Andrew Albicy from France was the MVP of the Finals and got also elected to the All-Tournament team, a deserved recognition for the 1m70 tall PG from Paris-Levallois. Albicy is a scoring PG that lives a lot from his great shooting from behind the arc. Not incredibly fast for his size, he is driving but this is not his main offensive skill. He improved his three point percentage over the tournament after starting with a bad 0/6 in the first game.

After the poor showing of France in Mannheim and the request of the coaching stuff to find a PG leader, Albicy has really emerged and improved since Spring. He was the clear-cut go-to-guy in a less talented than the years before French team in general. With him on the court, the French team looked in confidence and went for an incredible 28-2 run during the semis.

He will probably suffer from his size in the future, but seeing the good games his countryman Marco Pellin had in the Euroleague, you can imagine a similar destiny in the future. However, Albicy has not developed the defensive mindset of Pellin so far, something that can still happen. At least, with Paris-Levallois down in ProB next season, Albicy should see lots of minutes with the professionals from this fall on.

Toni Prostran was also elected into the All-Tournament team, and this was even more deserved than Albicy’s selection as Prostran was one year younger than most of the competitors and he was probably among the top scorers of the tournament. The 91 born guard from KK Zadar showed a scoring talent that is rarely seen for a 1m83 small guard.

Prostran lives mostly from his super quick shot release from behind the arc where he can fire up threes at will, even with bigger defenders in his face. His shooting mechanics look super fluid but incomplete as he stops the move after releasing the ball immediately. Additionally, the ball turns sideways on his shot. This does not impeach him to score incredible shots from long distances.

When he gets defended hard on pick and roll, he has no problem to split between the defenders and go for great assists too. When he drives, he often scores tear drop shots or running floaters as he is not super athletic to go up against the big guys in the paint. He can be out of the game for stretches when he is defended by bigger players, but he can also on the other hand go for incredible scoring runs over short periods.

Maurice Stuckey did play a correct tournament in his role as scoring guard coming of the bench for Germany. With his speed and acceleration, he could drive till the basket lots of times as no defender was able to stop his right handed penetration. Stuckey is the ideal complement to the starting German PG Simon Schmitz who is more like an organizer on the court while Stuckey is the energizer.

Stuckey was not hot from the outside during the games I saw in Douai so he used his speed to drive in the lane and score with some running floaters or hanging lay-ups where he could use his nice athleticism. With his drives, he could also create some good opportunities for his team mates in the paint but he tried mostly to go for his own score.

He tried also some mid-distance shots out of the dribble, but he could not connect them in a regular fashion. He also managed to score sometimes of his left hand but his drives were nearly every time on his strong right hand. This was of course also the result of poor defense as they opened him his strong side lots of times. On defense, he put a lot of pressure on the opposing guards, especially when Germany played some kind of full court man-to-man defense.

Maxim Mutaf played some good games in Douai during the weekend. The scoring guard from Fenerbahce, who had a little injury on his hand, was the go-to-guy during moments for a Turkish team that was far away from its level it displayed in Mannheim.

Mutaf has a picture perfect shot from all distances which he can put up with ease against defenders too. He is always attacking his defender as soon as he gets the ball and tries to go for the scoring. When driving, he finished either with floaters of the glass or even when till the rim to score on nice finger rolls. He had also a very athletic back door lay up where he scored against two defenders with beauty.

For his long distance shot, he has no problem to create his own shot. He showed a variety of different shooting positions, coming off the screen or going for a step back three in his defenders face. Additionally, he showed surprising presence in offensive rebounding where he tried to go for every ball. Even his injured did not prevent him to jump into the chairs to get an lose ball. On the other hand, he put himself out of the game with 2 super stupid fouls in the last minutes. But he will learn how to avoid such errors in the future.

Melih Mahmutoglu was the other Turkish SG during this tournament and he came up with his beautiful game that we could already see in Mannheim this spring. With his perfect shooting mechanics, Mahmutoglu nearly netted every open position from behind the arc. Not much of a drive player, he often stops to go for the mid-distance jump shot out of the dribble.

Liran Moran was the top scorer for the Israeli team. He nearly scored only on three point shots, where he was pretty accurate. Moran is listed as 1m91 and I think that he can play the SG spot in the future in a very specific role as shooter. He showed sometimes a nice drive where he can go to the rim but mostly he is the guy receiving the ball from inside and netting the three-ball.

Gilvydas Biruta played only 1 quarter of basketball during the two days I was in Douai, but you could see that this guy has basketball talent. First of all, he is an outstanding athlete going for not less than 4 dunks in one quarter, two of these coming from highly spectacular alley-oop passes after a screen in the back (a play, that you could for example often see for Roanne’s Marc Salyers this season). He did not play in the last game of the tournament as his coach has probably seen enough of his scoring talent of the bench in the games before. One note on him is also that he is playing in the Gran Canaria basketball academy in Spain which is quite uncommon for a Lithuanian youngster.

Nic Wise was the clear leader of Team USA on the PG position and did hurt the opposing defenses a lot with his huge drives where he was not afraid to go against the big guys and even scored several times against them with the foul. With his great handles and speed changes, he was a tough match-up for any player that tried to guard him.

Mohamed Koita was the only guard on Team Africa, so he had to play 40 minutes per game. And he was mostly a scoring threat with a lot of turnovers in the setup of the game. Koita can hit a lot of threes despite a quite mechanical shooting way. His outstanding athleticism helps him on the drives but he lacks a bit of basketball understanding due to his limited playing on the highest level so far. He is currently at the Stoneridge Academy in the United States.

Douai Tournament 2008: the guards is a post from: European Prospects
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• The first game in the morning saw the nice victory of Lithuania against a tired Adidas Nations team Africa. The Baltic guys won it in the end 90-73 but their dominance was bigger than the result. For Lithuania, Donatas Motiejunas showed his huge skillset to finished with 30pts, 7rebs and 2 steals. Nobody could really stop him and he just hurt his three point percentage (1/6) in the end by overshooting from outside. He look in general a lot more motivated than yesterday. He got some nice support from the surprising Edvardas Pikalavicius with 13pts and 8rebs. For the Africans, we saw big scoring from Mohamed Koita who netted 35pts but lost 5 balls. Another good game in the tournament came from Bandja Sy who had 19pts.
• The game for the 5th place between Turkey and Israel was extremely close. When the time was running up, nobody could take the decisive lead and we went into overtime. Here, the Turkish depth helped to bring this one home and end at the 5th place after the 99-89 win after 45 minutes of game action. For the winners, Maxim Mutaf started great in the first half but his scoring lead was taken over by Melih Mahmutoglu in the second half. In the paint, Enes Kanter did not start the game and only played in the second half. In those 27 minutes, he was once again dominating every body with his force and scored 21 in just 27 minutes. For Israel, Liran Moran shot well from everywhere and finished the game with a team high 22. Ron Sabag did a good job on the point where he scored the big FTs in the money time of Q4 and dished out 11 assists additionally.
• The Bronze medal game of the 2008 edition of the Douai World Tournament saw Croatia beating Germany by 3 points. The Germans had the chance to go into overtime but the last attempt of Simon Schmitz from behind the arc went not in. It was a match-up of the big guys in the paint with Maik Zirbes (22/5) facing of against Mario Delas (15/12/4) and Leon Radosevic (25/5/3). Toni Prostran was defended well by the German guards but scored however 22pts at 8/18 attempts. For Germany, it was a huge difference with what they did yesterday against Team USA while Croatia that played without their most talented player in Tomislav Zubcic did a very nice job by reaching this third place, a huge improvement to their performances in Mannheim this spring.
• The Final game of the tournament saw Team USA playing against the home crowd favorites France. And it was the French team that finished with the Tournament victory in the end. After a very disappointing showing in Mannheim, the team from the Hexagon managed to win Douai despite having a world-class talent in his roster, something that was the case mostly in the last years. It was the Finals MVP Andrew Albicy that led France in the decisive minutes with his long distance shooting and drives. He finished the game with 19pts and 5asts. But it was the defense that made the French win who lack a great scorer.
• The All-Tournament team that has been elected is the following:
• PG Andrew Albicy (France)
• SG Toni Prostran (Croatia)
• SF Carmel Bouchman (Israel)
• PF Mamadou Samb (Adidas Nations Africa)
• C Kenny Frease (Adidas Nationas USA)
• If you are interested if Video material from the tournament, contact me via email and I can send you an offer for DVDs of the games (christophe.ney@europeanprospects.com)
• During the next days, I will post detailed reports on the different players that were present

Douai Tournament 2008: Sunday’s picks is a post from: European Prospects
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Enes Kanter (2m04 – Center – Turkey)

The big man in the middle for Turkey was the only 15 year old Enes Kanter. Of course, the age discussions came up but you could see in his plays but also in his look that this kid should not be a passport issue. However, it was quite surprising the physical level reached by a kid of this age. And as he is only 15 years old, it is hard to predict the future of Enes Kanter’s basketball career.

While he displays a huge presence in this age category, this dominance is essentially the result of his physical presence, athleticism and hard work on rebounding. He may have showed some kind of back to the basket game, his game remains essentially on good positioning and offensive rebounds. He rarely showed a good jump shot out of the game or some kind of face to the basket drive.

However, he shows the necessary intrigue to be considered as one of the top European prospects of his age category. He has already some kind of turn around jump shot which he likes to use, even if the accuracy is not yet fully there. What is interesting is his ability to hold the ball very high and not getting the ball away to shorter guys that try to teal the ball. He grabs the offensive rebound very high and directly puts it back with two hands.

Kanter also has surprising athleticism as he does not look like a big athlete. He showed some very powerful dunks where he also used his large hands to grab the ball like an orange and throw it down with power through the net. What should also be mentioned is his very good FT shooting percentages at 16/21. So the ability to develop a jump shot with high percentages should be there as he struggles still in this area (37/71 from 2).

Kanter is already a huge rebounder, he grabbed 10.9 per game in just 21 minutes where he also went for 1.9 blocks. Still he can not be considered as a huge defender right now as his lateral speed is limited, also probably because of his large body. His running style reminds me a bit of Milan Macvan who dominated the tournament two years ago being younger than anybody too. For both players, the question remains if they have any kind of NBA potential as they may probably remain handicapped by their size to play inside. Still, Kanter is only born in 1992 and he may gain a few centimeters in the next years. He is definitely a player to watch and got awarded with the Burkhard-Wildermuth Award for the most talented player of the tournament.

Deniz Kiliçli (2m04 – Power Forward – Turkey)

Here we have the typical specimen of the Turkish youth player, looking like a man among children. Kiliçli displayed a well developed body for an 18 year old, being physically and athletically a beast for this level. But it was not only a physical presence as he showed also some interesting basketball skills.

With his trademark move, the left handed running hook shot facing the basket and executed at a good height was nearly unstoppable if he could go for it. He works all of his moves with the left hand, except the jump shot. But his game is not all based on that option. He likes to drive, either face to the basket or with the back and finish every move strong with a dunk.

In the first game of the tournament he came up with an extremely surprising move where he went baseline and dunked with one hand backwards over the defense; a move rarely seen on this level. He has however a tendency to do too much when gets into confidence. He forces several moves at times, but he even manages to score on most of them because of his superior physical presence.

The question for him is what can we expect more in the future. An absolutely awful FT shooter (8/24 over the tournament) and with no shooting skills at all; Kiliçli must develop this part of his game to become a serious player in the next years. The soft touch he shows with his left hand and the very rough shoot with his right hand is a combination that with a lot of work can end up in an ambidextrous forward. However, the attitude shown on court does not look like him being ready to go for hard working in practice. He is also not the big rebounder he should be for his presence, this can however be explained by the strong presence of Kanter with him in the paint.

Melih Mahmutoglu (1m92 – Shooting Guard – Turkey)

Mahmutoglu played some kind of combo guard for the Turkish team. He was the only reliable outside scoring source with 17ppg and a 24/61 shooting effort from behind the arc. But besides the shooting, there was not much to come from him.

He has interesting range combined with perfect shooting mechanics. He can hit the three ball from everywhere around the arc with ease but he is not forcing his shot. During the Final, he even refused a totally open shot in the beginning of the setup to pass it to one of his team mates despite being at several straight hits.

He is mostly hanging around the three point line but he can also go for the drive which he mostly finishes with a mid range jumper out of the dribble or with some kind of running jumpshot. On the other hand, Mahmutoglu displays any kind of emotions on the court, just like executing his job without caring what’s happening. This can be considered as an advantage for him, as he looks really focused however.

All pictures are from the official website of the tournament

Albert Schweitzer Tournament 2008: Turkey is a post from: European Prospects
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The Spanish PG Alejandro Hernandez, a NBA Basketball Without Borders participant in 2006 and member of the Youth teams of FC Barcelona, got elected MVP of the tournament. He has been joined in the All-Tournament team by his team mate Ignacio Esteban as well as by the German Power forward Erik Land who finished the tournament with 16.0ppg and 9.0rpg.

Unfortunately, I could not find out who were the two other members of the All-Tournament team but my guess would be Mario Delas from Croatia, Melih Mahmutoglu (16.0ppg) or Erdinc Balto (12.3ppg 3.0bpg) from Turkey. The Turkish team that did not feature Birkan Batuk however.

UPDATE: Crobasket.com reports the trouble that Croatia had during this tournament. And they also give the information that Mario Delas was a member of the All-tournament team. So my guess was right

Onil U18 Tournament is a post from: European Prospects
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