Its way too risky to draft a European with a top 3 pick

I thought that most teams would understand this from all the history of international players coming out of the draft, and what the full potential of these players are.

Rule: You don't use a top 3 pick on a european player

Here are just a couple of reasons why

- Poor defenders
I'm going to go as far as to say all euro players are poor defenders. From Toni Kukoc to Sasha Danilovic to Slava Medvenko... there has never been a euro player to come out as an "elite defender". The best defenders of all time, as sad as this sounds, are Pau Gasol, a guy notoriously known as being soft when it really mattered, and Vlade Divac, the all time king of flopping.

-Not athletic
I don't know if its genetics or what... but no euro player has ever had a muscular build, or legit athleticism where they were one of the fastest players, or highest jumpers. Although this doesn't take away from a players skill... as there have been many skilled euro players, I truly believe it takes away from a player's ceiling. Most of the time European players either get in their first 2 years... or they don't. I've never seen any of these guys evolve their game and adjust it to the NBA to a strong degree. Most of the time their play is consistent.

- May opt to stay in Europe
This situation with Rubio is not the first time a player disliked the team they were drafted to. There isn't a long history of it... but I'd think it's enough to scare some GMs.

- Rookie contract.... then gone
As in the case of Carlos Delfino, Nenad Kristic... and I'm sure many to follow in the next few years... a player may play his contract obligation as a rookie, and although they are still a restricted FA, may high tail it back to Europe for more money since their stock has likely risen.


IMHO the Top 4-10 picks are fine, but I just think its too risky for a top 3 pick.

I wouldn't draft him top 3, but I seem to remember Sarunas Marciulionis being a pretty good defender and pretty muscular. Maybe my brain is too old. I liked that guy. He was a tough guard.

You can't just look at any one skill, but the whole package. Look at Pau Gasol, he was able to bring the Lakers to the NBA Finals back-to-back. Last year he was soft, this year he isn't. For a big guy, Gasol is really quite fast. Faster than Dwight Howard in fact, which is why I favor him in their Finals matchup.

And Ricky Rubio is pretty fast.

[QUOTE=beasted86]- Poor defenders[/QUOTE]

Pietrus ? Turiaf ? Gortat ? Kirilenko ? Sefolosha ? Deng ? Batum ?

[QUOTE]-Not athletic[/QUOTE]

Tony Parker ? Pietrus ? Sefolosha ? Rudy Fernandez ?

[quote=Mikaiel]Pietrus ? Turiaf ? Gortat ? Kirilenko ? Sefolosha ? Deng ? Batum ?



Tony Parker ? Pietrus ? Sefolosha ? Rudy Fernandez ?[/quote]

/end thread.

Swooping generalizations are stupid, and while these guys weren't top three picks, they still negate your point.

Their skills and genetics isn't what makes the move risky. It's the fact that 1)You don't know as much about them compared to the NCAA players, and 2)There is always the chance they go back to Europe as there will almost always be a team that will overpay them if they are half way decent.

[QUOTE=beasted86].
-Not athletic.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, Tony Parker isn't athletics at all.

you make some....interesting points.

[QUOTE=Mikaiel]Pietrus ? Turiaf ? Gortat ? Kirilenko ? Sefolosha ? Deng ? Batum ?



Tony Parker ? Pietrus ? Sefolosha ? Rudy Fernandez ?[/QUOTE]

:cheers:

One of the greatest ownages I've seen on this forum.

people need to stop assuming that white people are unathletic

BTw.. Rubio isn't the only Spaniard in this draft. Check out Victor Claver.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ufVzTs4FU[/url]

Damn athletic too.

[QUOTE=gencbiba]ginobili was possibly top 10 athletic player in the nba years ago when he came...[/QUOTE]

One of the best defenders too. Technically Argentina isn't in Europe though:D

[QUOTE=gencbiba]ginobili was possibly top 10 athletic player in the nba years ago when he came...[/QUOTE]

He's from Argentina, not Europe.

[QUOTE=Mikaiel]Pietrus ? Turiaf ? Gortat ? Kirilenko ? Sefolosha ? Deng ? Batum ?[/QUOTE]

Turiaf, Kirilenko, & Deng are not european. You need a geopgraphy lesson.

Gortat is a barely okay defender, but just a good rebounder.. so it disguises his faults... but still not a good one. Kirilenko, Sefolosha, & Batum, are not elite defenders... they get torn apart constantly, and are overrated.

Pietrus is the only exception... he has "good" all-around defense. Solid man-man, solid weakside. So I guess my theory is not 100% fail-proof.


[QUOTE] Tony Parker ? Pietrus ? Sefolosha ? Rudy Fernandez ?[/QUOTE]
Sefolosha - Only thing athletic about him is his dunks are OK, but he's not even that good of a dunker... he's not very athletic
Rudy Fernandez - exposed in the dunk contest... not very athletic
Parker - Fast... but otherwise, not very athletic (see: strong, explosive, & vertical)

Pietrus - again, I can be wrong

And as someone already pointed out, none of those guys were a top 3 pick. Most of what I said above is the truth. You've got to be a real gambler to take a euro player with the top 3 pick. Most of the time your fishing for a one dimensional player: offense only.

[QUOTE=beasted86]Turiaf, Kirilenko, & Deng are not european. You need a geopgraphy lesson.[/QUOTE]

Turiaf --> France
Kirilenko --> Russia
Deng --> England

Turiaf is from Martinique... it's a french province in the Carribbean.
Kirilenko is from Russia. When did Russia become part of Europe?
Deng is from Sudan, which is in Africa genius. It just has strong ties to England.

[QUOTE=beasted86]Turiaf is from Martinique... it's a french province in the Carribbean.
Kirilenko is from Russia. When did Russia become part of Europe?
Deng is from Sudan, which is in Africa genius. It just has strong ties to England.[/QUOTE]
Turiaf probably has a French passport.
Deng has an British passport
A huge chunk of Russia is part of Europe, basically west of the ural mountians. There's also the small piece next to Poland.

[QUOTE=beasted86]Turiaf, Kirilenko, & Deng are not european. You need a geopgraphy lesson..[/QUOTE]

Kirilenko is European. Part of Russia is in Europe, part of Russia is in Asia. AK grew up in St. Petersburg, which is in the European part.

[url]http://www.aboutromania.com/WorldEuropeCountriesMap.gif[/url]

Also statistically speaking, which accounts for more than you spewing nonsense in order to form an opinion.. AK is one of the best defenders in the league. In fact according to Opponent PER (the PER of the man you guard, he is the best defender in the NBA. Check this out...

[url]http://www.82games.com/0809/ROLRTG3.HTM[/url]

Fernandez and Hedo are two of the best defenders as well.
[QUOTE]
Rudy Fernandez - exposed in the dunk contest... not very athletic

[/QUOTE]

Uhh..what? I'm pretty sure everyone agreed that Rudy's dunk was awesome, Pau just ****ed up by trying to throw the ball behind his back. Rudy has a higher vertical than Dwayne Wade and Dwight Howard and has one of the fastest lane agility drills ever in the history of the NBA draft combine. Meaning he is one of the quickest players in the league.

Whatever you say...

[QUOTE=Mikaiel]Pietrus ? Turiaf ? Gortat ? Kirilenko ? Sefolosha ? Deng ? Batum ?



Tony Parker ? Pietrus ? Sefolosha ? Rudy Fernandez ?[/QUOTE]
:applause: **** thread

Hahah... now I've heard it all...

I don't need to look at stats to tell you Hedo & AK47 aren't close to the best defenders in the league. If you want to look at some numbers on a page & compile your opinion based off that... then go ahead. Next your going to tell me Haslem is a top 10 offensive player too... right?

Quick doesn't mean everything in terms of athleticism as I already said with Parker. I'm talking about stength, exploding to the basket, thunderous dunks.

Rudy does not even get up that high on dunks. His dunks are more impact (alley oop, or a timely dunk in the clutch) more than raw athleticism (going right at the chest of a Perkins type C, getting the dunk & the and/1). Parker & Rudy are finesse players.

Johan Petro was pretty athletic for a seven footer as well
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLoxdDO1rIs&feature=related[/url]

[QUOTE=beasted86]Turiaf is from Martinique... it's a french province in the Carribbean.[/QUOTE]

1. Martinique is a part of France. The people there are French, they have the exact same political rights as the French who live in Europe. When you're there, you're in France. And Turiaf played ball in metropolitan France (the part in Europe) before he went to college in the US.

[QUOTE]Kirilenko is from Russia. When did Russia become part of Europe?[/QUOTE]

Not all of Russia is in Europe, but Moscow (their capital) is in Europe. And if it's not in Europe, why did they win the European Championships in '07 with Kirilenko winning the MVP ?

[QUOTE]Deng is from Sudan, which is in Africa genius. It just has strong ties to England.[/QUOTE]

But Deng is English. So technically, he's European.

Well you can keep pretending that AK47 is not a good defender so you can defend your not so well thought out argument, but I'll take objective statistics and the opinion of NBA coaches who year in and year out give him votes for defensive player of the year. And so will everyone else.

[QUOTE=beasted86]

Quick doesn't mean everything in terms of athleticism as I already said with Parker. I'm talking about stength, exploding to the basket, thunderous dunks.

[/QUOTE]

So basically your only criteria for athleticism is Strength? Quickness, speed, agility and the most important of all --coordination--don't matter.

Well then I guess this man should be the first pick in the NBA then..since he won last year's world strongest man contest. But wait..he's European.

[IMG]http://www.itrening.pl/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/mariusz-pudzianowski.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=beasted86]
Rudy does not even get up that high on dunks. His dunks are more impact (alley oop, or a timely dunk in the clutch) more than raw athleticism (going right at the chest of a Perkins type C, getting the dunk & the and/1). Parker & Rudy are finesse players.[/QUOTE]

Have you already forgotten?

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47VLce11WDM[/url]

Stop feeding the troll, people. He's just trying to rile you up.

Nobody is stupid enough to claim that the current European basketball champions aren't European.

[QUOTE=beasted86]I thought that most teams would understand this from all the history of international players coming out of the draft, and what the full potential of these players are.

Rule: You don't use a top 3 pick on a european player

Here are just a couple of reasons why

- Poor defenders
I'm going to go as far as to say all euro players are poor defenders.

-Not athletic
I don't know if its genetics or what... but no euro player has ever had a muscular build, or legit athleticism where they were one of the fastest players, or highest jumpers.




IMHO the Top 4-10 picks are fine, but I just think its too risky for a top 3 pick.[/QUOTE]

Someone really needs to tell Kirilenko that he is unathletic, poor defender. Or Bierdrins. Or Batum.

You don't watch a lot of ball, do you?

[QUOTE=Jinxed]So basically your only criteria for athleticism is Strength? Quickness, speed, agility and the most important of all --coordination--don't matter.

Well then I guess this man should be the first pick in the NBA then..since he won last year's world strongest man contest. But wait..he's European.

[IMG]http://www.itrening.pl/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/mariusz-pudzianowski.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

Mariusz is such a Juice monkey...but damn is he freakishly strong. He hulimates guys that have hundred pounds on him.

as far as I know..there have only been 3 Europeans taken amongst the first three picks in draft history

Andrea Bargnani---hasn't lived up to potential yet, but isn't bad at 15 pts a game at the age of 23.

Darko--FAIL.

Pau Gasol-3rd pick in 2001. Became the best player in Franchise history. Grizz were pretty happy with that one.

So we have one epic win. One fail, although still could start for some teams in Darko and one remains to be seen with Andrea...

you need to talk to JOE D lmao picked Darko with the 2nd pick:D

How bout an Asian player? Are they ok? African? Austrialian? Antartican?

If a thread ever reeked of racism. . . .

[quote=greensborohill]If a thread ever reeked of racism. . . .[/quote]

Right, and very thinly veiled. Even the way he describes what his version of athletic is.:lol You can tell he wants to just say "black guy" but won't.

[QUOTE=beasted86]Turiaf is from Martinique... it's a french province in the Carribbean.
Kirilenko is from Russia. When did Russia become part of Europe?
Deng is from Sudan, which is in Africa genius. It just has strong ties to England.[/QUOTE]

Just fyi, the european part of russia takes up about 40% of mainland europe and ~80% of the russian population lives in the european parts. Even though siberia is a lot bigger then european russia, Russia is for for all intents and purposes an european nation.

The other two certainly weren't born in europe, but moved here as kids.

You know, in the OP, you forgot to include that they "look funny".

[QUOTE=beasted86]Turiaf, Kirilenko, & Deng are not european. You need a geopgraphy lesson.

Gortat is a barely okay defender, but just a good rebounder.. so it disguises his faults... but still not a good one. Kirilenko, Sefolosha, & Batum, are not elite defenders... they get torn apart constantly, and are overrated.

Pietrus is the only exception... he has "good" all-around defense. Solid man-man, solid weakside. So I guess my theory is not 100% fail-proof.



Sefolosha - Only thing athletic about him is his dunks are OK, but he's not even that good of a dunker... he's not very athletic
Rudy Fernandez - exposed in the dunk contest... not very athletic
Parker - Fast... but otherwise, not very athletic (see: strong, explosive, & vertical)

Pietrus - again, I can be wrong

And as someone already pointed out, none of those guys were a top 3 pick. Most of what I said above is the truth. You've got to be a real gambler to take a euro player with the top 3 pick. Most of the time your fishing for a one dimensional player: offense only.[/QUOTE]


:wtf: :eek: :rolleyes: No words can describe what a terrible post this is that you created.