[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

It seems like while this was a very down year for the NBA draft as far as European prospects entering, even with the looming lockout, it nonetheless seems like a number of top European players finally decided to either come back to the NBA or take a shot for the first time. From players whose rights were held such as Nikola Pekovic to Minnesota and Tiago Splitter to San Antonio, to a wild card like Timofey Mozgov for the Knicks, their seem to be some intriguing new role players in the league who could contribute. Splitter seems to be the main prize, as the MVP of the Spanish league, the Brazilian Center is being billed as a huge addition to San Antonio, which we have all been waiting for it seems forever (probably 5-6 years at least for us who heard of him as an 18 year old or so, and he was drafted in 2007). But, what I wanted to focus on were the guys who had not been away that long and happened to play on the same team, Linas Kleiza and Josh Childress,

Both were seen as role players in the NBA, and the odds are that is what they both will be, but nonetheless they were contributors on play-off teams. As a Pac-10 alumnus, I expected Josh Childress to go over and destroy Europe, but that did not seem to happen. I think he played very well, and I am guessing he was one of the better players in Greece for Olympiakos, but he was not exactly Michael Jordan. Both years he was their I know he did not win a title in Euroleague and I do not think he even won one in Greece. Also, I know he struggled in Euroleague last year, and this year Kleiza, not Childress led Olympiakos in Euroleague scoring. I do not take stats as meaning Kleiza was perhaps a better player than Childress, but it does make you wonder. How much better do people think they both might be than they were before, if better at all? Do you think Childress will blossom into the player that Atlanta drafted #6 in 2004? With Phoenix’s crowded perimeter, it seems like Josh has settled into knowing he will most likely be role guy, but what kind of minutes does he get to play? Grant Hill and Turkoglu will get minutes, and they have Jason Richardson at SG, so PT might be hard to come by. I know Josh is a decent defender, a good rebounder for his size and has some ability to slash and handle. I also know he has an incredibly unorthodox J and that it is also inconsistent.

The guy I wonder most about is Kleiza, probably because I think he will have a more immediate chance to play and more of a defined role. I remember him being a player that hustled and that he developed a good perimeter jump shot. I also know that while he had decent athleticism and a strong build, that he was not exactly quick a foot. This made it difficult for him to play good defense and led to him getting fewer rebounds than a guy who most likely is more of a 4 than a 3 should. My ultimate question is whether people actually saw either them play last year and what you think they will bring to the league and their respective new NBA teams. Also, if people have RECENT scouting reports on players, rather than the standard things we have either seen or heard about for years, I would love to hear it. I am fairly sure Kleiza will be a Raptor, and while he may not be Turkoglu (Which is bad and good at the same time), his past performance and to me his seemingly flawless transition to putting up closer to the numbers I thought Childress would be posting in Europe has to make fans optimistic about signing him at what we did for 4 years. He is still young and to me he was more of an overachiever than an underachiever with Denver, the same can not be said for Turkoglu for most of his NBA career other than 2008 and 2009 in Orlando.

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

Semih Erden to Boston and Omer Asik to Chicago. I saw Erden play in summer league and he seemed kind of lumbering, so not very athletic, but huge. Asik I hear is a huge sleeper and someone who could turn into a nice contributor for the Bulls. Just wanted to throw those guys out there as players who would be nice to know more about.

[MinnesotanoParticipant]

How about Nikola Pekovic?

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

But I guess you did not get past the first few sentences 🙂

[WillisWaltParticipant]

Well done. I notice you referred to Mosgov as a wild card. All I know about him I learned in the last couple days. But I’m starting to think he might be a good pickup. I was worried about locking up money to him in these careful cap space times, but I think I heard on ESPN that his last two years are not guaranteed. Does that mean they’re team options? I’ve never been certain on which terms are identical.

But my real question is how do you think he’ll do? Was this a good risk by the Knicks? Is he a potential starter, will he be fighting for minutes, do we have to wait and see whether he can even play the NBA game? It does seem like he’s found the best system to try it in. I hope he’s good, but I’d love to hear what other people have to say about him.

[llperez]

i think josh childress is probably a career role player similar to what he was before he left atl. But a solid contributor none the less. I didnt watch him europe, but stuff i read seemed to imply he was a defensive minded wing who did the little stuff, basically what he was in the NBA. Good thing for him, as with most solid ahtletes who can run and finish, phoenix should be a very good place for him to pley.

[BothTeamsPlayedHardParticipant]

Incredibly ignorant diatribe. Childress was not signed by Olympiakos to be their Michael Jordan. He was brought there to help them get past their blood rivals Panathinaikos. Olympiakos finished second in the Euroleague, ahead of Panathinaikos, and lost to them in the finals of the Greek league. It didn’t really work, but they got what they wanted out of Childress. He was the best athlete in Europe and guarded the likes of Diamantidis and Spanoulis well. Childress got paid a ton and now gets to return to the NBA with a fat long-term contract with a team not named the Hawks. If the Hawks agreed to facilitate a sign-and-trade two years ago, he wouldn’t have signed with Olympiakos. He did, and by the way, led the Greek league in scoring while being tenth in the Euroleague. He was second-team All-Euroleague along with Tiago Splitter It wasn’t enough to beat Panathinakos in the finals, but it wasn’t the job of Childress to stop Mike Batiste inside. He also could not keep Papaloukas from getting old and hurt. Childress is going to go to Phoenix and have an improved mid-range jumper. He is going to save Grant Hill from overuse. He is going to keep them from having to try and have Jared Dudley guard Kobe Bryant in the playoffs. You aren’t going to be able to give the Suns positional numbers most of the time. Hedo might guard a 4, but operate like a shooting guard whereas Childress will guard Kobe and hang around the hoop and look like a 4 while Frye and Hedo are at the three-point line.

Kleiza is going to have his best statistical season in the NBA. It is inevitable. He didn’t like the bit role playing behind Melo and K-Mart. He didn’t go to Olympiakos because Denver didn’t like him. He went to get more minutes and more shots. Now, he doesn’t have to be in Europe to shoot it, Toronto will let him get as many as he wants. He is going to put up 16-20 per game. Toronto isn’t going to be any good defensively, so he won’t be the outlier. I don’t know how good he will be, but his numbers will outperform his salary. The Raptors probably will be no worse than they were last year, which is saying something considering they lost Bosh.

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

I did not say that they signed him to be such, but I guess I was ignorant to how different the European game really was when they signed him. I thought Josh would just score at will over there, but, it did not appear to be the case, and I am all to aware they did not beat Panathinaikos. Josh will be more of a 4 than either Hedo or Frye (I guess with Frye, I mean, he is still 6’11), but he is not exactly an answer at 4 nor is he exactly an answer for guarding Kobe, they he may be a step up from anyone they currently have. I do know Josh had a very productive year this past year, but I also know he averaged 8.8 points per game his first year of Euroleague. But, as someone who wanted some information about a situation he knew little about, I thank you for commenting on the ignorance of my diatribe. Your reading skills could obviously use some work, but, both teams played hard. But, I guess it is kind of ironic that someone who has a picture of Sheed as his avatar would say someone will operate as a 4 while guarding SG’s on defense. The irony of course will be that, no one will grab an offensive rebound. Yikes to that predicament.

You did provide good information, and I guess me thinking that Childress as a role player in the NBA would dominate the Euroleague, but I do not think I said he played poorly or was a disappointment. The only thing disappointing was not winning a championship, which as you said is not all his fault at all, nor did I apply it was. However, do you really think Kleiza will score 16-20? I agree he will play better than his contract and we have somewhat of a need to make up for the production lost by Bosh/Turkoglu, but I see Bargnani averaging around 20, and maybe even Barbosa being around their as well. I would think 16 would be beyond my expectations, and 20 would be incredible. I never claimed to be an expert in European basketball, I just wanted to know if their had been a level of improvement in their play and what other people thought their roles might be. You did that, thank you, but maybe next time you should read what a person writes before being as ridiculously pretentious as you came off.

[European BallerParticipant]

Another embarrassing joke thread on this forum. Josh Childress “dominate Europe”, “Josh Childress Jordan of Europe”…………..seriously you actually thought that would be the case when he went to Greece. Are you seriously this idiotic and clueless about the level of elite European leagues like Greek A1 and Euroleague? Unbelievable. For real, American NBA fans are the most clueless sports fans in the world by far.

Look, Childress is a very good player. he’s a champion caliber role player. Smart, guy, excellent teamate, etc. But his level in the NBA is a 6th man on a playoff team. There is no player in the entire NBA at that level that can come remotely close to dominating or being Jordan in an elite European league. That is so freaking laughable and insanely absurd and ludicrous for people calling themselves basketball fans to have idea like that.

Childress is a very good player but there are MANY FAR better players than him in Europe. Give me a freaking break.

Also, news flash the name of the club is Olympiacos, not Olympiakos. It’s bad enough that the retarded idiots at ESPN have spelled it wrong for 2 years, but it’s even worse that every single basketball fan in the US also cannot spell it right.

[blink3ebfanParticipant]

Really no player? How about Anthony Parker, he is considered one of the 50 greatest players in European League and is a role player in the NBA. Trajan Langdon was an MVP in the Euroleague final four and couldn’t cut it in the league at all. Mikey might have been misguided in thinking Childress would be that type of player in Europe since his game really isnt geared to be a featured player, but your comment is just as misguided and you should probably consider everything that you are saying before you go on a rant insulting every fan and others point of view.

[pattymills]

dont forget about australia.

[BothTeamsPlayedHardParticipant]

“Also, news flash the name of the club is Olympiacos, not Olympiakos. It’s bad enough that the retarded idiots at ESPN have spelled it wrong for 2 years, but it’s even worse that every single basketball fan in the US also cannot spell it right.”

Yes, how dare FIFA and FIBA spell Olympiakos FC and Olympiakos BC Piraeus with a k and not a c. Damn American international governing bodies of sport. It is clearly ESPN’s fault. Don’t do that. Do you really want to make a stink about whether it is spelled with a k or c? Nobody cares if the Anglo world calls Torino “Turin” or München “Munich.” Nobody cares if people spell Tibor Pleiß “Tibor Pleiss.” Nobody else cares if Olympiacos is spelled Olympiakos. We know it goes through the grinder in translation. Both are used not only by Americans but all over the Anglo world.

As for Kleiza, I think his opportunities to score in Denver were limited because of Carmelo Anthony, and that is why he left for Greece, though the money certainly helped. He wanted minutes and shots. The one thing that always struck me about him was that when Anthony missed a game, he would have games where he took on that role and put up 20+ points and 6 or 7 rebounds. He couldn’t do it every night, and he had his share of stinkers, but he is not as gifted as Melo and was also 22-24 years old. I see him as a potentially great scorer going to a team without a go-to guy. I think he can score in more ways than Bargnani, which with the game on the line is why I see Kleiza have a Hedo-in-Orlando-type statistical emergence. You can post him up and have him be problems for 3s. If a team puts a 4 on him, he can face up and either drive or shoot because he has range out past the arc. I think for him, or really anyone to average 20+ in the NBA they have to get either 6 or 7 free throws a game or make 3 or 4 threes per game. It helps if a guy can get a combination of both, because there are nights where guys are going to shoot 3-13. The elite scorer can still have 13-15 points on that night if he knows how to get to the line and hits one or two 3s. If he can get into the lane and get to the line, I think 20 points is well within his capability.

[khaled_a_dParticipant]

I do like the big men who cam from overseas this year
Nikola Peković had a really nice career for his young age,same could be said about Splitter ,I’ve watched Asik and Erden in Euro Fiba 2009,Asik looked very good IMO
he has the talent at both ends and both Gasol brother ,but Spain have really struggled in the group stage anyway
as For Erden he can be a nice hustle player who can rebound and may be block some shots when needed,but I didn’t like what I’ve seen at all
Mozgov CV doesn’t look great but people say a lkot of good things about him,ppl at Draftexpress looked like they think he has a great talent

[PureshooterParticipant]

Kleiza and Childress are both very nice additions to teams, and potential starters as well. Childress is a perfect fit for the Suns.

[European BallerParticipant]

The club’s name is Olympiacos, not Olympiakos. Only retarded idiots think it is Olympiakos. Just because ESPN purposely spells it wrong does not mean that the real name of the club suddenly changed.

As for Parker and Langdon “dominating Europe” please just STFU. You are obviously a racist NBA fan. Your comments are literally laughable.

[PureshooterParticipant]

Um, like, no need to be so hostile, man.

[llperez]

i dont know, i just did a search and pretty much every american site refers to it as Olympiakos with a K. It could just be a translation thing similar to how its italia not italy or brasil not brazil overseas, but we have our own way of spelling things.

[blink3ebfanParticipant]

You obviously don’t know the meaning of the word racist and also “literally laughable”, what would figuratively laughable mean? Again you just make stupid comments without any backing. Wasn’t Anthony Parker named to the Top 50 Euroleague players list? Didn’t he win an MVP of Euroleague award? Didn’t Trajan Langdon also win a Euroleague final four MVP award and considered one of the top players in Europe?

[Author]

Posts