We have talked already about this movie once but as the NBA Draft 2010 is approaching, I can only highly recommend again this film created by the French Nicolas de Virieu who accompanied Nicolas Batum and Alexis Ajinca to the 2008 NBA Draft. Even if the movie is only available in French, all the English dialogues have been subtitled so that a major part is understandable by anybody. Have fun watching the two Frenchmen fulfilling their dreams and get drafted by an NBA team and get an inside look to the whole NBA Draft process.

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Nicolas de Virieu is a French Documentary movie maker that has produced a lot of highly interesting movies about Basketball. Among them, you can find different portraits or coverage of the famous Slam Nation dunkers in their worldwide tours. For fans of young European basketball players, two films are highly recommended.

The first movie covers the NBA Draft preparation in 2008 of the two French players Nicolas Batum and Alexis Ajinca. You can see how they fly around the States to do their different workouts, how they get interviewed and how the “hype” is created by their agency in order to get them drafted by the “right” franchise. Even if the move is in French, all English dialogues are subtitled in French. See below the Trailer and watch the full movie at Nicolas’ Dailymotion account.

The second movie covers the U19 World Championship in Serbia of the French 1988 generation around Nicolas Batum, Alexis Ajinca and Antoine Diot. Watch the Trailer of the movie below and the full movie can be seen here.

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Nicolas Batum, who got cleared today by US hospitals that he can play basketball and that his heart “problem” was probably the result of fatigue, is one of the players that has been covered extensively here. Read how he progressed over the last years here.

Let’s start with the Albert Schweitzer Tournament in 2006 and the MVP trophy for the French forward.

MVP of the tournament, Nicolas Batum showed great shooting skills. He is a very good catch and shoot player of the screen coming from under the basket up and getting the ball to hit immediately the shot either straight up or as a fade away. Fantastic athlete and great hustle on defense. He looks unimpressed by the game, always calm and without emotions. Batum had a fantastic scoring percentage for a guard/forward with 60%. He looks like an all-time talent that can easily become a contributor on the next level.

In Douai 2006, I have made the following video of Nicolas Batum together with his team mate Ludo Vaty.

During the U18 European Championships in Summer 2006, Nicolas Batum won another MVP trophy.

Nicolas Batum was voted MVP of the tournament. He is the top talent of his age group and he has absolute NBA talent. He is developing in a very good way, as he is a hard worker. He has all the tools to become a top forward on the NBA level. Some people question his motivation as he is “disappearing” during some games. (a weakness also matched with Boris Diaw in his early NBA games, but you all know how well he developed) On the defensive end, he still has some problems to stop smaller or quicker players, but this is just a question of time before he also has the necessary defense force to stop that type of player. He still can block them as his shot blocking skills are amazing. His shot looks pretty “mechanic”, but he scores with high percentages which is the most important.

In November 2006, Nicolas Batum had his first great Euroleague game in a clash with the Greek top team of Olympiacos.

In this weeks Euroleague matchup between Le Mans and Olympiakos, Nicolas Batum had his best game on a professional level so far. Getting a lot of minutes because of the injury of Bogavac and Alain Koffi, as well as the departure of Mate Skelin, the young French SF played 25 minutes and scored a career-high 15 points. He also made a good defensive job guarding Alex Acker who scored his 21 points mainly when Batum was on the bench. Nicolas started well with a three point shot that gave him some confidence. His hoot still looks pretty strange but he is not afraid to take the three pointer now. He has to add this as a regular weapon as he was mainly using his physical tools to score. But he can hit from everywhere, especially of the pick.
He was using his penetration skills to draw some fouls and he was perfect from the line. All in all, it was a complete game as he added 4rebs, 2asts and 2 steals as well as 1 block shot.
Coach Collet seems to give him more and more playing time as in this weekends LNB game, he played once again 25 minutes. He proves his value and with the return from Bogavac from injury, Batum can not be benched again for the whole game after his performances of the last games.

Of this game, I had also made a detailed video analysis of Batum’s skills.

In April 2007, Nicolas Batum had a great showing during the Nike Hoop Summit.

Nicolas Batum came clearly out of the game as the top prospect, which he was already before the game. He is the most talented and experienced player of the whole World team, and he showed this during the practices and during the game. Without him on the court, the USA team could make a 19-0 run to get a 40-13 lead in the second quarter.
His agent already announced that Batum will be in the Draft 99% sure, even if Batum declared himself directly after the game that “(…) it is an ambition, a dream to play in the NBA for me but I will go into the draft in 2008, not 2007. I am not getting too excited about all the talk.” So we will see what will going on with him when the deadline approaches.

In June 2007, Nicolas had a nice appearance at the Douai Tournament in order to prepare the U19 World Championships of that summer.

The absolute top talent on the French squad is Nicolas Batum. He can dominate the game at will. It looks like he only plays when he needs to, if the opposition is not that hard, he tries to get his teammates more involved. In the game on Saturday against Team USA, a weaker team, Batum was not trying to much offensive plays. He only took 8 shots during that game, and made 6 out of them. However he had 4 assists during that game. Against Australia on Sunday, he took the game in his hand doing everything on the court. But in the last minutes, it was not him anymore that was going to make the points to win the game, and France lost the game.
On the technical side of his game, there is not much to add anymore, his forces are already well known. However, I saw once again slight progression on his shooting mechanics which are still a little unstable. His shot looks sometimes little different, but he makes it so this is not a big issue. But he is working hard to stabilize his shooting mechanism. He has become indeed a quite serious three-point shooter which is a nice addition to his game and opens him a lot more possibilities. He has also the gift of making shots in crucial moments with very high percentages. You could see him score on a three pointer at the 24 second buzzer for example.
Batum will be a big contributor next season with Le Mans in the Euroleague and after that season, he should be ready to attack the next level.

During this U19 World Championships, Nicolas Batum had a so-so performance with a more team orientated playing style, that his coach ask him to go for.

Nicolas Batum once again showed what a big talent he is, but he also showed that he is becoming more and more a player that wants to involve his teammates instead of making the difference on his own. You can consider this as an asset and say, they reached the bronze medal. But you can also say that he has to take the game in his hand in the crucial minutes to be the decisive player. But he has not reached that level so far.

In October 2007, I had another opportunity to take a close look at Nicolas during a French League game.

I had the possibility to watch Nicolas Batum‘s first real top level game this season. The 18 year old forward from Le Mans finished its game with 16pts, 6rebs and 3 assists in a loss of his team in Gravelines this week. But what is behind these figures, that look promising, but his team lost already his second game in three starts.

Batum started the game on the SG position next to Yannick Bokolo who has the role as starting PG. In the first minutes, you could see already the typical Batum movements like catching the ball with one hand and immediately going to dribble out of a turn. His first play in the game was however a nice steal on an inside pass from his opponent. He continued with a great sprint over the court where he showed amazing speed for a player of his size. He is listed now at 2m04 without shoes. He finished the fast break easily with an impressive two handed dunk. Then came something that characterized his plays throughout the game. He received the ball on the free-throw line for an in-out fake and a jump shot. His shot still looks perfectible as his arms does not stretch out completely on his move. And the open shot did not fall. He continued then with a nice assist for a posting teammate and tried a drive on his right hand which he wanted to finish of an acrobatic up and under lay-up in MJ style, but he missed. Came then a first attempt from behind the arc, which he missed too. His last play in the first quarter was a powerful drive from the top where he missed the floating layup, but he came up quickly from the floor to tip the ball in that was playing around the rim.

In the second quarter, there was nothing extraordinary to be noticed by Batum. He was on the bench for some time and when he was on the court, he was very discreet.

He started the the third quarter again, with a missed three point attempt. But you could see already that he is clearly the first offensive option on the team for the outside play. In defense, he blocked a shot and could give a great assist out of his running dribble in the next offense for a team mate’s dunk. He had later then a very elegant baseline drive, on his right hand, which he finished on a nice underhand up and under layup where he showed his fantastic shooting touch around the basket. He continued in the third quarter with another missed jump shot from the free-throw line. On an airball of one of his team mates, he was coming off the weak side to tip it directly into the basket with his two hands. He showed here his good eye for the offensive rebound which is one of his better abilities. His right hand drive helped him then to go through the whole defense to finish on a spectacular one hand dunk. He then took a charge on mid court defending the opposing PG.

In the last quarter then, we could also see the other face of Batum. He disappeared after another score on an offensive rebound. But what you could also see that was that now he was not anymore the first option of his team. The setups ended mostly on difficult shots but other guards or by forcing inside play. Batum was not yet the leader that really asked for the ball from the veteran players. But he was clearly the most talented of them and showed it also during the first and third quarter. Still, his jump shot needs some improvement, especially on the shooting mechanics which are perfectible. But on the drive and on offensive rebounding, his skills are amazing for an 18 year old kid, that only turns 19 in December.

An update on his Euroleague debut against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Nicolas Batum made his debut against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday and he showed some good improvement. His all-around game is more developed than ever, but still the same problems persist. Still, his outside shot is far from being regular, but he compensates with improved passing and especially great instincts on the defensive end where he collected 6 steals. His impressive wingspan but also his understanding of the game help him to intercept especially on the passing lines more than being a “out-of-the-hand” steal type of player. His presence on the offensive end is going way above being a simple scorer. He is always looking for the open team mate and he is even going too far in that area becoming a bit of a Boris Diaw type of pass-first, pass-second, shoot third player. This may also be the result of his non-confidence in his shooting from outside. Concerning his shot, you still see that his arm is not completely stretched out in the shooting move.

At the end of December 2007, I made an update on his progression.

When you check his numbers in the Euroleague, you see dramatically improved figures in scoring (9.0ppg from 4.3ppg last season) on nearly the same shooting percentages. So, even if his scoring aggressiveness has improved, he has still not developed a more reliable jump shot, especially from behind the three-point line where he remains average with only 29%. You can however mention his shooting extravaganza in the home game against Maccabi Tel Aviv where he went perfect all throughout the game. If you take that game away, Batum was at a poor 5/24 from behind the arc.

A category where he really improved is the assist section. He showed already during the U19 World Championships during the Summer that he can create for his teammates. He even went too far in that exercise in some occasions. So he has translated this passing skills into his game with Le Mans too. He is averaging correct 2.7apg in 27mpg which I consider as interesting and even improvable.

The main weakness besides his shooting remains the regularity in his game. Batum can come up with monster games or stretches where he dominates, but then he disappears for some moments or comes up with poor games. I saw several Euroleague matches of Le Mans this season and Batum was never the go-to-guy in the Final minutes. He even was not on the court on some of these moments as he was not able to take the ball and make the big plays. This is the part of his game that he needs to improve the most as he has all the qualities to do it. He just needs the confidences to do it.

There we are right now for Nicolas Batum who fell down in the different mocks recently due to his possible health issues. As this has been resolved, he should end up somewhere in the middle to the late first round.

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A few days before the NBA Draft, I will give you recaps of my former reports on the European Early Entrants so that you can see a bit their development. I will also add the current status.

To start with, here is a short report I had on Ajinca from the 2006 Albert Schweitzer Tournament.

Ajinca looked a lot better than one year ago, when I saw him playing for the last time. He has improved nearly in every part of the game which shows that he has very good potential. Even if his legs still look very thin, his upper body has gained some muscle over the last year. He can beat his opponent on the drive nearly every time, but he is not forcing it. His leaping ability is fabulous, he made two alley-oops really above the rim on the set play. His ball handling skills on the drive a very good for a seven-footer, but he showed some problems catching the ball on the passes from his teammates. Has still no back to the basket game, when he gets the ball in the post-up, he turns to face his opponent and tries to beat him like this. But what impressed me the most, was his improvement on shot blocking. One year ago, he nearly jumped on every fake to block a shot, committing a lot of fouls. Now he stands in front of his opponent with his arms raised, and he only jumps when his opponent goes up. All in all, his progression since last year was impressive.

During the 2006 U18 European Championship, I had the following report on the French seven-footer.

He has even been compared to Kevin Garnett by some people, which is an unfair comparison at the moment. He still has incredible mobility for a player of his size but he lacks of physical density. The problem I see with this is that if he bulks up, he will loose his excellent speed which makes him so special. If he concentrates on a role of a defensively minded shot blocker, he has NBA potential as he can be considered already now as a world-class shot blocking talent.

Ajinca moved to Pau-Orthez then where he wanted to earn Euroleague minutes. I had the opportunity to see his first minutes on the highest European level in December 2006.

This week, Alexis Ajinca had his Euroleague debut. He played one minute in the game against Fenerbahce, where he had the time to take two three point shots. Of course, this limited playing time did not show anything of his talent, but nevertheless it was a first experience on the highest level for this kid. He still looks extremely thin, and he still plays outside being 7 foot tall. His first shot was totally out of reach, but the second one already could have gone in with a little more luck. It will be interesting to see if he can crack the rotation in the upcoming weeks.

In March 2007, Ajinca had his longest Euroleague minutes with Pau in a game against TAU Vitoria and Tiago Splitter.

A problem that consist with Alexis Ajinca who had the most minutes of the season in this game. He remained scoreless with his two only shots being three pointers again. He started with a nice drive but ran into the defender getting an offensive foul. He had one good action on an offensive board where he tipped the ball to his teammate who could score at the buzzer. But he struggled a lot on defense, where he got totally overpowered by Splitter in the rebound. He had tremendous problems to block out his man after a free-throw. But he needs really to get stronger if he wants to have any chance to play in the Euroleague more often. But still being really young, he has some time; but he needs to avoid injuries if he does not want to get thrown back in his evolution all the time.

In April 2007, Ajinca participated at his first Nike Hoop Summit where he finished a disappointing season with Pau-Orthez.

Alexis Ajinca was for most writers a disappointment; I think he showed exactly what he is, a great prospect but far away from being a player that is ready. His problems to play against physical opponents was already known to anybody that has seen him play this year. I guess that his selection hurt his stock considerably, as he showed his game during practice but he can not translate it at the moment to the court.
Of course, he will not enter the Draft this year, and he needs to bulk up a lot during the next months or totally change his game to a more SF orientated position where physical tools are not as needed as when playing in the paint.

In June 2007, Ajinca played with the French U19 team during the World Championships in Serbia.

The long and still thin Alexis Ajinca is developing into a defensive role player at the moment who uses his incredible wingspan to block shots and disturb opponents. Offensively he is physically to weak to to go for any inside moves but he knows how to use his speed to face his opponents and beat them off the dribble.

In the summer 2007, Alexis Ajinca moved from Pau to Hyères-Toulon where he was expected to get more playing time. Which he did. And he developed more and more into a physical inside player.

You can see his impressive showing in the second quarter where he was everywhere. He came up with some really impressive shot blocking action on the defensive end.

In the offense, he showed some presence in the paint going up for some explosive dunks. He looked really powerful on his plays and even if the physical development is still not finished, he already showed some improved upper body shape.

Of course, his huge wingspan helps him a lot as you can see in the clip, but what is really interesting for me is the fact that he looks like really working hard to become an inside player. As pointed out already, he is not taking any three point shots this season, he works in the paint to get his scores.

In February 2008, Ajinca had probably his best game of the season in the French Semaine des As, in front of many NBA scouts.

The second game of the first night brought up an astonishing defensive performance by Alexis Ajinca. The long seven footer is apparently developing into what will be his future position: defensive center. With 14 rebounds and 7 block shots, he was playing like a goal keeper in soccer. And even these 7 blocks seem to be under the absolute value of his performance as he declared that he had 10 blocks in the game in the press conference. After the nice offensive effort two weeks ago, Ajinca showed how present he can be in the defense and what he is capable of doing when he becomes stable in his play.

After his more than correct presence at the Nike Hoop Summit 2008, Ajinca impressed a lot of NBA teams in his recent workout and is one the edge of the lottery right now according to Draftexpress.com. This position is of course unexpected for somebody that was really down 1 year ago.

For the best plays of Alexis Ajinca this season in France: watch here

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Private workout of Alexis Ajinca (Part1)

Private workout of Alexis Ajinca (Part2)

Alexis Ajinca worked also out with the Charlotte Bobcats together with other seven-footers.

Victor Claver working out for the Portland Trailblazers.

Nicolas Batum works out for the Phoenix Suns together with some other forward prospects.

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The list of the European early-entrants has been published a few days ago, so I took the time to go over it and give you my opinion, who will get drafted, who will take his name out again and other thoughts on the list.

Alexis Ajinca
Outlook: will stay in the Draft and will probably go in the 1st round

Nicolas Batum
Outlook: will stay in the Draft and can go for a lottery pick. According to the different mocks, his stock was dropping however the last weeks.

Rodrigue Beaubois
Outlook: is in the pool for the 2nd time after his surprising declaration last year which gave him a huge buzz. This season, Beaubois is doing pretty well and could stay in if he gets a promise

Mikheil Berishvili
Outlook:???

Omri Casspi
Outlook: boosted his stock during the season with some very interesting performances. But will take his name out probably and go for another season playing in Europe

Victor Claver
Outlook: testing the waters in my opinion and we will see his name dropping out before the deadline

Nando de Colo
Outlook: probably testing the waters to see how high he can go. Played an outstanding season so his stock may be at its highest point right now.

Danilo Gallinari
Outlook: lottery pick

Serge Ibaka
Outlook: has to go for a good camp in Treviso in order to keep the buzz on him alive.

Sergey Ilin
Outlook: unknown but 7″6 tall

Jonas Jerebko
Outlook: a little surprise to see his name here. Jerebko will only test the waters and show his skills at the Reebok Treviso Camp and drop out

Mladen Jeremic
Outlook: another surprising name in this list. The same that coutns for Jerebko will also count for Jeremic: name advertising, Treviso, drop out

Maxym Korniyenko
Outlook: ???

Luc Louves
Outlook: did not see any minutes in France but could go for a Beaubois-like buzz 2008 edition

Rudy Mbemba
Outlook: has been in the Draft process for ages and played a great season in Sweden. But is that enough to stay in the candidate list?

Henk Norel
Outlook: Steady progess over the last years for the Dutch big man. He can use Treviso to show his potential and maybe some team falls in love with him like Joel Freeland

Maxim Sheleketo
Outlook: I am very surprised to see him here but this maybe the Latvian VEF Riga attack to the NBA.

Giorgi Shermadini
Outlook: has a promise for the 1st round according to his agent so he will stay in the Draft

Ante Tomic
Outlook: is this year the year of Ante Tomic? Maybe a 2nd round spot is the ideal for him so that he can develop 2 more years in a top European team.

Maksym Vilkhovetskyi
Outlook: name dropping and testing the waters. He will hit some threes in Treviso and take his name out.

Ronalds Zakis
Outlook: cf. Sheleketo

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