Eurobasket 2011 Lithuania

[jalfa]

Anybody watching? So far, I've only been able to see Germany-Italy and I'm currently watching Italy-Latvia. At first I was going to brag about how Germany is rolling, but seeing the Italians screw up against Latvia (who have, it seems, two three point to one two point attempt so far) messes with my confidence. To this point there hasn't been any real upset, but, admittedly, I don't know much about European basketball outside of Germany, so if anyone with more knowledge would like to say something about players to watch out for that'd be great.

As far as German prospects are concerned:
Tibor Pleiß (31st pick last year) doesn't get any real playing time after regressing for a year. Admittedly, playing behind Chris Kaman and (in the italy game) having to concede time to Timo Ohlbrecht, who is quicker and thus better suited to play against Bargnani, hasn't helped.
Robin Benzing was pretty spectacular, profiting from the attention being mostly on Dirk and, at times, Kaman, slashing to the rim several times and hitting his three pointers. He's not exactly NBA material, but he could still develop into a nice player.

 

[Glenn]

I am watching a few just to see the guys who interest me which is not many. I watched Kanter and Hedo play against Portugal. Portugal is not very good but none of us have seen Kanter in a long time. He is dominant. What a brute and he is amazingly quick. I was most curious how he would do against men just because men tend to be larger than high school kids. He pushed people around. Just as he looked against high school kids, he looked like a man against boys. I hope later in the tournament to see him against teams with a little more skill like, er, the Gasols.

 

[jalfa]

I've seen Kanter play twice now and I think he's definetely going to be a good player. However, Jonas Valanciunas has impressed me quite a bit more so far. That guy is hella quick for his size, has incredible length and seems pretty tough. It wasn't possible to see much of his post up game, since he's used more as a finisher on the Lithuanian squad, but I can't see any reason he won't do well in the NBA. France's Kevin Seraphin looked good also: quite a bully, but with touch, too. Washington will continue to be an intriguing team.

 

[Peja]

This championship is so far much stronger than last years World cup. A lot more NBA players assured that. Anyway, France was the most interesting team to me until today. Why until today? Because they didn't play Parker and Noah against Spain and they lost so they can play against Greece and then Serbia/Russia in semi-finals instead of playing against Slovenia and then Lithuania(who is really strong with 15.000 noisy fans).

French team is really good, they have good players on every position - Parker, Batum, Diaw, Noah, Seraphin, Pietrus... They were never really a threat in European basketball, but looks like they finally got together and they are looking like a strong team which can go all they way. Parker is playing excellent and is followed by Noah. But their main advantage is big number of really good players. Too bad Turiaf couldn't play because of the injury.

I am really sorry that Germany didn't make to the 1/4 finals... I really wanted to see Dirk doing more with his team in his last national team action, but they really don't have depth beside him and Kaman.

Spanish team is really strong. They did lost to Turkey, but still, they are really good. Gasol brothers are dominant in each game and they have amazing support in Navarro, Rudy, Calderon, Ibaka... I didn't put Rubio's name on purpose, because he didn't really show anything on the championship. Calderon is the real leader on the court.

Lithuania is playing really good and they managed to go to the 1/4 finals because of their amazing crowd. They have plenty of young players supported by Jasikevicius and Songaila, but they can't really win it all. I mean, they can, if they keep shooting 3s like they are right now and if they break their opponents with their noisy crowd. I hope they don't win.

Last but not least, Serbia... my team is playing really bad and thank God we managed to go into 1/4 finals by winning against Turkey by 1 point today. We have decent starting lineup with Teodosic, Krstic and Savanovic as our main players, but the bench players aren't giving enough help. There's also future T-Wolves player, Bjelica. We play Russia/Macedonia in the next phase and if we win, another game against France... it's going to be exciting tournament.

 

[jalfa]

After watching Russia a couple of times: They really impressed the hell out of me. It used to be that they had a murderous defense and pretty much no offense, but all of a sudden their offense has become very strong as well. This Shved guy and Mozgov can really ball. Aside from the usual suspects (france, greece, spain) they are clearly an odds on favourite.