European Prospects

The 1993 born players competed in the first ever U17 World Championship in Hamburg this July. With the astonishing result of Poland and the disappointing ending of our #1 team Spain, there were some changes necessary. Here we go for the explanations.

1. Poland (+3)

Poland is now the clear-cut #1 team in our 1993 born players Ranking. The Polish team impressed in Hamburg and beat all European teams that they played against. They even destroyed nations like Serbia or Germany by more than 30 points while they had more trouble to overcome Spain and Lithuania. No other nation has so much talent through out all positions and several players look like they are far from having finished their development. That’s why I put Poland at the top of our newest Ranking. With the exception of the PG position, these players might be the future of the Polish Senior National Team in a few years. Additionally, players like Przemyslaw Karnowski, Mateusz Ponitka or Tomasz Gielo have already a big impact on the Polish U18 team that competes in Lithuania at the moment. This will probably be the golden generation for Poland that is the base of their basketball for the next decade.

2. Lithuania (+1)

Lithuania goes for the 2nd spot as they managed to reach the 4th place at the World Championship and beat all European teams they faced except Poland. The team even missed two key players in Tauras Jogela and Ignas Ramasauskas. However, the upside of this generation seems to be a bit limited despite the good results and they look like over-achievers. On the other hand, some players like Mantas Mockevicius and especially Simonas Kymantas have made good progress.

3. Serbia (-1)

Serbia drops one place because there is no real positive development recognizable with this generation. Nenad Miljenovic remains one of the most talented players overall but he is still trying to find his real position and his impact on the team in Hamburg was limited to some moments where he took over. Nemanja Bezbradica showed his limits against taller players in the post while Luka Mitrovic was however one of the nice developments of the last year. The generation needs to become more stable in terms of results in order to move upwards again in the ranking.

4. Spain (-3)

The biggest deception was of course Spain after having won the Gold Medal last summer in Lithuania. The team led by Jaime Fernandez had an incredible run through the Final games last summer but could not even qualify for the second phase in Hamburg after defeats against Australia, Canada or Germany. However, their U16 Gold Medal is still valid and it will be interesting to see how these players will do on the U18 level next summer. That will be decisive on their future classification on the 1993 born players ranking.

8. Germany (-)

After a tremendous result at the Albert-Schweitzer Tournament this spring, the German 1993 generation moved upwards in our Ranking. However, the team could not really improve these results in Hamburg and finished 8th in the end. The team looked to run out of gas a bit in the end after the year-long preparation for the event and was probably on its highest level already in Mannheim. We keep them at the 8th spot and will follow them in the future in order to see if they deserve a better ranking.

All the other teams remained at their position. See the full Ranking here.