From Distance: Slovenia Wins Our Hearts

Four Point Play…

1. Coach Nick over at BBALLBREAKDOWN recently covered how Slovenia won Eurobasket 2017. In typical Coach Nick fashion, the video breaks down Slovenia’s beautiful offensive motion by highlighting its two dominant play-makers, Goran Dragic and Luka Doncic. Nick pays the bills by hocking Seatgeek, a wonderful company that I’m sure Cavs:theBlog fans would love to support. In various videos, the Coach has also occasionally subjected us to pictures of himself in some fancy MeUndies. I’m not going to error by airing my dirty laundry, but let’s just say I could use a free sample of their fine product. I’m betting that the rest of C:tB’s staff would please their significant others if they were to have a major underwear upgrade. Was that too obvious?

What is perhaps most entertaining is that Coach Nick starts the video by giving us a geography lesson. Just where in Sam Hill is Slovenia anyway!?

I’d venture to say that his clarification was for people living outside of Cleveland. The Forest City has the largest concentration of Slovenes outside of Slovenia. I remember first reading about Cleveland’s Slovenian population in the fun Les Roberts private-detective series staring Milan Jacovich(spelled that way so people like Bill Simmons can avoid the “ic” pronunciation hurtle. “Ic” is always “ich” ya’ll). Deep Shaker was the first novel that I had ever read that mentioned Mentor, Ohio. My 10-year-old self was more than a little excited.

I may have read about a Slovenian American as a kid, but I didn’t really have a great idea of the country’s culture. Sure, my sister was on swim team with a pair of super talented first generation boys, but I was too young to actually talk to their parents. The only clear image in my mind was the clever, smart, and tough-as-nails, Milan Jacovich.

2. After moving to Europe, I was eager to learn about the various cultures not readily featured in the average American’s vacation guide book. Let’s be honest. England, France, Spain, Germany and Italy dominate most eurotrip conversations. I had already had the supremely good fortune to have traveled and/or lived in those places. Eastern Europe? Not so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfCmsH82xV0

Enter Francis Tapon’s The Hidden Europe. Tapon wasn’t messing around with this one. Francis spent three years of his life traveling and researching for this book. He’s currently doing the same thing in Africa. With 54 countries, he’s going to need more than three years.

Tapon is thorough in his research. The descriptions of his extensive travels and extended stays throughout Eastern Europe got me particularly excited about the motherland of that old Private Eye from my literary youth.

The summer after I read The Hidden Europe, I took advantage of my proximity to Slovenia and made the trip from Germany.

I absolutely loved it. What do you get when you combine the self-deprecating humor of the Slavs, the work-ethic and production of the Germans, and the love of life from the Italians? An essentially idyllic little country. Seriously.

Slovenia boasts Venetian towns on the Adriatic, huge cave systems with Human Fish, and a capital city that is defined as lovely. As expected for the region, Ljubljana features the requisite beautiful Habsburg architecture from the Austro-Hungarian empire. What is not standard is the coolest little bit of anarchy in Europe. Metelkova is a wonderful microcosm of what I loved about Slovenia. It has something for everybody. I had never seen so many different aged people party together in one place. Young people played folk guitar while 75 year-old women danced to Techno 10 meters away. What’s better, is that the groups often intermingled. There was a cohesion of relaxed conversation between almost everyone I met there.

3. Watching Slovenia’s Dragic and Doncic patiently attack in the Pick and Roll game reminded me of that combination of full-throttled party and chill. Like a campfire with only one guitar, the Slovenian national team let their stars run the show without leaving anyone out. Sure, only Dragic and Doncic had particularly high usage rates, but everyone was happily singing along to their tunes.

More impressively, the system that the Slovenians ran allowed for fantastic floor-spacing and sharp weak-side attack angles. It was made possible by the shooting and play-making acumen of their two stars.

Anybody who has followed the NBA over the last decade knows that Goran Dragic is as good as anyone when he is locked in and given the ball. Dragic has routinely been ranked as one of the faster players in the league. His ability to finish in transition and his mastery of the Pick and Roll game have given NBA teams fits for years.

The biggest issue for Dragic is usage. For whatever reason, teams frequently look to move on from the speedy lefty in search of something better. It doesn’t make a lot of sense considering his production over the years. People rightfully point out Dion Waiters’s play as a primary factor contributing to the Heat’s 30-11 finish. While Saint Weirdo certainly helped the Heat reverse their fortunes, the real catalyst was Dragic’s return to health.

Miami was 1-8 in the games that Dragic missed last season. The Heat were also 1-4 in the games preceding his missed games. One could conclude that he was injured or re-aggravated an injury in those five games. As a result of the nagging ankle, foot, and eye injuries that Dragic suffered last year, the team went 2-10.

Obviously, there is no way to predict a players health, but one would be correct in assuming that a healthy Goran Dragic would lead the Miami Heat to a high playoff seed in 2018.

4. While Dragic is Eurostepping fools in the NBA, Luka Doncic will continue confounding the EuroLeague with fantastic hesitation dribbles and step-back threes. The 18-year-old’s name was already buzzing after putting up one of the best stat-lines of a player his age in EuroLeague history. Playing for a Real Madrid squad loaded with ex-NBA players, the young man won the EuroLeague Rising Star award.

After an equally strong showing for his national team this past summer, many NBA scouts are talking about the possibility of Doncic going number one overall in the 2018 draft.

It is a very interesting debate. On one hand, our Nate Smith is right to question Doncic’s overall athleticism. At 6’8″, he certainly doesn’t explode around the court like a lot of his young phenom American counterparts.

That being said, there is one aspect of his athleticism that will positively affect his future success in the NBA. He is completely ambidextrous as a leaper. After studying game film of Luka Doncic, it is clear that he can get off the ground equally off either foot. He is also good in traffic going off two feet. Leaping off either foot is incredibly advantageous in the transition game and while driving to the cup. The ability to explode off two feet is a requisite to being a good weak-side help defender.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw361h7nH8k

Doncic’s ball-handling and shooting skills are obviously NBA level. His hesitation dribble going either way gives him the ability to gain a step on his defender without having to go into overdrive. From there, he uses his body brilliantly to keep the defender on his back while he surveys his options. At only 18, he is already fluently firing cross-court passes off the dribble. There is little doubt to me that he will be a quality play-maker.

The question, as always, is if he has the lateral quickness and explosion necessary to defend at an adequate level. Considering his size and rebounding ability, a team should be able to surround him with some perimeter defenders that would ease his defensive load.

I see Doncic’s NBA potential as best version Hedo Turkoglu. That’s not a slight. Turkoglu was a fantastic play-maker and versatile defender before the cigarettes and awful food choices slowed him down. Had he maintained his youthful athleticism as he developed his PnR game, Turkoglu could have been an absolute beast.

There are no such questions regarding Doncic’s work ethic. Luka’s father, Sasa Doncic was also a professional player and member of the Slovenian National Team. By all accounts, the young man has spent the entirety of his short life around older basketball players. That is already a huge advantage.

What may be a larger advantage is the fact that Slovenia is his homeland. Perhaps that mixture of cultures and styles he experienced in his hometown permeates his play. Maybe the acceptance of different ages at a party or on a court will give him an advantage in his transition to NBA life. Then again, maybe I just had a really great vacation a few years ago. Hmm. I’ll go with “all of the above.”