European Prospects

This question is certainly asked by a lot of NBA Draft followers over the last days since the Polish player declared as early entry candidate for the 2010 NBA Draft. We checked with our friends in Slovenia, as he is playing over there for a few years, if they could give a little more information on this so far most unknown European in the 2010 list. Here is what we got reported on Nowakowski.

The Polish player Tomasz Nowakowski (209cm, 1990) decided to enter and sign up for NBA Draft 2010. Nowakowski who is an unknown player to most is currently playing in the Slovenian first division for the low level club team Luka Koper where he is averaging the following numbers – 10.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per game with shooting 61% 2FGP and 51.5% 3FGP. The Polish youngster is a contracted player of Slovenian top club Union Olimpija but he is playing as a loaned player already his second season in a row.

He was brought to Slovenia by Union Olimpija’s youth scouts in 2007 as they saw some prospect in him back in 2006 when he played for Polish U16 National Team. Before playing as a loaned player in 2008/2009 season for Slovenian Mercator Skofja Loka and now in 2009/2010 for Luka Koper he spent one season playing for youth teams of Union Olimpija.

Nowakowski is a very skinny center with decent athleticism and rebounding touch. He is way too skinny to play on serious basketball level and also seems not to be on his way of getting any stronger in the future. He possesses a decent mid range jumper and as the numbers show, he is also able to hit an open three pointer with great efficiency for a post player. He seems to be a smart player but he has no post game whatsoever. Due to his problem with basically no bulk, he has no back to basket game and can’t really play a competitive game against a stronger post player on offensive end.

Defensively he seems active but again, so I can stress his main deficiency, he is too skinny to play efficiently against serious average weight center. All in all, Nowakowski seems to be a hard working player but there is no serious chance for him to be selected on this years NBA Draft and is probably just taking the advantage of the fact that now he can pull his name out of NBA Draft two times until becoming auto-eligible in 2012. Probably just to get some recognition which could help him on the long run.