Finally, we come to the big guys present in Douai. And here, the quality was rather high with some top European talent but also good prospects from Africa and the United States.

Donatas Motiejunas was of course the most talented of all the players in Douai. But he did not manage to lift his team higher than the 7th place. Is it the lack of quality guards in his Lithuanian U18 National or is Motiejunas not a go-to-guy type and leader? This is one of the questions that I asked myself after the tournament. His up and down performances and his trend to be quickly frustrated may make me tend to the second choice.

However, the great talent skill set that Motiejunas displays has no equivalent in Douai. Being 2m14 tall and showing barely and kind of major weaknesses in his game is quite an amazing asset. Posting up and scoring on nearly every ball he receives down low is not a problem as scoring from outside or on the drive. Motiejunas has also no problem to put the ball on the floor and we saw him several times bringing up the ball in fast break situations, and even going for a perfectly timed behind the back pass.

On the downside, Motiejunas seems really to be mentally not always focused or getting frustrated really quick after one or two missed plays. In the last game of the tournament, where he looked really motivated, he came up with way too many three-point shots in the end which he all missed. There was no reason for doing that and it raised once again the mental questions. Still, Motiejunas is probably behind Ricky Rubio the best prospect of the European 1990 generation.

Leon Radosevic is the real inside force for the Croatians. Great athlete and highly aggressive, Radosevic uses his large frame and great physical strength to be a dominator in the paint. As he can run well the floor, he is also a big asset in the fast break where he can conclude as a trailer with powerful dunks.

When he is working on the post, he draws a lot of fouls despite having any real go-to-move he likes to ue. He is more a banger who tries to go with his force to the rim, mostly after facing the basket. When he gets doubled, he can go for the pass to the cutter as well. His jump shot goes until around the key, even it looks not particularly precise from this area.

He prefers to go for the drive as he is mostly guarded by big guys that are slower than him. However, if you close his right hand he has a lot more problems to put the ball on the floor with the left and tries to go for spin moves to come back to his stronger right hand. In defense, he is present in rebounding and can become a big shot blocker.

Maik Zirbes did a nice job in the paint for the German team. He has a massive body and good size and athleticism. However, he was really afraid when playing against Team USA in the semis but did a good job offensively against Croatia for the third place.

His offensive arsenal is based on post-up play and pick-and-roll. From the post up position, Zirbes can score with a sort of jump hook which he protects with his massive body. He is doing pretty well on pick-and-roll situations where he rolls perfectly to the open spots in the lane to score on lay-ups. Additionally, he is a decent passer for a player of his size.

Despite great athletic abilities, he comes up with some soft moves when he has to attack the rim. This is not really understandable as he can go for huge powerful dunks even over people when he tries to. Zirbes also has three point range, but barely shots from the with the national team. Defensively, he was very weak. Laterally, he showed no real speed in defense but I think it is more a question will than anything else.

Enes Kanter was not the impressive presence that he was in Mannheim this time. Still, when he receives the ball down low, he is hard to stop. But this, most of the teams doubled him immediately and he sometimes does not know exactly what to do. When he forced to go to the rim, he even sometimes managed to score then. However, being 2 years younger than the competition, he must be considered as a tremendous prospect for the future.

Tanguy Ramassany is not the type of player that you see in this type of report. But he is a player I personally liked a lot. A massive inside player with no real offensive game but the hard will to do his dirty job in the rebound. Ramassany fights in the paint and is giving the opponents a hard job to attack against him. Far from being a high-level prospect, Ramassany can end up as a great defensive role player in a few years.

Kenny Frease was the best center of the tournament and I can approve that. Really wide body with some interesting moves back to the basket are the main characteristics of his play. He is not the biggest athlete in the world but he is making some damage due to his physical presence. He should be a nice addition for the Xavier Basketball program.

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In general, not a lot of good forward material was present in Douai. The most talented one would have been Tomislav Zubcic but he was not present with the Croatian National team. So I included some PF into this category in order to have some guys to talk about.

Carmel Bouchman was the surprising SF of the All-Tournament team. Surprising for two reasons. He barely played the SF position but mostly was working in the paint. And secondly, a SF Tournament team spot could have also been awarded to Mario Delas for example if they consider Bouchman as a SF. Whatever…

The 2m05 tall Forward from Maccabi Tel Aviv tried a lot of three pointers in the beginning of the first game I saw him in Douai. As he missed them all, he went a bit more under the basket to play some post game. During all his plays, he looks rather upright in his body but showing good control and knowing how to use his long frame to score.

Bouchman scored a lot of his baskets while cutting perfectly into open areas where he received the ball. Thanks to his correct athleticism, he can score in the paint but also with good shooting touch from outside the key. Additionally, he sees the cutters himself and is not afraid to give the nice dish to them if they are open.

Mario Delas is one of my favorite forwards of the 1990 generation. The Croat plays fundamentally based basketball and has all-around skills. His 2m08 give him the ideal size for the European Euroleague forward which may be his future in a couple of years. With his already nicely developed body, he makes a lot of damage in the paint but can also play from outside if he has a bigger defender.

In his post up game, where he can score in different ways by fade-away shots or back to the basket moves, he also can go for the nice pass for the cutter from the weak side. Hard fouls don’t bother him as he can score even when he gets hacked in the break or on the layup. As he is fairly athletic, Delas is also not afraid at all to throw down a big dunk in traffic if needed.

He has also a nice timing to block shots, even if his defensive game is not based on pure athletic skills. He is more a finesse and technique player, also on the defensive end of the court. In the game for the third place, he totally outplayed Maik Zirbes who guarded him during stretches as he used his nice speed to beat the German big guy off the dribble every time.

Furkan Aldemir is a 1991 born forward from Turkey who may not be the biggest statistical contributor but he is doing all the dirty work that you don’t see on the sheet afterwards. He is a nice athletic shot blocker who has also a good offensive rebounding presence. Offensively, he looks pretty limited so far, but in a Turkish team with a lot of scoring options, he is not the first option either. His contribution comes from setting hard screens and battling in the paint.

Chrislain Cairo, the 1991 born forward from INSEP, did a nice job coming of the bench to bring his athletic abilities and aggressiveness to the court. Playing a bit a similar role than Aldemir for Turkey, Cairo was more present on the offensive end where he also showed correct shooting touch from mid-distance.

Niels Giffey was the all-around forward for the German team that finished on a surprising 4th place. He is another 1991 born player that excels on the defensive end of the court where he even guarded the Croatian 2m10 beast Leon Radosevic in post-up moves. Giffey can play nearly all the positions from 1-4 on this level, which he showed also with the NBBL team of ALBA Berlin in the Top4. His well developed basketball fundamentals help him on the offensive end to get his scores. With one year more, he should be a pretty decent forward next season.

Mamadou Samb did not play anymore the Sunday’s game as he headed back to Barcelona. During Saturday’s action, he showed his nice arsenal of offensive scoring possibilities. Baseline jump shot is present as well as jump hook moves coming from the post. He was clearly the most developed player of the whole Adidas Nations Africa team.

Bandja Sy did play a nice tournament in Douai. The forward, that is currently at the Gran Canaria Basketball Academy is a terrific athlete who possesses also interesting basketball skills. He netted some nice three pointers even if he sometimes tends to jump a bit forward when taking his hsots. His ballhandling still remains a bit weak but this can be further developed in the future. A nice prospect for the future.

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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.

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Back in the Salle Corot for the Finals day of the tournament and the most important games of the week.

• 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

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I arrived this morning in Douai, the city of the Giants for the 22nd edition of the Douai World Tournament. And here are short recaps of the games from this Saturday.

• In the first game of the day, Israel destroyed Adidas Nations Africe with nearly 30 points. The Africans started the game in a zone defense which was immediately punished by the Israeli as they hit 4 three pointers to start the game. The first quarter continued in a total domination by the physically weaker Israeli guys. The 1st quarter ended 24-5. The game was then going on a bit and Israel finished this one easily to win 76-48. The main scorers for Africa was once again Mamadou Samb who had 20pts and 8 rebs. Africa that plays without a real PG struggled a lot against the aggressive defense by Israel, they lost a total of 28 balls. For Israel, Liran Moran did a great job from behind the arc where he hit 6 out of his 10 attempts to finish the game at a scoring high of 22pts in 27 minutes of play.
• The second game of the day was a very close one between two of the most talented teams with some high potentials in their roster. Surprisingly, this was only for the places 5-8 of the tournament as both teams could have gone for the Final. But the results are the results. So it was Turkey that beat Lithuania 94-89 in a very nice game. The Turks, where Enes Kanter is present but not as dominating as during the AST (he got doubled on every touch), had a nice team effort with 4 scorers in double figures. They were led by their 1991 born scorer Can Mutaf who had 23pts, 6rebs, 3asts and 3stls. Deniz Kilicli came up with his unorthodox play only in the second half but had some very bad choices in his passes. For Lithuania, Donatas Motiejunas showed once again his incredible talent but could not win the game for the Greens. He got some support by the surprisingly athletic Gilvydas Biruta who scored 14pts in just 15 minutes.
• In the first semi-final, Germany got beaten easily by a Team USA that dominated the paint with ease. The German big guys seemed heavily afraid in the beginning of the game and so the semi was decided after Quarter 1 (20-7). The Germans did well during several minutes after the break when they were more aggressive on defense, but they could never come back in the game. Maurice Stuckey was still the best scorer of the team as he was not afraid to go scoring against the bigs. The Urspring guard who came of the bench had 18pts (6/17 FG) together with 3rebs 4asts and 3stls. For Team USA, big guy Kenny Frease scored 14 and grabbed 14 impressive rebounds while the tiny PG Nic Wise topped all the scorers with 22.
• The second semi-final saw France beating Coratia in a thriller 75-73. The game did not look like it was going to be close as Croatia directly started with a 9-0 in the first minute. But an incredible 28-2 run by the French changed the game completely. However, the Croats managed to come back in the game and have a chance to win it on the buzzer but the shot from Toni Prostran was too short. France was led by the surprising Jonathan Bourhis who scored 22pts. For Croatia, which plays without Tomislav Zubcic, Mario Delas had 17pts and 7rebs while Sven Smajlagic scored 21pts, had 6rebs and 5asts.
• The three point contest has been won by the Israeli Rub Omer with 10pts in the Final against the French PG Jonathan Bourhis.
• The level of the tournament this year is correct. Unfortunately, the system of the groups forced a team like Lithuania to play now for the last place despite being probably one of the most talented squads. On the other hand, Germany was not really a semi-final team but had won the games the had to win.
• Because of the NBA Draft, not a lot of NBA teams were present in Douai. We just saw one team represented and several NCAA and European scouts but in general, less than the years before.
• We heard from sources that the French coaching staff was not motivated to reach the Final because they have booked (as only team) their return tickets to Paris for tomorrow night. The player however won the game and now the coaches asked to advance the Final for half an hour in order to catch their train. I don’t know if that will happen. We will have more on this incredible story tomorrow.

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The 22nd Douai World Tournament started yesterday evening but before the official opening, Team USA played an exhibition game against Adidas Nations Africa.

And it was Africa that defeated the USA in this first game 66-63. Team USA played reportedly without two of their announced top stars, Demar DeRozan and Tyreke Evans who only will arrive today.

On Day 1, Croatia destroyed Team USA while Lithunia had a short win over Israel in the group phase. Germany had a nice win against Turkey, a team they lost against in the Albert Schweitzer Tournament a few weeks ago. Erik Land was the top scorer for the Germans with 18pts. France had not too many problems to beat Team Africa where Mamadou Samb had a game high 30pts and 13rebs.

Day 2 saw a 3 point victory for Lithuania against Croatia while Team USA defeated Israel. This means that the Lithuanians are already qualified for the semi-finals. Team USA will play Israel on Friday in order to have a slight chance to advance to the  semi-finals in the case of a eventual defeat of Croatia against Israel. In the other group Germany defeated France and qualified a bit surprisingly for the semis. France and Turkey will most likely play a sort of a final in order to qualify for the last four on Friday evening.

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Find the Douai Blog here.

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So here is the full squad that will be in Douai from 25th to 29th June 2008.

• Brandon Jennings (1m78 – PG – Rivals Rank #4)
• Demar DeRozan (1m98 – SG – #3)
• Tyreke Evans (1m96 – SG – #6)
• Jeff Withey (2m13 – C – NR)
• Kenny Frease (2m13 – C – #42)
• Oscar Bellfield (1m88 – PG – NR)
• Tyler Griffey (2m01 – SF – NR)
• Howard Thompkins (2m04 – PF – #30)
• Travis Releford (1m96 – SF – #70)
• Anthony Stover (2m10 – C – NR)
• Augustine Rubit (2m08 – PF – NR)
• Brendan Lane (2m05 – SF – NR)

The other teams participating are the defending champions Israel, Turkey, Lithuania, France, Croatia, Germany and Adidas Nations Africa. The Semi-Finals will be played on the 28th June at 16h30 and 19h30 while the Final will be on the 29th June at 16h00. See you in Douai.

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Today, the officials of the Douai tournament announced the names of the 8 participating teams in this year’s edition. And I have to call it teams, as there won’t be National teams only.

So this year, you can follow from 25th to 29th June besides 6 National teams 2 other teams sponsored by the Adidas Nations Program. First of all you will have the USA Team which will feature as previously reported Tyreke Evans, Lance Stephenson or Luke Babbit. Additionally, there will be an Adidas Nations team including 12 top prospects from Africa.

According to Draftexpress, two names that we could see with the African team would be Youssoupha Mbao and Negueba Samake. But I could also imagine Roger Zaki or some of the top prospects we saw in Hospitalet join the team for Douai.

For the 6 National teams, we will see of course home team France. Additionally, there will the last year’s winner Israel, Turkey, Croatia, Lithuania and finally Germany.

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• An interesting update in Spanish about Giorgi Shermadini including some interesting videos of the Georgian seven footer.
• NBA Draft.net has translated an article about another European giant: Boban Marjanovic
• The Douai Tournament organisation confirmed the following participants for this year’s edition: France, USA, Croatia, Turkey, Israel, Germany and Lithuania. There is one spot to be filled and the potential candidates are Australia, Adidas Nations Africa Team, Belgium, Spain or Serbia.
• Tibor Pleiss, Marko Keselj and Philip Schwethelm are free agents probably after their team Köln 99ers went bankrupt today. At least for Keselj, who is still owned by the Spanish team Girona who have loaned him to Cologne this year, it will be probably a new destination in the upcoming days. For the two German prospects, as the youth section of the team is not concerned, they will probably play for the NBBL team if they don’t get recruited by another team in the next days.

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