European Prospects

I have spent this 1st of May in the Palalido in Milano, Italy to follow the final day of the 25th edition of the Victor Rho Tournament. Unfortunately, this year’s edition did not feature the same amount of talent than the years before because of the International Junior Tournament played in Madrid. For this reason, Real Madrid and FMP were only present with their reserve players in Rho and some smaller teams took profit of this situation.

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• The Euroleague has announced the winner of its Rising Star Trophy: it is Danilo Gallinari. I thought it would be Nikola Pekovic though but the selection committee took the Italian.
• Today starts the Victor Rho tournament for U18 and U14 teams. All infos can be found on the official website. A few names from the announced rosters: Dejan Musli, B.J. Mullens, Nikola Mirotic, Mirza Sarajlija, Mario Delas, Nemanja Jaramaz. Europeanprospects will be in Rho for the Final Day of the competition.
• The following 8 teams will play the Nike International Junior Tournament during the Final Four in Madrid: FMP Zeleznik (Hospitalet and Belgrade Tournament winner), FC Barcelona (Hospitalet runner-up), Lietuvos Rytas (Belgrade runner-up), Cibona Zagreb (Belgrade 3rd placed), Zalgiris Kaunas (title holder), Real Madrid (host), Maccabi Tel Aviv (Wildcard) and Red Star Belgrade (Wildcard. Europeanprospects will be present in Madrid.
• Vladimir Stimac from Valmiera got elected MVP of this year’s edition of the Baltic League. A very surprising title for the young Serbian Center.
• German prospect Robin Benzing, who is actually playing for Langen in ProA will most likely join the NCAA next season despite risking a one year suspension for breaching the NCAA rules like it happened to Lucca Staiger and Fabian Boeke this year. He is in close contact to sign with Fresno State.

A little bit later than usual, but here it is again: the European Prospects Mock Draft Review. After adapting the formula to calculate a bit in order to take into account the update dates of the different mocks, here we are with the results as of today.

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This weekend were played the Slovenian U19 championships in a Final Four modus in the hometown of the Mario Primorac Basketball school. The former player of ALBA Berlin reached as coach the semi-finals of the championship with his team but lost there against KK Parklji. The Finals have been dominated by KD Geoplin Slovan.

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This Friday, three very interesting French prospects have been on the court together in Pau in the league game between Pau-Orthez and Cholet. I speak of course of Ludo Vaty, Nando de Colo and Rodrigue Beaubois. Here is a short recap of the games of the three players.

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The German 2nd and 3rd leagues are featuring some very interesting young players. The BBL Bundesliga is dominated by foreigners, so a lot of youth players chose to player for a second or third division team in order to get some playing time and gain experience. Now, the league elected their most rewarding youngsters and here are the results.

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Virtually unknown on the European Basketball scene before last weekend, the Norwegian Torgrim Sommerfeldt was probably the biggest surprise in the World roster of the Nike Hoop Summit. I checked with him after his return to Norway how did he ended up in Portland and what his future plans are.

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While not having seen the game (if anyone wants to send me a copy would be nice 🙂 ), I had to take a look at what the other websites are saying about the Europeans present in Portland. I found a nice article from SI.com taking a look particularly at Serge Ibaka and Alexis Ajinca.

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As I will be off this weekend, I give your some picks to follow the Nike Hoops Summit which will be held this weekend in Portland.

• A first look at the World team by OregonLive
• History repeating for some German? Dirk Nowitzki broke out on the US scene with his Hoops Summit performance and comments on the future of Tim Ohlbrecht.
• The Canadian view
• Draftexpress is of course covering the event intensively
• For the Spanish readers is this website probably the best on to follow the event
• If you want to follow discussions in German about the event, here is the right place
• World Select Team coach Rob Beveridge about the talent he has this year.
• Preview of the official Trailblazers website on the World Team
• Finally, the official website

This Saturday will be played the already traditional Nike Hoop Summit in Portland. I have selected a couple of Internet clips of the European based players that will participate in this year’s edition.

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