OHMSS, I missed a little bit of action early on, so I might have missed what you describe as Rothbart abusing Motiejunas. I saw him travel once (I think that was Rothbart) when D-Mo held his ground defending him. I thought D-Mo also did a good job against Thompson. He had an open jumper a couple of times, because D-Mo had to help. That's hardly on him. Him standing at the 3point line a lot is a combination of him still not asserting himself enough at times and his team using him to space the floor. Olimpija also ran quite a bit of zone and often brought help when D-Mo was posting up.
ASSECO PROKOM won their first 67 - 52 against UNION OLIMPIJA. Donatas Motiejunas scored 11 points and grabbed 21 rebounds 3 assists 1 block!
I've seen him play at one of the European junior national team championships. I have only seen him playing then in high school age competitions and maybe just a couple games. I can't really comment based on that. But from what I did see, I would say almost as overrated as Rubio. Based on what those idiot draft sites are saying.........they are trying to make another hype media sensation and nothing more. I saw absolutely nothing in the 2 games I watched that stood out about him at all. Again though, I can't really say anything for sure one way or another with it just being a couple games and at the age and level. But from what I did see, there was nothing at all anywhere near what those draft sites are claiming. Reminds me of the Rubio nonsense those same sites created.
RECORDS: http://www.euroleague.net/news/i/44607/180/item After this game Motiejunas will be at 3rd place at all time rebounds in one game.
I followed the whole game. Every single score of Rothbart and Thompson was with Motiejunas guarding them. He was absolutely dreaful on defense until the 4th quarter. He seemed to be playing up on Thompson at that point. Maybe he just did not realize he could shoot before that. Bottom line, the people saying he can play centar are delusional and that includes the Rockets GM. They attempted to put him at center on defense against Rothbart (incredibly weak and soft center by Euroleague standards) and he just got torched with easy layu ups and dunks. Rothbart is big, bigger than Motiejunas anyway and he is talented, but he's really weak physically. He just manhandled Motiejunas in the post and around the basket. On offense, Motiejunas continues to jack up 3 pointers when he should be in the post. His rebounding is great and he was fighting on the boards. But then again. let's be serious and objective here. He was playing against a team that was missing almost all their rotation players and they really had no one to even fight for rebounds other than Thompson, but he just shot jumpers the whole game so he was not even around the rim to get a rebound. The rebounding number is a statistical aberration because the opponent was such an awful team that they had no one to rebound and they shot so many bricks. Still, he was fighting for rebounds and being aggressive there and he grabbed almost everything that he had a chance to get. It's encouraging, but let's not lose reality here. He was grabbing some rebounds from a 19 year old kid for most of the game. At this point in time, he's a worse shooting Raef Lafrentz with no defense. That's what he is. But the potential is big. It's just not going to be realized by him standing at the 3 point line. The more I watch him play though, I am having huge doubts that he can defend anyone in the post. His help defense and his ability to guard on the perimeter face up and close out D is OK. But his man post defense is horrific and his defensive IQ in man defense is absolutely appalling.
Motiejunas is the number 1 euroleague's rebounder right now! If we don't count Kirilenko who won't play anymore. So yeah, who would have thought about Motiejunas being good rebounder?
WELL MOTIEJUNAS ACTUALLY ACHIEVED THE EUROLEAGUE RECORD! CONGRATULATIONS! HE GRABBED 18 REBOUNDS! NO ONE HAD DONE THIS BEFORE IN EUROLEAGUE. NICE
You are not listening. The stats are extremely inflated because of what team he plays on. His rebounding from watching him play has drastically improved. He's actually going after rebounds and taking them. He never did that before. But he's far from being the best rebounder in Euroleague. Those stats are inflated to an extreme level due to what team he plays on. His defensive rebounding is improving a lot though. And he is actually going after some rebounds and getting them.
That's not the Euroleague record. The record of ULEB (since 2000) is 24. The overall all-time record I believe is 25.
Me too, if he can play well in a scrub league like that and be 20, he could develop into something great in a quality league like the NBA. DD
I MEANT 18 DEFENSIVE REBOUNDS. AND YES, IT IS A RECORD. MIRSARD TURKSCAN HAD GRABBED 17. In your face MIRSAD.
Temper it big time. He's a big time talent for sure, but he's about 1/10 as good as this forum thinks he is. These guys have absolutely zero grasp or concept on how to evaluate or judge what they are seeing, because they have no clue as to how the Euroleague works. What he's doing is being touted as all world and super impressive here, and by the GM of the team, when in reality he's barely even playing average basketball. Unfortunately, the members here are just not willing to listen to someone that actually knows how to judge this play on a team like that. Proper perspective - very talented and skilled, but far from being anything to get excited about yet, based on how good he actually is right now.
Prokom had chances to be at top 16, they had few close matches. For example, 72 - 76 Galatasaray; 68 - 72 Unics; 76- 78 Galatasaray after overtime. So Prokom isn't that bad as OHMMS describes. They had chances but the team was too young to compete at the last minutes.
