Jonathan Givony just said he believes D-Mo would go in the 20s in this years draft, because this draft is deeper than last year's draft. Totally disagree, but what do I know. Also said D-Mo might not have been paid what he should have been paid from Prokom.
It sounded like Givony is not that impressed with D-Mo despite his rebounding getting so much better.
I think DMO is an interesting player and a little hard to judge. He improved his rebounding, but some aspects of his game actually regressed. His advanced statistics doesn't look so good in EURO league. I don't know, but he may have trouble meeting our expectation at least initially.
You mean a late 1st rounder may not meet our insaitable and unrealistic demands? I can see the threads now: D-NO sucks!!1! Fire Murray, Hang Les, Trade Everyone, we suck!!!1 Donatas Motie-horrible stinks it up again (10 pts 3 rebounds 20 minutes) and the Carl Herrera thread: Is this team thinking like the Lithuanitana? (that's supposed to be a pun on Lithuanian and Luisitana)
Yeah, Carl is probably going to be talking about Bustyjunas this, Bustyjunas that all next season. I'm a little surprised a skilled 7 foot PF who's improved one of his biggest weaknesses wouldn't be a lottery pick in this draft. But there's probably a lot we're not seeing from just watching highlights... Givony also said Mirotic is a stud and would be a lottery pick.
Well, I don't have high expectation of him in the rookie season. But I wouldn't be surprised to see those reactions here
As I have said on a number of occasions Euro offensive sets did D-Mo's game no favors. IMHO the proper spacing for him is in the low post (passing out of double teams if they come is right up his alley) or just outside of the low post in space. 12 -14 feet with a pick or two set for him. Wing pick and rolls/pops would be great too. Sort of like an NBA offensive scheme. Camped out at the 3 point line for extended minutes seemed to be just a waste. Again just my opinion. And I have never really understood the Euro offensive schemes. If I am missing anything a correction would be in order HMMMM and all of the rest of you.
As of the 2011 NBA Draft, Mirotic was the more highly rated prospect. Had Mirotic not had long-term commitments overseas, he WOULD have been a 2011 lottery pick. While I think Givoney may not have followed Motiejunas (or many other prospects, for that matter) overseas all too closely after they were drafted, his estimations don't seem THAT far off. I've been told by at least one person who knows this kind of stuff pretty well that (today's) Motiejunas would probably be a LATE LOTTERY PICK in this year's draft. Again, people. Please don't have such high hopes for Motiejunas. He's got a good chance to be a pretty good NBA player. But odds are he's not the franchise savior many of you make him out to be.
Since I was a guy who was sure that Parsons would not even make the pine side of the Rockets roster, my ability to judge talent is obviously lacking.
I agree that D-Mo's game suits the NBA better than it does the European game. However, I actually thought Prokom did a decent job putting D-Mo in the low post. At times, I thought they forgot about him and didn't go to me him as often as they should have, but overall I thought they did a pretty good job (the replacement coach more so than the Lithuanian guy that got fired). One problem with running low-post action for your 4 man in the European game is that the court is smaller and that there's no defensive three seconds rule, which makes zoning up and double teaming very easy if your 5 man isn't able to spread to floor (which none of Prokom's centers were). With D-Mo being the best player on his team defenses often keyed up on him and lots of time brought a second guy, sometimes even before the catch and seemingly increasingly as the season went on. What I thought Prokom should have done is implementing more mid- or high-post sets for D-Mo to make it more difficult for the defense to double or zone up. They actually had one really nice play in their playbook, where IIRC D-Mo was the decoy for some sort of pindown/curl action in the mid-post with him posting up being one of the primary options. They ran that play like once every two games. No idea why they didn't went to it more often. Wing pick&rolls involving D-Mo might be effective in theory, but as bad as Prokom's wings were I cringed every time they went to it. The one guy (who I actually liked, because he played within himself) can't shoot, the other can't dribble. Also, Prokom's PG IMO was much better shooting off the dribble than off the catch and again, it's hard to space the floor if your center has 5 foot range and your PF is diving. Maybe they could have run a few more pick&pops for D-Mo with Blassingame (their PG), but their PG/C pick&rolls with D-Mo spreading the court were quite effective so I actually didn't mind those too much.
Thank you for the explanation good sir! I have a much better understanding of the dynamics of the Euro game. I did not even realize that the court is smaller. There would have been some benefit to my asking that question a few months ago when we were watching Prokom's games.
http://hoopspeak.com/2012/06/hoopspeak-live-53-kevin-arnovitz-and-jonathan-givony/ Click on "View Question List" and select the D-Mo question.
That's the funny thing about EURO league, a player can dominate or be very good, yet strike out in the NBA. On the other hand, there have been some really good NBA starters who were merely average or had some not so impressive in the Euro league. It's hard to say with alot of these players, which is why it's much hard to put so much stock in a unproven commodity. It's no different from college basketball, though maybe slightly better in some areas.
Just to show you how in tune Jonathan Givony is: Anybody see the Yahoo Mock draft 2.0? It has us drafting Kendall Marshall because of this reason: With starting point guard Aaron Brooks publicly demanded to be traded, and backup Goran Dragic an unrestricted free agent, the Rockets’ point guard situation looks tenuous at best. General Manager Daryl Morey knows how difficult it is to acquire playmakers of Kendall Marshall’s stature in free agency or via trades, which gives him very good value at this stage in the draft. Just saying ...
