they turned out to be: Johnson and Tyrus. I looked for an article with Bulls management quotes about Johnson, but not all that hard (most of the first few search result pages were about his being traded to Toronto). I do remember the Bulls saying the same things as nbadraft.net did above. Ironically, the 35 year old rookie drafted much later turned out to be the gem. Though the Bulls didn't mention Pippen and Grant as part of their comparison. At least I don't remember they did
Yeah, those are definitely two good examples of players who don't have ceilings and appear to be on course to not fulfill their potential. The one thing I will say about Mirotic is that he's 100 times smarter than both Johnson and Thomas. Mirotic earned solid minutes by keeping his head down, playing defense and manning the boards. That's not a bad start.
There were a couple of posts at RealGM that, I think, add a little bit of gloss to my take on Mirotic: The first is this list of the most productive seasons by teenagers in Euroleague play in the last ten years. Most of the people at RealGM are commenting on how it's a good sign that Mirotic is second on the list, especially given the fact that the Spanish league is considerably tougher than many of the other European pro leagues. To me, this misses the point. Mirotic's numbers weren't good last year. Basically all the list shows me is that all teenaged European pros have struggled making the transition. The list underscores how much jumping directly to the pros from high school resembles playing in Euroleagues as a teenager: With the exception of Lebron James, all players -- good and bad -- have struggled in the leap. The second post was a bumped thread from almost exactly a year ago on Asik: http://nbaplaybook.com/2010/07/30/overs ... omer-asik/ I really like the story because it serves as reminder of how much Asik improved over the past year. Sebastian Pruti was right on the money in his assessment of Asik, even if he was wrong in predicting how long it would take Asik to develop a body and skills that were NBA ready. The broader point is that, as hard as it is to make evaluations of domestic prospects, sizing up foreign prospects is even more difficult. At least with domestic prospects you can count on them having access to trainers and weight programs.
