European Prospects

The Montenegrin team of Buducnost Podgorica features some very interesting players this season. Two of them come of an excellent start into the new Adriatic League season. I took a closer look at them this week.

Nemanja Gordic (PG – 1m92 – 1988)

Nemanja Gordic is coming of a very interesting start into the season 2008/2009. Being the starting PG of the Montenegrin Buducnost Podgorica team, he plays big minutes in one of the most stacked leagues in Europe in terms of young talent.

Gordic lives essentially from his right handed drive, where he excels and tries mostly to go until the basket. He barely stops in the middle of his drive to go for a jump shot. Being a correct athlete, Gordic has the potential to finish against the big guys; however he sometimes floats away from them in order to avoid the block shot. He needs to go really aggressive in order to score or either get the foul call. With his powerful drives, he attracts the help on defense is he beats his defender and he can go for the dish to the open man. But he does not look like a real play maker at the moment, not looking like he is the boss on the court. He sometimes moves to the SG position depending on the setup of the team.

When it comes to long distance shots, Gordic has a nice jumper coming of a very high release. The problem is that he sometimes misses the necessary balance in the air and falls to his left side. However, if he has an open catch-and-shot situation, he can net the long distance. He can also come up with the 3 point shot out of the dribble, something he likes to do when he beats his defender with the left hand. It looks like his shot is not that regular so far as he only netted 7 out of 25 three pointers so far this season. Additionally, his free-throw percentage should improve as he goes to the line quite a few times.

On defense, Gordic mostly lives from his energy. He can press the opposing point guard full press and can recover easily when he gets beat of the dribble. However, he sometimes misses to come back into real defensive position when sprinting back at his man. With his athletic abilities, he can also go for some block shots on smaller guys when they try to pass him.

Vladimir Dasic (SF/PF – 2m06 – 1988)

Vladimir Dasic came of a fantastic summer where he led the Montenegrin U20 National Team during a great tournament in Riga. Now, it is time that he finally explodes on the Senior level too after dominating the different youth categories. And it looks like this season, he will find some kind of regularity in his game.

Dasic is still the very tall forward who can either play the SF or the PF position. While I see him more as a SF in the future, he has to play a lot of PF with his team right now, a position that he seems not to like that much. At least, his ups and downs in terms of concentration may be a sign of that. In one of the games I saw of him, Dasic missed one fastbreak layup, hit only the backboard on a top of the key three pointer and went for a lazy foul after being beat on a bad defensive positioning. And all this in only 30 seconds of play.

On the other hand, Dasic can erupt with some very nice scoring, either from long distance or in the paint. He is present on the offense rebound and is not afraid to go for post moves against bigger guys. As he runs the floor extremely well, he is difficult match-up for slower inside players as well as for shorter wing players. But for me, the main problem that remains is the concentration.

Currently, Dasic is averaging about 13 points per game in the Adriatic League after starting well with a 26 points effort at Vojvodina. Now, he goes for regular 10 +/- points every game. I will follow closely how this evolves and if he can handle to finish the season on this level or even improve.

Sead Sehovic (Guard – 1m96 -1989)

Sead Sehovic is a year younger than the two above mentioned and has only limited playing time so far. This is probably because he struggles really on the defensive end to guard his player. Being too late several times or helping out when you guard the best shooter are not the plays a coach needs from you. Offensively, Sehovic plays mostly on the SF position which may surprise a bit as he was more of a guard when he played with Montenegro this summer. His impact though is very limited at the moment. But he is definitely worth to follow because his nice size and correct athleticism makes him a interesting prospect.