European Prospects

Every year, the Adidas Eurocamp in Treviso is the place to go for NBA Teams in order to scout the European Draft prospects. But the camp does not always invite all the Early-Entrants or Automatically eligible players that are out there. This year, 6 Early Entrants are not on the list as of today so we checked with their respective agents to get a feeling how the players are doing at the moment and how they see the current situation of their players concerning the NBA Draft.

Jonas Wohlfarth-Bottermann is one of the players where we were very surprised to not see him on the participants list, especially if there are two other Germans present that are not early-entrants or auto-eligible. The 2m07 tall big guy might have only played in the German 2nd League on loan at Rhöndorf but he had a great year and is certainly one of the players with the most upside in Germany. His agent Geert Hamminck confirmed us that WoBo has not been invited to the camp and is currently just in a “stand-by” status. However, there are several NBA team that showed some interest in him but no names have been revealed. The future of his NBA Draft process depends a bit if Wohlfarth-Bottermann gets a last-minute call-up for Treviso or not. So far, he has not worked out for any NBA Team but this might come if he will not be present in Treviso. The German has still 3 more years left in his contract with Telekom Baskets Bonn but he has an opt-out for this summer and gets some interest from other teams as well. However, Bonn seems to be cleaning up the roster in order to find playing time for their most talented prospect.

The second German that did not get an invite for the camp is the Crailsheim Merlins player Femi Oladipo. Like Wohlfarth-Bottermann, he played in the ProA this season where he earned a Youngster of Month award in October. His agent Gerrit Kersten-Thiele told us that his player did not get invited to the Adidas Eurocamp and the reasons that he was told of are because Oladipo was under the radar and only played in the 2nd division. For Oladipo, the next days look similar to those of WoBo as well, waiting and hoping for a last-minute call and according to that, the future will be decided in terms of individual workouts. So far, Kersten-Thiele got some positive feedback from the teams that have seen the athletic forward but nothing really specific in terms of indications or draft positions. Anyhow, the current trend is that Oladipo will play with a Bundesliga team next season but no rumors on his future destination have come up yet.

Tornike Shengelia was already at the Adidas Eurocamp last summer. However this year, despite being an Early-Entry, he has not appeared on the official list of participants. His agent Levan Mikeladze is still hoping that a spot opens up because of last-minute cancellations but even if he does not get in, it is not particularly dramatic as the Georgian forward has two more years before becoming automatically eligible. Mikeladze adds that the NBA teams that show interest in Shengelia probably do this on the long term. For the near future, Shengelia will most likely go back to Spirou Charleroi where he still has a two years of contract left. The 1991 born forward played on loan this season for the Belgian team Verviers-Pepinster where he averaged 6.5ppg and 4.1rpg.

The 5A’s agency of Pascal Levy has directly two players that have put their name into the NBA Draft 2011 pool and did not get invited to Treviso. We speak about Negueba Samake and Abdoulaye Loum. While the first one really had a poor season without playing a lot and moving around from team to team, Loum had a correct Espoirs year with Le Havre. However, nobody of the agency answered our questions on the Draft status of the players. The case of Nikola Mirotic is probably a bit different and will be treated in a separate article next week.