Interesting question: Caroll has proved to be a great scorer in Spain and Mirotic would've started on any team but Spain (and Reyes too). Suarez is also a really good young player - I think he's actually better than Claver. They've really re-made that team. They're young and talented - if they keep the team together, they should eclipse Barcelona soon (although probably not this year). Sergio will need to up his game, though. He didn't get consistent minutes last season - but then, they did still have Prigioni.
Yeah, Khryapa was like fourth in the entire tournament in assists! And Blatt seems to prefer him almost to Kirilenko. I would feel worse about losing him if (a) he hadn't've helped land us Aldridge, and (b) he wasn't _always_ injured (he didn't even play in Russia's bronze-clinching game).
[video=youtube;fAITHRbqlTE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAITHRbqlTE[/video] He took 2 dribbles from essentially half court and went in for a dunk. Whoa.
The announcer acts as if Batum stole the ball from Rudy (#5), but Rudy passed to Navarro (#7), and Batum stole it from Navarro. You can tell from a distance that it isn't Rudy. Navarro has a more active, flexible, elastic body than Rudy. Navarro's a natural guard and Rudy's a natural forward.
I think the "take that, Rudy!" comment is because Batum was guarding Rudy on the other end and Rudy had been scoring on him.
Kirilenko wore a pink dress to a tennis match!! http://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2011...hou-quarters/UPI-64971316612741/?spt=hs&or=sn
Rudy had brought TP to the ground with a horsecollar less than a min. before that play, and Nic was wagging his finger at Rudy afterwards. Then Nic hit a three on the next play, and stared down at the Spanish bench. Then, the above play happened. That's why the "take that, Rudy!"
Batum more and more reminds me of Rasheed Wallace. Obviously different positions, and Batum isn't insane, but similar anyway. Long, lanky, good speed for his size, always good defensively. Very team-first. Tons of skill, tons of potential. Very dynamic offensively when you wake him up. But also prone to becoming passive on offense for long stretches, so it's tough to see how you can build around him. Unless you've got a Mike Dunleavy-type coach who is willing to just piss the guy off and force feed him all the time to get the desired results. I wonder if anybody has ever pointed out to Sheed that his best years as an individual player were under Mike Dunleavy. I'd love to hear his reaction to that.
It would probably be "yeah, but I won a championship with Larry Brown." (Sheed supposedly calls Brown "pounds" because his initials are lb...) At which point we might say "and you would have with Mike Dunleavy if you could have scored AT ALL in the fourth quarter..."
