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Dirk and the 2011 draft

NotDeadYet

NotDeadYet

Well-Known Member
Haven't seen a thread yet talkin' about it, so here goes. It's my opinion the success of Dirk Nowitzki in LEADING his team to an NBA championsip this year will greatly strenghten the future draft stature of European bigs in upcoming drafts. I fully expect Kanter will go top-3 this year, but he may well have slipped lower if Dirk and the Mavs had had another playoff disappointment as they have had in years past. Comments?
 
You may be right. Just curious. Has Germany turned out any NBA players since Dirk? Doesn't seem like very many.
 
I actually didnt think Nowitzki would ever win a championship, i dont rely on shooter big man as much as a dominant big man like duncan , shaq.. But i give him credit, he proved im wrong, and dallas proved us, teamwork is more important than a team based on individual stars. On the other hand they r the second highest salary team, but still , i have more hope after 2011 playoffs for utah being a contender in upcoming years
(and Kanter is the only european to break Nowitzkis record in nike summit, interesting detail)
 
btw this year will be interesting european basketball championship, i suggest people to watch , all european nba stars will be attending, germany with nowitzki, spanish team with gasol bros, navarro, rudy fernandez, and of course turkey with hedo, ersan, semih and omer asik (memo is injured till november-december, and im sure enes wont accept the invitation), almost forgot parker and france
im sure many nba team scouts will be in lithuania to watch the games
 
Dirk Nowitzki's success in 2011 will not affect how highly teams draft Kanter, Valanciunas, Vesely - because 1. Teams already viewed him as a great player and 2. the NBA has already gone down the road. After Nowitzki led the Mavs to the playoffs for the first time in 2001, there was a Euro-craze period where teams spent 1st-rnd picks on Vladimir Radmanovic (#12), Nikoloz Tskitishvili (#4), Zarko Cabarkapa (#17) Yaroslav Korolev (#12) over the next 4 years trying to find the "next Nowitzki."
At this point, teams know it's possible to find a great player from overseas but they're not going to buy into a "Nowitizki craze" and fall for the mythical Euro bigman as easily as they had. Last year at draft time - Fran Frachilla pointed out that next year would be a much better year for international players - so there was a rough idea then that a Valanciunas, Vesely and Motiejunas would draw strong attention from teams.
 
I suspect Dirk's success will cause SOME influence in the thought process of today's GMs; now as to whether any of them will actually ACT on it... we'll have to wait. I do think more teams will at least consider taking a European big in the top of the draft. Europeans typically are prejudged as being "soft" and such by many, causing GM's to not take a chance on them in the early part of the draft. With Dirk's superb showing against the Miami All-stars, that mindset could be changing...
 
Dirks succes has nothing to do with this years draft. I mean how can one even tie the two together? Quit trying to justify you kanter love fest by making wild and stupid assumptions.
 
A player is a player, no matter what county they come from. Scouting in Europe has gone through the roof in the last 5 years because there are so many prospects over there that now compare to the collage kids today. No one is going to be shocked or surprised any more by how good or bad a guy that plays in Europe is. There is just to much media coverage and film today to make the same mistake on these players that teams did in the past. I think the chances on making a mistake on a Euro is about the same as a collage player these days.

This year there are a few guys that are kinda "Euro old school" when it comes to scouting in Kanter and Biyombo. But again I don't think your going to ever have another Darko draft where the unknown Euro goes before 2 All-Stars.
 
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