European Prospects

After the in-detail reports about Lithuania and France, I will take a closer look at the players that stood out in my eyes with the four other non-European participants in Douai. The reports on these players will not be as detailed of course as they are not in the focus of this website.

Let’s start with the MVP of the tournament that went to the Canadian forward Kelly Olynyk. The 2m11 tall forward showed excellent versatility for a player of his size. Being used mostly at the SF spot, Olynyk showed great speed at most of his plays came of drives, often with his left hand. He had one very spectacular play with a left handed drive finished of a powerful two handed dunk. He has also three point range and together with Elias Harris, he should form a very interesting forward duo at Gonzaga next season.

To stay with Gonzaga Canadians, Mangisto Arop had only a limited tournament due to his knee injury; a problem that is probably not that important as you could see him go for two handed dunks of two feet in the fast break. Arop looks like he has gained some weight since I saw him last spring in Mannheim during the Albert Schweitzer Tournament. He showed still his trademark slow looking long steps drives attacking the rim baseline. He recognizes well his defender and sees how to beat him, either on penetration but also going down low to post him up.

It is very difficult to take one player out of the Australian team that was probably the most homogenous of the whole tournament with equal talent going from position 1 to 12 in the rotation. It was a bit sad to see Jorden Page absent because of an injury and only being present to tape the team’s games. I took out Cody Ellis of the roster as he is a player that I did not really remember from the AST last year. He does not look pretty amazing as a basketball player but he knows how to score the basketball. He has a nice spin move and combined with good handles, he excels on the drive. His catch and shoot mechanics look very good even if most of his plays come from penetration or close to the hoop plays. Together with Christian Salecich, he should be a very nice addition for the St. Louis Billikens the next season.

Mike Rosario was clearly the main scorer when it comes to Puerto Rico. Playing the 2 guard or even sometimes on the SF position, Rosario was not afraid to take every open look that he could get. Long distance three, tear drop on the penetration play or especially the defensive plays on the passing lane made him on of the best scoring talents of the tournament. A thing that surprised me though is that Rosario is not really the quickest guy around nor the most explosive one.

On the US team, Jordan McRae was the player that impressed me the most. Displaying fantastic athletic abilities, the Liberty County High School player showed also great touch from behind the three point line.