The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 17: 2016 NBA Draft Top International Talents

Episode Date: June 22, 2016

The Ringer's Danny Chau and Jonathan Tjarks on the international prospects projected to land in the lottery, like Dragan Bender and Timothe Luwawu, in Thursday night's draft, and on some sleepers, like Ante Zizic and Zhou Qi, who may wind up being selected later in the first round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another draft edition of The Ringer NBA show. My name is Danny Chow. I'm an editor for the Ringer.com and joining me as always, it's Ringer NBA writer Jonathan Charks. Charks, how are you? I'm good, Ben. How are you doing? I'm good.

I can smell it, man. The draft is almost here. It happens so fast this year, man, from the finals to draft. It's crazy. Exactly four days. So, yeah, we'll be focusing on some international prospects that intrigue us in this one. and I'm hoping that we can get at least half of these names right. Right, yeah.

I'm guessing all of them. I look at no pronunciation guides. It's probably me guessing at these names. I tried looking on YouTube for any sort of interviews that might have helped, but they all kind of just went into it. So we'll try our best. But yeah, this draft has been really fun to talk about because it's so clear how the future has been laid out.

Charks, you wrote a really good piece yesterday about the, legacy of the Warriors and how they played the game and how that will kind of affect the future in terms of teams looking at talent. You know who looks like the future? Dragon Bender looks like the future. Of course you'd say that. Of course. Yeah, we talked a little bit about Bender as a potential guy for the Celtics in our first podcast, but since then he's kind of been all over the place. He's been linked anywhere from the number three spot to the number seven spot. I wrote about Bender a few weeks ago, and part of my argument was that, you know, broadly speaking, he's the youngest player in the draft, and he has as many different skills on the basketball court as

anyone in this draft. But he's been kind of dismissed because so many teams are looking for an instant remedy for their shittiness. I was just going to ask you, like, he asked, if it seemed like during the season, it was very much Simmons-ingram Bender, but in the last three or four weeks, she's really fallen back to the pack in the top like seven or eight. And so what's your theory on that? I think Chris Dunn has done a really good job of kind of marketing himself as like a guy who's clearly ready for this. You know, he's done some interviews. He's said all the right things about wanting to be playing against top competition, not wanting to settle on these workouts. And I think Jamal Murray clearly has, you know, some people thinking that he's going to be a really

incredible offensive player right off the bat. And with Bender, he's always been a guy who was going to need some time for teams to kind of figure out what he's capable of doing. And I think that's why he's kind of dropped down a little. Yeah, I feel like in general, when guys start marketing themselves or like the, after the season's over, a lot of narratives start developing about guys. And I feel like the film is the film when you're watching these guys. And there's no reason to drop a guy over the last month and a half.

happen on the basketball court and make a drop. So that would worry me a little bit if I was one of those teams in that area. So if you had control of the draft board, where do you think you would pick Bender? See, I haven't watched him a ton of ton compared to the college guys, but I think he's a pretty safe number three, if only because his floor is so high because he's seven feet, he's very skilled, high feel, decent athlete. I think pretty shocked he wasn't a pretty good NBA player no matter what. Right.

I don't think I would draft him any lower than number five. Like I would love to see him next to Carl Anthony Towns. Oh, that would be great. And also for me, like, even if I don't love Bender, some of these guys that might go over them, I just blows my mind. I mean, we talked a lot about them in the last podcast, but taking like Murray over Bender, I can't even, that's almost a fireball offense to me about you or GM, I was the owner. Like, what are you even talking about?

So there have been a lot of rumors about Chris Dunn maybe sneaking his way into the top three discussion. How do you feel about that? Well, at that point, it's purely, I guess that means somebody's trading up because there's no way Boston could take Dunn with their roster unless they're making a ton of moves. I have heard that Minnesota likes done a lot in terms of being like a defensive-minded point guard and they don't love Rubio. So that's interesting. Though I'm with you, I think Bender and Towns just makes sure. much sense together, turned to two seven-footers who are super versatile. Like, that could be a special, special team.

And he fits in so well with Wiggins-Levin-Rubio. Like, to me, that's a no-braider, draft and bender at five. And another player slotted in the lottery, though Chad Ford seems to have him falling is Timothy Luawu, who is a French wing playing for Megalix in Serbia. You know, he's another guy who's kind of fun to imagine being someone he could. currently isn't. He's 6-7, 205, has a 7-foot wingspan. His frame is kind of reminiscent of a young Paul George. And watching him, that kind of seems like a player that teams will look at in terms of how they project him going forward. He's kind of shown glimmers of shooting off the dribble like a

star would, but ultimately he's shooting under 40% for a team that really gives them a long leash. I'm kind of of of the opinion that young players making bad mistakes and decisions is generally a good thing for development. But, you know, teams do look at those statistics. Yeah, I mean, he reminds me a lot just athletically of Dante X-Lam, just the way he moves. Like, he really, like, flies around the court. He's like a jet. And, like, he's one of those guys. You watch him in film, like, two or three times, and it's really easy to fall in love with them.

But, like, all the European people who, like, watch these guys a ton. they've always been the ones for me kind of like, hey, slow down the Wauu, like just slow down your evaluation of him. Don't kind of fall in love with him off the jump. Because definitely, like, the first time you watch me, like, this guy can really play. He moves really fast. He has really high, it doesn't have a high feel for the game, which, like, for 3-and-D guy is fairly rare.

Most 3-N-D prospects, it's very much like, oh, he's a defender, dribbling is kind of a stretch, but he really just moves really well. He feels like he passes really well, too, for a guy. with his kind of tool set. Is there something specific that these people are kind of trying to ward off in terms of optimism for Luawu? Well, two things I've heard is like that jumper is, there's not a long trucker grid of success. Like, it's very hit or miss.

And that the league he's playing in the Adriatic League. One good thing I was told was like they produced like three NBA guards in the last 20 years. and I guess the Udrich brother, Udrich and what's the other Slovene. The Drogich, the Drogich brother is in Udrich. So I don't know. In that sense, it's hard to, like, judge him a little bit. Have you watched him? Is he French?

I'd not see him much of international play. That might be interesting to watch with him. Yeah, he's French. He moved to Serbia to basically play for the Adriatic League, and that's kind of where he got his big star rise. Yeah, on the Megalex team, which is just, if you haven't followed European basketball, Megalax is super, super interesting in front of the draft.

Back to Luawu, I feel like if you were to kind of temper your expectations and you didn't necessarily fall in love with the Paul George comparison right away, someone he kind of reminds me of his tabocephalosha. I was just going to say that. I could totally see that. He's another versatile prospect who can do a lot of different things, but isn't necessarily great at any one thing. I feel like if Luahu can't tighten up his hand,

and he can't work on his decision-making because he does force a lot of bad shots. The kind of 3-D cephalotia mold seems to be a fairly easy trajectory to identify him with. Yeah, and that's one thing too with like a vioting guy's jumpers sometimes. Sometimes it's like, man, this guy would be a good shooter if he took better shots. Like shots selection can really affect your percentages if you're not careful. But man, I really, really want to believe in this guy because he has the frame of, Gerald Green and from the looks of his dunks, I mean, he could be probably be an Olympic level long jumper. This guy, this guy is really athletic. He has great strides moving down the court, but I mean,

I wouldn't say Gerald Green. Like, Gerald Green, that's like, oh, no, not in terms of athleticly, but his frame, definitely. Yeah, I mean, he's well built for 19 year old for sure. I mean, he's like, he reminds me a lot of Patrick McCaud, UNOV, but he's got 20, 25 pounds on him, and he's younger, So. Yeah, and our next guy actually plays for the same team. Ivasa Zubach is another guy who is kind of in that mid-first round, late first round, might be a stash type guy. This guy's enormous.

He's like 7-1. He's a well-proportioned 270 with, I think, something like a 7-4 wingspan. From what I've seen, he kind of reminds me of like a mega-sized de Montes-Sabonis. and kind of going along with all that entails. This guy isn't a great athlete, but he plays hard, he can move pretty well laterally for his size. You know, dropping back on D. Shouldn't be a problem.

I think you've focused quite a bit on Zubach just because you've seen a lot of, you know, Megalek's tape. What's to like here? I think he reminds me a lot of, like, kind of a younger version of A.J. Hammonds, like, quite a big piece of Monta Day at the Ringer. And it's just for a guy, he's really, really big. I feel like with a guy who's this big, there's a little bit of a scale. Like he's not a great athlete, but as you were saying, for a guy who's a freaking mastodon,

he moves pretty well. He's pretty good on an offense too. And when you're that freaking huge, it can be hard to stop at that size, roll into the rim or posting up. And he has a pretty good feel. Like, to me, he could be the best center if, though, you're saying, I'm going to deal with the fact that he's not going to switch screens, which I'm still like, I feel like with the way the league is going, I'm kind of up in the air about like how much can I value your classic dropback five?

Like Jonas Valenshunis, is he good enough to be a championship NBA five anymore? Like I love Jonas, but I don't know because he's not that fast. I don't know. Yeah, I actually don't have too great of a feel on this. But just from the way I've seen, you know, a few games front to back, he's not too. bad at kind of corraling smaller guards that make their way into the into the lane on penetrations. So he might have some potential there. Obviously he's not going to be stepping out, you know, 25 feet out, but he definitely moves better than, say, Nikola Peckovich. Oh, I mean,

for, yeah, whatever that's worked. Right. I think anybody was at apecovich. I mean, my gosh. It's really interesting, this Megalex team specifically, they've kind of emerged as something of a pipeline for NBA caliber talent. Nikolaiyokic obviously looks like a star out in Denver, and he came out a few years back. Did they have Michich too for a while? Yeah, they had Vassilié Misić, who was drafted, I think, in the 50s by the Sixers, yeah, six years ago. He's like this oversized, six-five point guard, almost Rubio-esque, except not quite the defender

at all. but he was really fun to watch in the under 19 Fiba tournament. It should be noted that Megalax has one of the most delightful jerseys I've ever seen. Are the pink ones? They're incredible. It's hot pink, glow and dark green. Back when they were Mega Vizura, which was a couple years ago when Miseech was playing, that was under a different sponsorship.

But they had this light pink periwinkle color scheme that kind of looked like baby pajamas. I'm kind of surprised no one in the NBA or in college gone with the pink. It's very aggressive look for television. Like, it looks cool, I guess, like Killicam, you know. Like, because I don't know if Megalex necessarily gets as much TV time. So I don't know if these games are being broadcast like prime time. I mean, first of all, they should be, obviously, right? Right.

Yeah, with these guys, obviously a lot of draft positioning is guesswork, since we don't have a lot of inside formation. Players who might be seen as lottery talents, you know, they could end up being picked up much later in the draft. Well, did you see that Zubach only worked out for four teams? Let me find the tweet. I saw it somewhere. He's killed with four workouts, Pistons, Grizzlies, Raptors, Celtics,

which makes sense for their rosters, the same kind of. Probably the Celtics, you have a bunch of teams that have bigger centers. Because those are teams who inquired Bose and scouted him. I'm going off a tweet from one of the Pistons beatwriters. One thing I was thinking of, like, if you got Zubach and Luawu, like I wonder if I'm not thinking like compare them to like the top two guys like Kentucky like Scow and Murray or at Washington Murray or at Cal and Chris or at Cal Rab and Brown I wonder if I would take those two Megal X guys as a as a tandem over two guys for

other schools like they're right there in terms of talent I think another guy that you know who could really go across the board in the first round is for on Corkmas, 6-7 wing from Turkey. I can't watch him without seeing a bigger, stronger, more athletic version of Marco Bellanelli. That's either a vote of confidence or, you know, a complete red flag. I would say it's pretty confidence. I mean, that's a pretty good shooter for a bigger version of that. That's pretty interesting.

Right. Like, I mean, Bellanelli was a Summer League legend who dropped 37 in his first game. Well, he got a ring, doesn't he, with a Spurs? He got a championship. there it is. Like I am 30% confident when I say this, but Bellanelli could have been a truly great player if Don Nelson didn't destroy his confidence completely. 30% confident. Sure. Let's go with it. How would you compare him to like Hazonia, in terms of a big Euro wing? I don't think he moves quite as gracefully. I don't think he's quite as

athletic. Yeah, yeah, athleticism. Yeah, that makes sense. Right. Hizonia is truly one of the more athletic guys to come out of, you know, the international game that I've seen, especially at the wing position. Mm-hmm. So, like, I can't really tell if I like Korkmas more than I did Belanelli as when he was a prospect. I think Bellanelli's vision and potential as, like, a second or third facilitator was at least stronger at the same stage than Korkmas.

Korkmas has shown signs of being, you know, a guy who can create for himself in the pick and role, but he doesn't have a lot of wiggle, and I kind of worry about his ability to get by people at the next level. So, like, he'd be, he would never, he'd be like garden the third or fourth option, kind of guy. He's not going to be primary defender or primary initiator. Right. I mean, if you're six, seven, you can shoot and dribble. There's a place few in the league, pretty much no matter what.

Yeah, and I feel like it'll really depend on how Hizonia does in his second season, whether or not, these kind of guys are, you know, seen as viable options in the first round. Hizonia had a pretty up and down season. He wasn't trusted by Scott Skiles at all. But I mean, that doesn't necessarily anything, does it? Scott Skiles doesn't like you. He's not exactly young Metro, Scott Skiles. He don't trust you.

He doesn't mean anything for a young player. Yeah, it just feels like with teams, they try and go off of the trends that they see, especially with international players as far as who is. playable and what projects well at the next level. So I'm not sure if Korkmas is that level of talent in terms of what Hizonia can bring to the table. But as you said, like, if he can shoot threes kind of defend from, you know, the perimeter, then that might be enough.

That's probably worth worthy of first round picking this year's draft. Quick word from our sponsors and we'll get right back into our international guys. Did you know that the NBA has built a super useful bot for basketball fans on Messenger? Yeah, a bot, like a chat bot or a robot that you can talk to. The NBA's Messenger bot is awesome. Just message it on Messenger to watch highlights of your favorite finals games and players. Yeah, the bot was super responsive. You just type in Kyrie Irving and you get literally every single highlight he's ever had in the finals right at your fingertips.

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Last few years for sure. Yeah. And it can mean good things for Ante Zizich. a 7-foot 250-pound center out of Croatia. I'm not completely sold on his skill level, but he does have the strength and athleticism to, I don't know, be a solid role man in the two-man game. What's your take on him? Yeah, it seems like, first off, you know you're a drafted when you have Zizich for Zubach takes, right?

Yeah, from what I saw him, it kind of seemed like he was a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-done guy. Like, he's 7-foot, he's pretty athletic, He's pretty skilled, but I wouldn't say he was like a standout any one thing. He kind of a lot of Yacca Pertl, honestly, in terms of overall skill set, which kind of is, I think which shows you like the value there still is and going to play at the college game. Like, I feel like if you put Zizich at Utah, he'd probably put up pretty similar statistics

and he'd be seen much higher than he is now playing overseas away from like U.S. cameras and whatever. I think one thing that Pertil definitely has over Zizich, who, might be a year younger than Pertil is that Pertl was definitely a better passer. He definitely has a better understanding of the floor. I think Zizich is definitely more of a guy who's going to be fighting for rebounds, definitely more of an energy guy coming off the bench at the next level. I think for sure he's like an NBA center.

Yeah. But there's a lot of those guys in this draft. I don't know if he's going to be an elite center by any means, though. It's interesting that Croatia kind of has this revival of talent. Zizich, it's Bender Hosonia has come before that. Sarge is not Croatian. Is he Croatian?

Is he Croatian? Yeah, they're stacked with talent then. Geez. Yeah. So it'll be really interesting going forward, especially when the Olympics come around, maybe the next time, not this time. Are they in the Series of Olympics?

I was just going to ask. That'd be fun to watch those guys. I think they are, but I don't think a lot of these young guys will be getting much time. Boo, boo. So, yeah, another guy I wanted to touch on briefly is Isaiah Cordignet, who I don't think stood out to you at the at this year's

Hoop Summit, if I recall. I was terrible. I try not to take too much work on this Hoot Summit games. Like, I feel like they can really mislead you. But man, he looked awful in that game. Yeah, according to reports I saw, though, he looked good during the practices. So, you know, he's something of a sentimental favorite of mine. He's a 6'5 wing out of France with very clear strengths and very clear weaknesses.

it's all compounded by the fact that he played in the B-level French League, which isn't very competitive at all. But, man, he's this unbelievable leaper. He plays extremely hard on defense. Without the ball, he might have some of the quickest feet in the draft, both in terms of straightaway speed and lateral quickness. In many ways, he kind of reminds me of Avery Bradley in the type of role he can play. But, man, like, he's extremely unstable.

when it comes to creating off the dribble. On straight line drives, he's like this tron bike, but he just, yeah, he just can't move Easter West at all. It's kind of almost funny. Like, again, he's going to be a guy who teams can use as someone who chases, you know, volume shooting point guards around, but if he doesn't improve his ball handling, he's probably going to be a situational role player. Well, let's just hope he was, like, really hungover.

or something at the Hoop Summit because he didn't look very athletic in that in that setting for whatever that's worth like it was like after I was a lead athlete he's just not moving very well but I don't know he've watched him than I have yeah I think he was just cursed on being on one of the worst world teams yeah that was really it was hard even watched that game yeah got freaking stomped yeah and the US team specifically was just stockpiled with lottery talents so I I don't want to put that too much against him yeah that was like that was like like pickets charged, man. They were just getting slaughtered out there, the international team. Yeah, I guess we'll wrap this up with a guy who I don't really know how to pin down.

So it's Joe Chi out of China. And he might... I thought it was Zoe Key, but that's probably right. Joe Chi. That's probably closer. I've looked it up and I feel confident. You know, it's Joel Chi. He's a 7-2 center with a 7-8 wing span. I think he has the most interesting measurables in the draft. Oh, definitely. Like, I think a month ago, I described him to a friend as everything about him is soft, but kind of in a good way. Like, he has incredible touch offensively. He's kind of shown three-point range. I mean, he's kind of shown three-point range, but he has kind of a low release point, and it's a little slow.

But he has a really real gift of blocking shots and keeping him in possession. You know, I would love to sign up for this guy, but he's maybe 220 pounds. I don't want to be contradicting myself from last week when I was like, oh, you know, Porzingis has paved the way for tall, athletic, skinny guys all over the world. But cheese frame kind of worries me a bit. I mean, definitely. Like, but at the same time, I remember my exact thought last year with Porzingas.

Oh, he'll need a few years because he's so skinny. With the way the league is going to, like, ball screens constantly, maybe like your lack of pure, I don't know, like he's got to semi-wing spin. He can shoot jumpers and block shots. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't gotten more love, honestly. One thing I have heard is that he's 25, which I don't know. That's just what I heard. That might be totally off.

Yeah, I mean, there are always questions about birth dates for Chinese men for people in Africa. I don't really know what to make of that, and I don't know how much that really matters. Well, I think the issue is like if he's 25, he's going to get much bigger. If he's like 20, like he claims he is, then you would hope he could put on some weight as he gets older. But at 25, he's more close to a finished product. Right. And honestly, if he's 220 pounds with a 7-8 wingspan, I don't know how much he's going to be able to bench us ever in his life. Yeah.

I mean, that's pretty absurd. Yeah. Watching this guy, you can tell he has very clear NBA skills, but he also kind of has the frame of, you know, a stick insect. You know, one of those insects who, like, camouflaged. as a tree branch. I don't know what to make of him. I wish him well because I think he has a place with his skill set in the NBA.

But there's definitely a reason why he's projected in the second round. But I could also totally see where it's like he plays the NBA for like a month. We're all like, oh man, we missing this guy really bad. How do we overthink this? He's simply a wing span. He can shoot jumpers and block shots.

Do I guess right? Ajinka is that guy too. So, that means where to go bare at all just because he has long arms. I just don't know if he has what Porzingas had right off the gate, which is this incredible motor to just yam on guys. Like, he was doing those putbacks from the jump. And I don't think Chi is a guy who...

Yeah, KP was super tough. Like, he's just, yeah, that's good way to... He's really high motor for sure. That helped him a lot. All right. I think that's all we have for now. Charts, I think we'll talk a bit more after the draft. That sounds good.

I'll have plenty of take after draft, that's for sure. Great. Thanks, man. Thanks, Danny. We'll be back after the draft. I'm sure to talk about all it went down on Thursday. Did you know the NBA has built a super useful bot for basketball fans on Messenger? Yeah, a bot, like a chat bot, a robot you can talk to. The NBA's Messenger bot is awesome. Just message it on Messenger to watch highlights of your favorite finals games and players. Message it to see videos you want. Try it now by visiting MBABot.net. That's NBABOT.net.

Hello and welcome to another draft edition of The Ringer NBA show. My name is Danny Chow. I'm an editor for the Ringer.com and joining me as always, it's Ringer NBA writer Jonathan Charks. Charks, how are you? I'm good, Ben. How are you doing? I'm good. I can smell it, man.

The draft is almost here. It happens so fast this year, man, from the finals to draft. It's crazy. Exactly four days. So, yeah, we'll be focusing on some international prospects that intrigue us in this one. I'm hoping that we can get at least half of these names right. Right, yeah. I'm guessing all of them.

I looked at no pronunciation guides. It's purely me guessing at these names. I tried looking on YouTube for any sort of interviews that might have helped, but they all kind of just went into it. So we'll try our best. But yeah, this draft has been really fun to talk about because it's so clear how the future has been laid out. Charts, you wrote a really good piece yesterday about the legacy

of the Warriors and how they played the game and how that will kind of affect the future in terms of teams looking at talent. You know who looks like the future? Dragon Bender looks like the future. Of course you'd say that, of course. Yeah, we talked a little bit about Bender as a potential guy for the Celtics in our first podcast, but since then he's kind of been all over the place. He's been linked anywhere from the number three spot to the number seven spot. I wrote about Bender a few weeks ago, and part of my argument was that, you know, broadly speaking, he's the youngest player in the draft, and he has as many different skills on the basketball court as anyone in this draft. But he's been kind of dismissed because so many teams are looking for an instant remedy for

their shittiness. I was just going to ask you, like, he asked, if it seemed like during the season, it was very much Simmons-ingram Bender, but in the last three or four weeks, he's really fallen back to the pack in the top like seven or eight. And so what's your theory on that? I think Chris Dunn has done a really good job of kind of marketing himself as like a guy who's clearly ready for this. You know, he's done some interviews. He's said all the right things about wanting to be playing against top competition, not wanting to settle on these workouts. And I think Jamal Murray clearly has, you know, some people thinking that he's going to be a really incredible offensive player right off the bat. And with Bender, he's always been a guy who was going to need some time for teams to

kind of figure out what he's capable of doing. And I think that's why he's kind of dropped down a little. Yeah, I feel like in general, when guys start marketing themselves or like the, after the season's over, a lot of narratives start developing about guys. And I feel like the film is the film when you're watching these guys. And there's no reason to drop a guy over the last month and a half. If nothing happened on the basketball court, make a drop. So that would worry me a little bit if I was one of those teams in that area. So if you had control of the draft board, where do you think you would pick Bender? See, I haven't watched him a ton of ton compared to the college guys, but I think he's a pretty safe number three.

If only because his floor is so high, because he's seven feet, he's very skilled, high field, decent athlete. I think he wasn't a pretty good NBA player no matter what. Right. I don't think I would draft him any lower than number five. Like I would love to see him next to Carl Anthony Towers. Oh, that would be great. And also for me, like, even if I don't love Bender, some of these guys that might go over them, I just blows my mind.

I mean, we talked a lot about them in the last podcast, but taking like Murray over Bender, I can't even, that's almost a fireball offense to me about you or a GM I was the owner. Like, what are you even talking about? So there have been a lot of rumors about Chris Dunn maybe sneaking his way into the top three discussion? How do you feel about that? Well, at that point, it's purely, I guess that means somebody's trading up, because there's no way Boston could take done with their roster unless they're making a ton of moves. I have heard that Minnesota likes done a lot in terms of being like a defensive-minded point guard,

and they don't love Rubio. So that's interesting. Though I'm with you, I think Bender and Towns just makes so much sense together in terms of two seven-footers who are super versatile. Like, that could be a special, special team. And he fits. in so well with Wiggins-Levin-Rubio. Like, to me, that's a no-braider, draft and bender at 5. And another player slotted in the lottery, though Chad Ford seems to have him falling is Timothy Luawu, who is a French wing playing for Megalex in Serbia. You know, he's another guy who's kind of fun to imagine being someone he currently isn't. He's 6-7, 205, has a 7-foot wing span. his frame is kind of reminiscent of a young Paul George.

And watching him, that kind of seems like a player that teams will look at in terms of how they project him going forward. He's kind of shown glimmers of shooting off the dribble like a star would, but ultimately he's shooting under 40% for a team that really gives them a long leash. I'm kind of of the opinion that young players making bad mistakes and decisions is generally a good thing for development. But, you know, teams do look at those statistics. Yeah, I mean, he reminds me a lot just athletically of Dante X-Im

just the way he moves. Like, he really, like, flies around the court. He's like a jet. And, like, he's one of those guys. You watch him in film, like, two or three times, and it's really easy to fall in love with them. But, like, all the European people who, like, watch these guys a ton, they've always been the ones for me kind of like,

hey, Slid on Luwalu, like just slow down your evaluation of him. Don't kind of fall in love with him off the jump. Because definitely, like, the first time you watched me, like this guy can really play. He moves really fast. He has really high, he has a high feel for the game,

which, like, for 3-ndy guy is fairly rare. Most 3-nd-D prospects, it's very much like, oh, he's a defender, dribbling is kind of a stretch, but he really just moves really well. He feels like he passes really well, too, for a guy with his kind of tool set. Is there something specific that these people, are kind of trying to ward off in terms of optimism for Luwalu?

Well, two things I've heard is like that jumper is, there's not a long truck regret of success. Like, it's very hit or miss. And that the league he's playing in the Adriatic League. One good thing I was told was like, they produced like three NBA guards in the last 20 years. Like that's the Udrich brother, Udrich and what's the other, Slovene. And Drogich, the Drogich, the Drogich brothers in Udrich.

So I don't know. In that sense, it's hard to, like, judge him a little bit. Have you watched him? Is he French? I'd not see him much of international play. That might be interesting to watch with him. Yeah, he's French. He moved to Serbia to basically play for the Adriatic League.

And that's kind of where he got his big star rise. Yeah, on the Megalex team, which is just, if you haven't followed European basketball, Megalax is super, super interesting in front of the draft. Back to Luau. I feel like if you were to kind of temper your expectations and, you would, you know, you didn't, you know, necessarily fall in love with the Paul George comparison right away. Someone he kind of reminds me of is tabo cephalosha. I was just going to say that.

I could totally see that. He's another versatile prospect who can do a lot of different things, but isn't necessarily great at any one thing. I feel like if Luwalu can't tighten up his handle and he can't work on his decision-making because he does force a lot of bad shots, the kind of 3-D cephalosha mold seems to be a fairly easy trajectory. trajectory to identify him with. Yeah, and that's one thing too with like a violating guy's jumper sometimes.

Sometimes it's like, man, this guy would be a good shooter if he took better shots. Like shots selection can really affect your percentages if you're not careful. But man, I really, really want to believe in this guy because he has the frame of Gerald Green and from the looks of his dunks, I mean, he could be probably be an Olympic level long jumper. This guy is really athletic. He has great strides moving down the court. I mean, I wouldn't say Gerald Green. Like, Gerald Green, that's like him.

Oh, no, not in terms of athletically, but his frame, definitely. Yeah, I mean, he's well built for 19-year-old for sure. I mean, he's like, he reminds me a lot of Patrick McCaud, UNLV, but he's got 20, 25 pounds on him, and he's younger, so. Yeah, and our next guy actually plays for the same team. Ivasa Zubach is another guy who is kind of in that, mid first round, late first round, might be a stash type guy. This guy's enormous.

He's like 7-1. He's a well-proportioned 270 with, I think, something like a 7-4 wingspan. From what I've seen, he kind of reminds me of like a mega-sized De Montes-Sabonis, and kind of going along with all that entails. This guy isn't a great athlete, but he plays hard, he can move pretty well laterally for his size. You know, dropping back on D shouldn't be a problem. I think you've focused quite a bit on Zubach just because you've seen a lot of Megalek's tape. What's to like here?

I think he reminds me a lot of kind of a younger version of A.J. Hammonds, like, quite a big piece of Montaitey at the ringer. And it's just for a guy, he's really, really big. I feel like with a guy who's this big, there's a little bit of a scale. Like, he's not a great athlete. But as you were saying, for a guy who's a freaking mastodon, he moves pretty well. He's pretty good on an offense, too. and when you're that freaking huge, it can be hard to stop at that size, roll into the rim or posting up.

And he has a pretty good feel. Like, to me, he could be the best center if, though, you're saying I'm going to deal with the fact that he's not going to switch screens, which I'm still like, I feel like with the way the league is going, I'm kind of up in the air about, like, how much can I value your classic dropback five? Like, Jonas Valenshunis, is he good enough to be a championship NBA five anymore? Like, I love Jonas, but I don't know because he's not that fast. I don't know.

Yeah, I actually don't have too great of a feel on this, but just from the way I've seen, you know, a few games front to back, he's not too bad at kind of corraling smaller guards that make their way into the lane on penetrations. So he might have some potential there. Obviously, he's not going to be stepping out, you know, 25 feet out. But he's definitely. moves better than, say, Nicola Peckovich.

Oh, I mean, for, yeah, for whatever that's worked. Right. I think anybody was that to Pecovic, I mean, my gosh. It's really interesting, this Megalek's team specifically. They've kind of emerged as something of a pipeline for NBA caliber talent. Nikola Yokic obviously looks like a star out in Denver, and he came out a few years back. Do they have Mietzich, too, for a while? Yeah, they had Veselye Mishich.

who was drafted, I think, in the 50s by the Sixers, yeah, sixers two years ago. He's like this oversized six-five point guard, almost Rubio-esque, except not quite the defender at all. But he was really fun to watch in the under-19 Fiba tournament. It should be noted that Megalax has one of the most delightful jerseys I've ever seen. Are the pink ones? They're incredible. It's hot pink, glow and dark green. back when they were Mega Vizura,

which was a couple years ago when Miseech was playing that was under a different sponsorship. But they had this light pink periwinkle color scheme that kind of looked like baby pajamas. I'm kind of surprised no one in the NBA

are in college gone with the pink. It's very aggressive look for television. Like it looks cool, I guess, like Kill a Cam, you know? Like, because I don't know if Megalex necessarily gets as much TV time. So I don't know if these games

are being broadcast like prime time. I mean, first of, they should be obviously, right? Right. Yeah, with these guys, obviously a lot of draft positioning is guesswork, since we don't have a lot of information, players who might be seen as lottery talents, you know, they could end up being picked up much later in the draft.

Well, did you see that Zubotch only worked out for four teams? Let me find the tweet. I saw it somewhere. He's hit with four workouts, Pistons, Grizzlies, Raptors, Celtics. which makes sense for their rosters, the same kind of, probably the Celtics. You have a bunch of teams that have bigger centers.

Because those are teams who inquired Bose and scouting them. I'm going off a tweet from one of the Pistons beatwriters. One thing I was thinking of, like, if you look at Zubach and Luawu, like, I wonder, I'm not thinking, like,

compare them to, like, the top two guys, like Kentucky, like Scal and Murray, or at Washington, Murray, and Chris, or at Cal, Rab, and Brown.

I wonder if I would take those two Megalex guys as a tandem over two guys for other schools. Like, they're right there in terms of talent, I think. Another guy that, you know, who could really go across the board in the first round is Furkan Korkmas, 6-7 wing from Turkey. I can't watch him without seeing a bigger, stronger, more athletic version of Marco Bellanelli. That's either a vote of confidence or, you know, a complete red, red flag. I would say it's pretty confidence.

I mean, that's a pretty good shooter. For a bigger version of that, it's pretty interesting. Right. Like, I mean, Bellanelli was a Summer League legend who dropped 37 in his first game. Well, he got a ring, doesn't he? With the Spurs. He got a championship. He does?

There it is. Like, I am 30% confident when I say this, but Bellanelli could have been a truly great player if Don Nelson didn't destroy his confidence completely. Hmm. 30% confident. Sure. Let's go with it. How would you compare him to like Hizonia, in terms of a big Euro wing?

I don't think he moves quite as gracefully. I don't think he's quite as athletic. Yeah, yeah, athleticism. Yeah, that makes sense. Right. Hizonia is truly one of the more athletic guys to come out of, you know, the international game that I've seen, especially at the wing position. So like, I can't really tell if I like Korkma's more than I did Bela Nelly when he was

a prospect. I think Bellinelli's vision and potential as like a second or third facilitator was at least stronger at the same stage than Corkmas. Korkmas has shown signs of being, you know, a guy who can create for himself in the pick and roll, but he doesn't have a lot of wiggle. And I kind of worry about his ability to get by people at the next level. So like he'd be, he would never, he'd be like garden the third or fourth option kind of guy. He's not going to be primary defender or primary initiative. Right. I mean, if you're 6-7, you can shoot and dribble.

There's a place for you in the league pretty much no matter what. Yeah, and I feel like it'll really depend on how Hizonia does in his second season, whether or not these kind of guys are, you know, seen as viable options in the first round. Hizonia had a pretty up and down season. He wasn't trusted by Scott Skiles at all. But I mean, that doesn't necessarily anything, does it? Scott Sciles unlike you. He's not actually young Metro, Scott Skiles.

He don't trust you. He doesn't mean anything for a young player. Yeah, it just feels like with teams, they try and go off of the trends that they see, especially with international players as far as who is playable and what projects well at the next level. So I'm not sure if Korkmas is that level of talent

in terms of what Hizonia can bring to the table. But as you said, like if he can, shoot threes kind of defend from, you know, the perimeter, then that might be enough. That's probably worth worthy of first round picking this year's draft. Quick word from our sponsors, and we'll get right back into our international guys. Did you know that the NBA has built a super useful bot for basketball fans on Messenger? Yeah, a bot, like a chat bot or a robot that you can talk to. The NBA's Messenger bot is awesome.

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when you go to Meyundies.com slash NBA show. That's me, meondies.com slash NBA show for 20% off your first order. That's meundies.com slash NBA S-H-O-W. Going along with those trends, teams have kind of been embolded by how well a lot of these European big men have translated immediately. Definitely. Last few years for sure. Yeah, and it can mean good things for Ante Zizich, a 7-foot 250-pound center out of Croatia. I'm not completely sold on his skill level, but he does have the strength and athleticism to, I don't know, be a solid role man in the two-man game.

What's your take on him? Yeah, it seems like, first off, you know you're drafted when you have Zizich for Zubach takes, right? Yeah, from what I saw him, it kind of seemed like he was a jack of all trades, master of done guy. Like, he's seven foot. He's pretty athletic. He's pretty skilled. But I wouldn't say he was like a stand-out-any-one thing. He kind of read me a lot of Yakup Pertil, honestly, in terms of overall skill set, which kind of is, I think which shows you, like, the value there still is and going to play at the college game.

Like, I feel like if you put Zizich at Utah, he'd probably put up pretty similar statistics. and he'd be seen much higher than he is now playing overseas away from like US cameras and whatever. I think one thing that Pertil definitely has over Zizich who might be a year younger than Pertil is that Pertil was definitely a better passer. He definitely has a better understanding of the floor. I think Zizic is definitely more of a guy

who's going to be fighting for rebounds, definitely more of an energy guy coming off the bench at the next level. That's, I think for sure he's like an NBA center. Yeah. But there's a lot of those guys in this draft. I don't know if he's going to be an elite center by any means, though. It's interesting that Croatia kind of has this revival of talent. It's Zizich, it's Bender, you know, Hosonia has come before that.

Sarge is not Croatia. Is he Croatia? Yeah, they're stacked with talent, then. Geez. Yeah. So it'll be really interesting going forward, especially when the Olympics come around, maybe the next time, not this time. Are they in the series of Olympics?

I was just going to ask, that'd be fun to watch those guys. I think they are, but I don't think a lot of these young guys will be getting much time. Boo, boo. So, yeah, another guy I wanted to touch on briefly is Isaiah Cordignet, who I don't think stood out to you at this year's Hoop Summit, if I recall correctly. I was terrible. I try not to take too much more than this Hoot Summit games. Like, I feel like they can really mislead you.

But, man, he looked awful in that game. Yeah, according to reports I saw, though, he looked good. during the practices. So, you know, he's something of a sentimental favorite of mine. He's a 6-5 wing out of France with very clear strengths and very clear weaknesses. It's all, you know, compounded by the fact that he played in the B-level French League, which isn't very competitive at all. But, man, he's this unbelievable leper. He plays extremely hard on defense. Without the ball, he might have some of the quickest feet in the draft, both in terms of straightaway season. speed and lateral quickness.

In many ways, he kind of reminds me of Avery Bradley in the type of role he can play. But, man, like, he's extremely unsteady when it comes to creating off the dribble. On straight line drives, he's like this tron bike, but he just, yeah, he just can't move Easter West at all. It's kind of almost funny. Like, again, he's going to be a guy who teams can use as someone who chases, you know, volume shooting point guards around, but if he doesn't improve his ball handling,

he's probably going to be a situational role player. Well, let's just hope he was like really hung over or something at the Hoop Summit because he didn't look very athletic in that setting. For whatever that's worth, like it was like Ascar was a lead athlete. He's just not moving very well. But I don't know. He's watched more of him than I have.

Yeah, I think he was just cursed on being on one of the worst world teams. Yeah, that was really, it was hard to even watch that game. They got freaking stomped. Yeah, and the U.S. team specifically was just stockpiled with lottery talents. So I don't want to put that too much against him. Yeah, that was like pickets charge, man. They were just getting slaughtered out there, the international team.

Yeah, I guess we'll wrap this up with a guy who I don't really know how to pin down. So it's Joe Chi out of China. And he might... I thought it was Zoh Ki, but that's probably right, Joe Chi. That's probably closer. I've looked it up. and I feel confident. You know, it's Joel Chi.

He's a 7-2 center with a 7-8 wing span. I think he has the most interesting measurables in the draft. Oh, definitely, definitely. Like, I think a month ago, I described him to a friend as everything about him is soft, but kind of in a good way. Like, he has incredible touch offensively. He's kind of shown three-point range. I mean, he's kind of shown three-point range, but he has kind of a low-release point. and it's a little slow, but he has a really real gift of blocking shots and keeping him in possession.

You know, I would love to sign up for this guy, but he's maybe 220 pounds. I don't want to be contradicting myself from last week when I was like, oh, you know, Porzingis has paved the way for tall, athletic, skinny guys all over the world. But cheese frame kind of worries me a bit. I mean, definitely. Like, but at the same time, I remember my exact thought last year with Porzingis. oh, he'll need a few years, could he's so skinny. With the way a league is going to, like, ball screens constantly,

maybe like your lack of pure, I don't know, like, he's got a semi-wing spin, he can shoot jumpers and block shots. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't gotten more love, honestly. One thing I have heard, like, is that he's 25, which I don't know. That's just what I heard. That might be totally off. Yeah, I mean, there were always questions.

Yeah, they're always questions. Yeah, they're always questions. birth dates for Chinese men for people in Africa. I don't really know what to make of that, and I don't know how much that really matters. Well, I think the issue is like if he's 25, he's going to get much bigger. If he's like 20, like he claims he is, then you would hope he could put on some weight as he gets older.

But at 25, he's more close to a finished product. Right, and honestly, if he's 220 pounds with a 7-8 wingspan, I don't know how much he's going to be able to bench press ever in his life. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty absurd. Yeah, watching this guy, you can tell he has very clear NBA skills, but he also kind of has the frame of, you know, a stick insect. You know, one of those insects who, like, camouflages as a tree branch.

I don't know what to make of them. I wish him well because I think he has a place with his skill set in the NBA. But there's definitely a reason why he's projected in the second round. But I could also totally see where it's like, he plays in a month. We're all like, oh, man, we missed him this guy really bad. How do we overthink this? He's simply a wing span.

He can shoot jumpers and block shots. Do I guess right, Ajinka is that guy, too. So, nothing means where to go bare at all. Just because he's long arms. I just don't know if he has what Porzingas had right off the gate, which is this incredible motor to just yam on guys. Like, he was doing those putbacks from the jump. And I don't think Chi is a guy who...

Yeah, K. is super tough. Like, he's just, yeah, that's a good way to. He's a really high motor for sure. That helped him a lot. All right. I think that's all we have for now. Charts, I think we'll talk a bit more after the draft.

That sounds good. I'll have plenty of takes after draft, that's for sure. Great. Thanks, man. Thanks, Danny. We'll be back after the draft. I'm sure to talk about all it went down on Thursday. Did you know the NBA has built a super useful bot for basketball fans on Messenger?

Yeah, a bot, like a chat bot, a robot you can talk to. The NBA's Messenger bot is awesome. Just message it on Messenger to watch highlights of your favorite finals games and players. Message it to see videos you want. Try it now by visiting NBABot.net. That's NBA-BOT.net.