European Prospects

The third and last day of the Adidas Eurocamp started probably a bit too early for most of the followers after a night with a NBA Final as the gym was virtually empty when the morning session started.

It was quite an interesting morning though with lots of 4 vs 4 drills in transition where the players really pushed hard after a day without games for most of them. Lots of high-level plays could be seen and some prospects really stood out like the Cuban Howard Sant-Ross or Raul Neto again. After this opening, the shooting drills came where a small shooting chart was established for about half of the participants. Without much of a surprise, Danilo Andjusic and Oleksandr Lypovyy excelled in this exercise but the above mentioned Sant-Ross showed also a good shooting touch with 19/25 mid-range jumpers and 15/25 NBA three pointers.

The first game of the day saw Team USA go against Serbia U19 and it were the Europeans who dominated this contest. Djoko Salic used his big body quite well against the Americans that are of his generation but lacked the power to match him up. He got the support by Vasilije Micic who outsmarted the US guards on several occasions and a surprising Ognjen Dobric who finished with 13 pts, 9 rebs and 3 blks.

The afternoon session started with a really good game between campers as the talent level of both teams was quite high. Ondrej Balvin continued his very good camp as the big Czech established position down low on multiple occasions and showed a good touch from close and nice passing skills. Vitalis Chikoko could use the absence of the Brazilian big men pair Lima and Nogueira on his team to move to the PF position where he showed some nice skills. He  had a terrific baseline drive finished by a dunk and showed also that he can use his 88 inch wingspan well on defense to deflect shots and passes. Guillermo Hernangomez was the third string on this great inside trio as the Spaniard displayed above-average smartness and excellent rebounding and passing.

On the other side, the Swede Viktor Gaddefors underlined his overall good cap with a 17pts, 5stls, 4asts performance which made him one of the best players of the day in terms of stats. Constantly attacking the basket but also capable to knock down shots, Gaddefors showed that the move to Italy a few years ago was right. Joan Sastre helped him on the wing in his typical smooth and fluid style either shooting from outside or the lanky drives to the basket. Sastre is moving very well without the ball and took profit of the good reads of his team mate Jaime Fernandez. The Brazilian Lucas Mariano also had a good game which crowned his interesting camp as he was more an unknown prospect to most the European scouts in attendance.

The level of the second campers game was a bit lower but nevertheless, some players stood out. Klemen Prepelic was a man among kids with his Euroleague experience as the Slovenian guard played his game very calmy without looking for the highlight. He shot well from the NBA line (4/6 3FGs) and could add three assists to an overall nice performance. Mindaugas Kupsas came up late in this camp as the Lithuanian giant netted some baskets in this game but he will probably lack the necessary speed to become a NBA level talent. Artem Pustovyi could not continue on the level of the first day as the Ukrainian finished with 0 points this afternoon. Janis Timma showed some good aggressive basketball but was stopped by an eye injury in the second half but his overall camp was promising. Clint Capela did a bit the same as Kupsas did as the Swiss athlete used the last minutes of the game to have some nice plays underlining his physical potential.

The last game of the day was played between a new All-Star selection and the French U20 National Team. Driven by Boris Dallo and an out of position William Howard at PF, France challenged the All-Stars hard where Howard Sant-Ross saved the best for last. Unfortunately, I had to leave at half time to catch my flight back home so that I could not follow the game to the end.

In the next days, there will be reports on the main prosects coming up on the website, so keep following.