By Simon Dresden
2/2/08
Studs / Rising
Omer Asik seized the moment and starred in an important situation as his team hung close with Partizan all the way. He had 13 points (shooting perfect from the field) and 9 rebounds, complemented by his 2 blocks, holding off Pekovic for stud of the week honors. All of the NBA scouts that were in attendance saw what he is made of and the potential he possesses.
Nikola Pekovic got edged out by Asik in a close battle for MVP of the week. He scored a little more with 20 points on good percentages and rebunded one more with 10, and all things being equal would probably won the award, but it’s time to let someone else shine and Asik’s perfect FG shooting won him the honor. Pekovic really had it going against Fenerbahce’s young frontcourt and was emotional as always while carrying his team to the win.
Milenko Tepic stepped up when it counted the most. He produced for his team bigtime with 17 points 5 rebounds and 4 assists in just 24 minutes. Big showing on a big stage that could easily land him a big money gig somewhere soon.
Nicolas Batum is back among the studs with a 12 point, 7 rebounds, and 3 each assist, steal and block performance. This type of ability is what makes him the biggest international prospect out there, he can do it all.
Goran Dragic produced all over the stat sheet and demonstrated his versatility with 7 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists in 30 high quality minutes.
Novica Velickovic produced all over the stat sheet with 8 points and 6 boards and some spare production in all other fields. His percentages were bad though. He can do more but his team won and got off to the next round.
Tim Ohlbrecht shined as his team exited from the competition. He was a defensive force rejecting 4 shots and altering a lot more. He also had 5 rebounds and 5 points with 2 of them coming on a monster dunk where he took off from just inside the freethrow line. In this game he displayed his full athletic potential which is impressive and makes him an intriguing prospect.
Oguz Savas was rather studly with 25 Minutes, 6 points, 5 rebounds and 5 steals holding his ground nicely against whomever came his way. Savas has a big career in Europe ahead of him.
Nikita Kurbanov got his first real stint of playing in the Euroleague this year. After having only scrub minutes until now he literally exploded this week to play 18 minutes and go for 9 points 3 boards and 2 steals. Too bad for him it came so late in his eligibility year.
Okay / Even
Alexey Shved finally got some serious burn in CSKA meaningless blowout win over Bologna. The game was so out of hand that it was no problem for the homecoming Coach Messina to give out big chunks of playing time to his youngsters. Shved got 17 of those and used them for 8 points, had he produced in some other categories it would have been stud, but nearly doubling your season stats isn’t A bad to start either.
Antoine Diot clocked 27 minutes and played like a vet. despite modest numbers outside assists. 2 points only but 3 rebounds, 3 steals and big 5 dimes, which put him in okay territory.
Uros Tripkovic produced 11 points in 20 minutes, a very solid performance.
Anatoly Kashirov had another solid showing as he used his 7 minutes for a perfect 6 points and 2 rebounds, proving he can do things out there even when only on limited minutes.
Milos Teodosic played 27 minutes scored 8 points and gathered 4 rebounds. All in all an okay performance considering what we have seen from him so far.
Artem Zabelin also got his first chuck of major minutes as he had 10 minutes with a rebound and 4 points on perfect shooting. At least when he got playing time Artem is consistently able to produce in the points category (70% FG % for the season) which is a light at the end of the tunnel, since his body is so far away from producing anything on the defensive end of the floor.
Albert Moncasi was very effective tonight. He used his 11 minutes for 5 points and 3 boards which was impressive, playing quality minutes.
Emir Preldzic was solid though not spectacular with 5 points and a rebound in nearly 20 minutes of action.
The game of LeMans was so out of hand that even Jeremy LeLoup got some minutes to produce. 14 minutes and 5 points are proof of that.
Marc-Antoine Pellin finished the regular season on an downward trend. He played just 21 minutes and had just 2 points and 1 assist. He did have 4 rebounds. Anyway he had a great season, ending on an okay note.
Martynas Gecevicius got just 4 minutes in which he didn’t produce.
Davide Marelli got to play for 3 minutes.
Clement Allerme played for just 1 and a half minutes.
DNP-CDs this week go out to: Przemyslav Zamojski, Jan Mocnik, Ander Garcia, Raphael Wilson, Karsten Tadda, Can Mutaf, Sergio Llull, Pablo Aguilar, Paulo Prestes, Michal Chylinski, Baris Hersek, Omri Casspi
Not with the team this week: Andrey Vorontsevich, Vilmantas Dilys, Danilo Gallinari.
Duds / Falling
Pietro Aradori ended his solid season on a downward trend. With Gallinari out because of injury he got ample playing time (23 minutes) but managed zero points. He should be able to do more than that.
Gasper Vidmar had an off game in a big moment. In front of a lot of scouts and matched up against fellow young studs Pekovic and Velickovic, he had only 1 rebound and no points.
Mantas Kalnietis can basically forget any draft aspirations as he again went fort he big zero in 7 minutes and no other real production. A real disappointment this year.
