Real Madrid-Valencia. Euroleague game. Quarterfinals, game 2, 2nd half. http://atdhenet.tv/36047/watch-real-madrid-vs-valencia
I only watched the 2nd half of the game. Great 2nd half of Sergio. Leaded the comeback as PG of the team. Great gobal intensity at the most difficult moments, very good decision making, dangerous and smart off the p&r. Defending the rival PG (Prigioni with the SG). A winning performance. Very very important win for his team on the road. 2-1
Real Madrid has -almost- signed Jaycee Carroll, expecting him to be their starting SG for next year. He would replace Clay Tucker, who has disappointed this season. Llull is right now injured for 3 weeks.
Sergio Llull has been selected to the All-Euroleague Team for the first time in his career: http://www.euroleague.net/news/i/84905/180 It is interesting, because the first time that Vassilis Spanoulis made the All-Euroleague Team (2005-06 season), the Rockets went out of their way to sign him that same summer. Also, Llull is the same age (23) as Spanoulis was when he made his first All-Euroleague Team and the Rockets then signed him to a 3 year contract. So in the past, this same type of thing pushed the Rockets to sign a draft pick.
What was the injury? Nothing serious, I'm assuming, or you would have said straight out what had happened. Glad to see Sergio's career is progressing in Spain. I just hope I live to see the day that he comes over to the Rockets! ;-)-
Video of the All-Euroleague team selection with Llull: <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/35Rk7VJlYBI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> The first and second teams will be announced on May 7th.
Deckard, hamstring injury, nothing serious, he plays tomorrow. I doubt he ends making the All-Euroleague team, frankly, other players deserve it more, but consider it like another step forward in his career.
Fortunately he can shoot, something Spanoulis was never able to consistently do, and his range looks like it can go out to the NBA line while Spanoulis' looked more like Salim Stoudemire range with crappier percentages. Get him in a FIBA game and he can hit some threes for you with his tippee toes just past the line, but with the NBA line forget it.
At the same age, and now, Llull is about half as good as Spanoulis is on offense. On defense about 1/4 as good. The absolute best case scenario for Llull would be a much worse player than Spanoulis is.
Llull is not and never will be as good as Spanoulis. Anyone that thinks that has never in their life seen either player play even once. Llull is easily good enough to play in the NBA. He is leaps and bounds better than someone like Rubio. But no, he is not as good as Spanoulis by any stretch.
And you know this from your extensive first hand knowledge of his game through painstaking daily scouting? Or are you basing this off of stat-lines
It would be funny if KillBillPanna/OHMSS were the same guy as the "T-Mac is not a point forward" dude.
The only thing funny is people that have never in their life seen a Euroleague game pretending to know anything about any of these players.
Spanoulis is quite a good defender, and can be a lock down defender when he wants to at either guard position. Llull is pretty much an awful defender. Spanoulis and Llull are pretty much equal in shooting, range (although Spanoulis has a little more range), overall athletic ability (although Spanoulis has better lateral movement and quicker feet and Llull jumps a bit higher), driving, finishing, dribbling, creating their own shot. Spanoulis is way better at passing, creating shots for others, running the pick and roll, running an offense, basically anything and everything related to point guard play. Spanoulis is a lot more versatile. He can guard the one or two and he can play off the ball, or run an offense. Llull is a two guard on offense and he is too slow to guard the one. He also tends to need the ball in his hands. Both players are quite clutch. In terms of physicals, Spanoulis is a bit taller, a bit bigger, and stronger. Llull jumps higher, but it is more or less the same exact jumping ability Spanoulis had at age 23 too. And like Spanoulis, Llull's jumping is going down every year. So it is not like Llull is more athletic. Actually, Spanoulis is a bit better athlete. Spanoulis is more agile, has better body control, is stronger, has quicker feet, much better lateral movement, he is quicker, faster and is a bit bigger. The thing that Llull has in the physicals over Spanoulis is that he has big hands and he can easily palm the ball with one hand. That allows him to dunk fairly easily and also to hold the ball better. Spanoulis has small hands so he has to cradle the ball when he goes up to the rim and it also makes it to where it is harder for him to hold onto to the ball at the end of games. Because he is one of those guys that gets real sweaty palms and with the small hands it makes it easy to lose the ball. Llull does not have that problem. So thus, Llull is less turnover prone. Llull is competitive and fiery and he plays without fear. But Spanoulis is the same way, and Spanoulis is gifted with superior play making skills and he is also quite frankly, a smarter player. Llull is a good player (and I think can be a very good one soon), but he is definitely not as good as Spanoulis. Saying Llull is better than Spanoulis is just about basically the equivalent of saying Dragic is better than Rose to be perfectly honest about it. Llull could definitely be a nice player for the Rockets, but if Rockets fans think he is going to be a better player than Spanoulis, then they are unbelievably delusional and totally out of whack with their delusions of grandeur about Llull. Llull is something like an 8-10 level shooting guard in Euroleague, while Spanoulis is one of the top 4 players in the entire European continent, along with guys like San Emeterio, Navarro, Diamantidis. And Spanoulis was already in that level when he was Llull's age. To put it another way, Llull would barely even play on teams like Panathinaikos and Olympiacos, where Spanoulis has played. Lull would have barely even seen playing time on such teams. Having to compete with others like Papaloukas, Teodosic, Halperin, Gordon on Olympiacos for playing time, or players like Jasikevicius, Diamantidis, Lakovic, Vujanic, Becirovic for playing time over the years on Panathinaikos - Llull would barely even be in the rotation. On Real Madrid the guards are guys like Sergio Rodgriguez, Pablo Prigioni, Sergi Vidal, Clay Tucker. The level of the players he competes with for playing time is much lower. Only Prigioni is a really good player and he is on the last legs of his career and isn't the same as he used to be. On Olympiacos for example, Llull would probably be in the same role as Yotam Halperin - the 5th guard of the team. Halperin has been on the All-Euroleague Team before. Halperin was an NBA draft pick. Halperin had a really good game against the Cleveland Cavaliers last year in Cleveland and Shaq was so impressed by him that he gave him a signed jersey. And he is the 5th guard in Olympiacos, and he is basically about the same level of player as Llull. Don't get it twisted. Llull is good. He can easily play in the NBA. He is IMHO far better than Ricky Rubio is (the guy Morey apparently drooled over in the past for no logical reason). I personally like Llull more than Dragic. They are very similar players, but Llull usually plays more under control than Dragic tends to, and is more explosive, and is definitely a better shooter. Although Dragic is a much better defender. Llull has a winner's mentality though and Dragic has not shown that at all in his career so far. But compared to the best guards in Euroleague, like Navarro or Spanoulis - Llull is CLEARLY below that level and those players were also definitely better than him at his current age now as well. Spanoulis is an elite level Euroleague player (San Emeterrio, Spanoulis, Navarro, Diamantidis) and then are guys right below that like Bourousis, Schortsanitis just recently..........probably Siskauskas, who is on the decline, but probably used to be the best player in Europe...... Teodosic, who is great when he wants to be, but is too lazy, so he puts himself in the second tier because of that....... Then probably a bunch of guys in the third tier like, Lavrivonic brothers, Batiste, Tomic, Kaukenas, McCalebb, Pargo, Zisis, Fotsis, Savanovic, Vazquez, etc., etc. maybe 20-30 such players (rough estimate) in that third level, and that is where Llull is at. Actually, among just the shooting guards that are from Spain (not playing in the Spanish League but that are Spaniards)......Navarro is #1 and then you have San Emeterio, who is a swing man that plays mostly SF, but he is a SG/SF and he is next in terms of a swing wing. Then after that, the next best Spanish one is either Llull or Rafa Martinez. It depends on what kind of a player you prefer between those two. Llull is more physically gifted, bigger, and more athletic, but Martinez is a better defender, shooter, and scorer. So Llull is basically the 3rd-4th best Spanish two guard. While Spanoulis is one of the something like top 4 players on the entire European continent. There is no comparison. Llull is good, but he is basically in a general class of player like Dragic, more or less. He is not in the class of European guards that Rockets fans might know, like Juan Carlos Navarro and Vassilis Spanoulis, that played in the NBA before and then went back to the Euroleague, and he never will be in their class of player. If Rockets fans think he is, or is even better (as seems to be the case here) then the level of homerism that is being projected onto Llull, in order to overrate him, is at an extremely high level in this forum. For an example of an NBA is as to Euroleague equivalent..........Sergio Llull would be something like a Ben Gordon level player, while Spanoulis would be something a Dywane Wade level player.
