Papanikolaou leaning toward two-year deal with Rockets

Mirotic has the same problem this season. Maybe, rating a player by stats when he isn't on the court isn't such a good idea unless the data is adjusted for all 10 players on the court.

 

Is there anyone else that is interesting? I'm excited to see this guy come over, especially since he seems like he'd be another good defender... Not a lock down defender, but a guy who would give 100 per end effort and be a good contributor to over lol team defense.

 

I still want to see if Llull is really committed to staying overseas.

Mirotic just signed for Chicago's full MLE. Perhaps we could get Llull for $4 million.

 

Agreed, though Mirotic also gets vastly overrated by many IMO.

Still, it's not like Papanikolaou is some highly-touted prospect. He could be a decent role-player. He's not as good as Llull or Gentile, even. He's an alright prospect.

 

Not sure why the Rockets want him so badly. He is a very streaky shooter with limited athleticism. Maybe they think he can be the European gunner/shooter off the bench but not sure his ball handling is good enough.

A valuable player in Europe but never viewed as anything more than a fringe NBA player.

 

How good an NBA player do you think Mirotic will be. I have seen a fair amount of his games and just don't see him as anything above a solid NBA rotation forward. I heard "top 5" in the 2014 draft and cringed.

 

More highly valued in Chicago than other places because of their lack of scoring. I see his ceiling as a Ryan Anderson type but I don't know if he gets there.

 

I honestly have no idea what Llull has ever done to earn all these accolades. If you hear some Rockets fans, that guy's the second coming of Nash. I'm pretty sure 99% of his praise comes from people who have never seen him play. He's not even as good as Rodriguez for Real Madrid and hasn't won anything except with the NBA-stacked Spanish national team. He resorts to chucking 3s way too often and he disappears completely if the opposing team comes strong with the hedge on his PnR.

I think you're overrating Gentile too, but he's younger. Pap has definitely accomplished more and played a bigger part on better teams.

 

Struggling to find a good comparison for him, but I feel the way. Anybody calling him a rich man's Ryan Anderson, a top-5 pick in a loaded draft or even putting him in the same sentence with Dirk or Love is out of their mind.

He's like a less skilled/talented Bargnani, with a higher basketball IQ/more awareness. Could be a solid player, but I'd be shocked if he ever made the All-Star team. Probably won't ever come close to it.

 

Llull tends to get flack by Euro bloggers/fans, because he's not a pure PG and doesn't play the typical Euro brand of ball.
That's just fine with me, because I don't care about all that. I only care about how his game translates to the NBA, specifically the Houston Rockets and IMO his game translates far better than Papanikolaou's.

 

2 yr. 5 million

 

How come Spanoulis, Navarro, Diamantidis etc are revered then? They're combo guards/ball dominant shooting guards essentially as well. Llull is plainly not that great.

Also, I'm really not sure how a ball dominant, score-first, PnR-heavy guard's game meshes with Harden (who's the same player only 10 times better) and Dwight (who doesn't wanna PnR) better than a spotting-up, baseline slashing forward's does.

 

Now that Lin is gone, the team bench could use a playmaker. Llull can also play SG in small ball lineups.

 

Deal not done yet.

 

If Dwight still doesn't wanna PnR then I'm done with all this ****

 

Of course Morey would want to add another lefty after striking out with Bosh

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Report: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rockets?src=hash">#Rockets</a> have upped their offer to Rookie <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Spain?src=hash">#Spain</a> FC Barcelona SF-PF Kostas Papanikolau to a 2yr $4.5mil deal.</p>&mdash; KC (@kc1nyk) <a href="https://twitter.com/kc1nyk/statuses/489265558781976576">July 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Only seen a couple games online, but Papanikolaou looks the part of a decent role player. He hustles, plays defense, and can make shots. I see a very high likelihood he's a decent role player. Basically Hamilton, but with trying on defense. He just needs his 3pt shot to translate to be effective.

 

Is there any chance in hell that LLull ever comes over to the NBA or is that just a dream?