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By Aran
Smith
NBADraft.net
6/11/07
The second day
started much like the first with morning drills. Mickael Pietrus
spoke to the campers after the morning session. He mentioned to
me that he would have loved to have played here but never had the
chance.
The Team Reebok squad is on hand and their team of 8 can be seen
walking around. The big name on their team is Bill Walker who appears
to have put on a good 25-30 pounds.
The games began at 4 PM, with 2 games. The camp consists of five
teams so one team sat out.
Team 3 (Orange) 48 - Team 1 (Carolina Blue) 43
French point guard Rodrigue
Beaubois suffered a hamstring injury early in the game and
was unable to return which meant he didn't play in the all star
game against the junior team. His team is off tomorrow, so it remains
to be seen if he will be back for the final day. He was impressive
once again in practice out-jumping a number of bigger players in
the vertical test the campers were put through after the morning
practice. Beaubois finished with 2 pts.
Georgos
Printezis had another impressive game and is establishing
himself as one of the more "draftable" players here. He's
a little hunched with regard to his posture and his feet seem to
be a step behind his head but he plays with a lot of spirit and
makes things happen. He shared the game high in points with Team
1's center Antoly Kashirov.
Printezis had shown some solid athletic ability, but really raised
some eyebrows with his hammer dunk over a defender. He rose way
up and flushed the ball, the best dunk of the camp so far. He is
making a statement here and very possibly could be a player a team
will take in the second round with the idea of watching him develop
in Greece for a few years before bringing him over.
Antoly Kashirov is one of the better bigmen in camp. He lacks any
real leaping ability. But at 7-feet, the CSKA Moscow player has
solid scoring ability and fluidity. He scored on a variety of dunks
and inside baskets.
After leading the camp in scoring on day one, Rudy
Mbemba came back to earth with 6 points on 2/4 shooting.
Luka Bogdanovic had 8 points but shot just 2/8 and hasn't done anything
to warrant NBA attention.
Spaniard Javier Rey had 10 points for the victors. He lacks huge
leaping ability but he has a big frame, long arms and plays hard.
The 6-10 PF looks like a solid European power forward prospect.
Team 2 (Cardinal) 55 - Team 5 (Royal Blue) 28
In an absolute snorer of a game, the only intrigue left by the early
second half was whether the Cardinal squad would be able to double
up their opponents. They weren't, but it was close.
A number of scouts have questioned why Marco
Belinelli is here. He is obviously well known and playing
against mostly younger players and doing well doesn't really prove
much. But he did just that scoring 17 points with relative ease
on 4-8 shooting and 8-8 from the line. He had a dunk on the break
as well as a steal in the back court for a lay in. Scouts would
have liked to have seen Belinelli play in Orlando, and he likely
would have played very well as he's an excellent athlete and polished
scorer. Belinelli is off to the states to workout for teams so he
will miss the rest of the camp.
Ali
Traore has not been as sensational as he was in Orlando
so far, but a lot of that can probably be attributed to his teammates.
He has a very outgoing personality and hasn't seemed to let the
lack of quality teammates affect him. He scored 10 of his team's
28 points and likely would have doubled that if the team had someone
that could get him the ball. The Royal team's backcourt is painfully
bad as their 3 assists to 18 turnovers in this game shows.
Portugal's Joao Gomes also had 10 points for the losing squad. He
has solid athletic ability and an imposing set of tatted arms. He
would surely go undrafted if he were in the States as there are
tons of NCAA guys with his athletic ability with more skills. However,
the intrigue of taking a player with the chance to develop elsewhere
while owning his rights gives a number of these players an advantage.
Gomes still appears to be a long shot to get drafted. His feel for
the game is very limited, and his athletic ability, while impressive,
isn't enough alone.
Mantas
Kalnietis finally played after missing the first day and
a half and looked solid. He had one steal and breakaway dunk in
which he showed excellent aggressiveness and body balance. He finished
with 11 points on 5/6 shooting. He is a very heady player, as he
showed in Japan last summer starting for the Lithuanian team in
place of injured Jasikevicius. The Royal squad surely could have
used Kalnietis services.
Reebok All Star Game
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Rudy
Mbemba |
The Reebok All
Stars were led by Bill Walker who looked like a reincarnation of
John "Hot Plate" Williams coming back to training camp
after a summer of Dairy Queen binging. When they told Walker to
stay off the knee apparently they forgot to tell him to work on
his push away move, as he has apparently has not been pushing away
from any dinner tables.
Walker actually played well, it's amazing he can move even half
as well as he is with the knee brace and extra 30-40 pounds. But
compared to the old Walker, this wasn;t pretty. On the positive
side, Walker showed a polishing skill level with a number of steals
and solid shots off the dribble. He attempted one monster dunk over
a defender, apparently forgetting he is just weeks off of surgery
to repair his knee. The dunk came up short as he sort of got stuffed
by the defender and rim at the same time. Sort of like a scrambling
quarterback with a leg injury force to stay in the pocked, the injury
is giving Walker a chance to work on the other areas of his game,
as right now he cant rely solely on his athletic ability.
It's too early to say how he will recover from the knee injury,
as his physical conditioning seemed to be slowing him down as much
as his knee.
For the Reebok Eurocamp All stars it was the Rudy
Mbemba show as he toyed with the talented but younger and
undermanned (8 players) American team. Mbemba ran the show passing
the ball very well, guiding his teammates on backdoor cuts and hitting
them for perfect ally oops. At one point he drove and attempted
a dunk over the American squads bigman. He missed but the play brought
Baron Davis, who is here with Pietrus, off his feet. Davis seemed
to enjoy watching the young Swedish point guard play.
Also impressive for the Eurocamp squad was Victor
Claver who used his size and athleticism well against the
smaller opponents. He has a good two inches on rising senior Darius
Miller and used it well scoring on dunks and mid range jumpers.
The American team held tough for the first quarter but wer blown
out in the second half ultimately losing by around 30.
Early
Entry Notes
Georgetown's Jeff
Green is still considering going back to school. He'd like
to get some guarantee in the top 10 and would really like to know
where he is going before signing with an agent (likely David Falk).
Green would tip the scales in Georgetown's favor as the #1 college
team in the nation if he decided to return.
Green recently worked out for Philadelphia who drafts 12th and impressed.
There's almost no chance he would fall past Philadelphia at 12,
but knowing the specific team that he will go to might be more important
for Green. A team such as Minnesota at 7 or Milwaukee at 6 might
want to consider promising Green who is one of the most NBA ready
players in the draft. The problem is should a player like Brandan
Wright or Yi Jianlian fall, those teams want the flexibility to
take someone that slips.
We're hearing both Ramon
Sessions
and Dominic
James
will keep their names in the draft. Sessions had a strong workout
against Gabe Pruitt in Phoenix and may get some looks in the late
first round area. Phoenix, with two late first rounders, is said
to be high on Pruitt.
Croatian bigman Ante
Tomic
pulled out of the draft reportedly due to disagreements with his
team.
Sean
Singletary is still 50/50 on staying in the draft.
Stanko
Barac
will likely keep his name in the draft. He is scheduled to workout
in NYC on the 16th.
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