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By God’s grace we still hit gold with Keldon 10 picks later. But jeez what a waste of a 19th pick.
Imagine if we had Thybulle, Williams, Clark, or Bazley. I mean they could at least contribute SOMETHING.
Outside of a 3 pointer made, Luka looks nothing like an NBA prospect. He can't finish and has stone feet.
I don't get why time and time again we roll the dice on an international project when we could just take a high floor type athlete in college. It's just a waste of a first round pick.
Ironically enough, the gems (Scola and Dragic), we did happen to hit on, we gave away.
By God’s grace we still hit gold with Keldon 10 picks later. But jeez what a waste of a 19th pick.
Imagine if we had Thybulle, Williams, Clark, or Bazley. I mean they could at least contribute SOMETHING.
Don't get me started with Scola
In fairness, Samanic has always been 3 years project. He's only 20 or will be 21. But he's a big who got all the skills, but needs to be stronger. If he can consistently hit the 3's, rebound, and put a big body on people, he's what the FO was looking for.
I said Luka Sandwich was stiff after that fake NBA bubble game and people got outraged. Stone feet is a very appropriate description for his supposed athleticism. He looks like someone who started playing basketball at 17.
Dragic was a Suns pick (steal)
My thoughts exactly. What 1st round pick takes 2+ years to be "ready" to play any minutes at the NBA level? Most good players played in their early teens (middle school), especially pro league guys who were taller than everyone back then. This dude seems to have the same feel for bball as someone who goes ice skating for the first time.
at this point his ceiling looks like dario saric
Weren’t people saying Samanic would’ve been a top 10 pick if he were in this year’s draft instead of last year’s?
And btw here is a list of international absolute shows of picks Spurs have made after they hit their TP/Manu home runs (not counting Scola, who was actually good but Spurs mis-managed bringing him over, and not counting players drafted for other teams via draft day trade):
https://www.basketball-reference.com...SAS/draft.html
Robertas Javtokas (Lithuania)
Ian Mahinmi (France)
Nando De Cola (France)*
Ryan Richards (UK)
Adam Hanga (Hungary)
Livio Jean-Charles (France)
Nikola Milutinov (Serbia)
Luka Samanic (Croatia)
*after this abomination of a pick and the resulting experience / bouncing this head back to Euroleagues, Spurs FO had been burnt and started drafting more American players
I wouldn't doubt it. Spurs crazy success with Euros has had front offices league wide overvaluing Euros since 2001. There's a laundry list of absolutely terrible Euro picks in the last 2 decades of drafts.
That being said, the chance at drafting a Nowitzki/Ginobili/Parker/Doncic is very intriguing to many a FO exec. Especially considering how heavily scouted the US/NCAA scene is, and unless you have a top 3 pick, you are likely not going to get any generational talent anyway.
So what skills does this guy have? What you are describing is a pie in the sky.Don't get me started with Scola
In fairness, Samanic has always been 3 years project. He's only 20 or will be 21. But he's a big who got all the skills, but needs to be stronger. If he can consistently hit the 3's, rebound, and put a big body on people, he's what the FO was looking for.
His skills are being tall and 20 years old.
Same way Kawhi's skills were having 7'+ wingspan and being 20 when we drafted him.
The rest is up to his work ethic and development staff's ability to teach him a jumper and other drills to improve his viability.
You are letting him off the hook too easily. The guy just doesn't realize how lucky he is. Never played against others that had a lot to gain. Also letting Pop off the hook. You could say he hasn't put Luka in too many situations. Having said that... Luka is responsible for himself and therefore should look like he's trying when he does get minutes.
Has the skillset to join Dragan Bender in Tel Aviv in a few years.
Meh... I call bull .
His work ethic seems non existent. He's not taking the challenge of KNOWING he'll only play minimal minutes and TRYING to make an impact.
This thread is stupid.
Of course with ing hindsight you can pick apart any team's draft history & complain about all their misses.
If the kid goes his entire rookie contract without a role or craving out rotational minutes, then he's a bust and lost cause. Oh well, it happens to every team and the team still found another quality, late 1st - round pick in Keldon Johnson.
How does that speak to his work ethic? Are you in the gym with him or at the practice facility watching him being lazy?
No, they aren't, you're being purposefully short-sighted for the sake of "being right". Will a thread like this be made after every bad game by Luka? Let's go through this, once again - he's got unusually fluid handles for someone his size, unusually good shooting stroke for someone his size, and an above-average jumping/leaping ability, again for someone his size. He's lacking in many facets of the game - not denying it whatsoever - but to revisionalistically wonder "what his skills are" when RC literally had a post-draft interview detailing them, is just stupid, tbh.
No they weren't - go watch his college tape or draft profiles, and see for yourself. Revisionism again. He had a good midrange game, was strong on the glass and rebounds, had a build that looked to be able to put on weight, and was also unusually fluid for his size/length. Of course, the Spurs developed him greatly, but to act like his only "skills" were his age and wingspan (both of which are, literally, not skills) is simply re ed.
My hot take is that any thread made less than an hour after a game, is inherently stupid. People can't keep it in their pants, and think it through again with a cool head, it seems.
I always remember a take that Sean Elliott would say when a rookie played bad for any team and there was talk about that player being a bust. He said teams that draft an 18 or 19 year old kid and expecting them to be instant NBA Stars are delusional as it takes really 3 years for these young players to develop. He basically said hey if your drafting players that need to be developed then give them time to be developed before you give up on them
In fairness, most of those drafted came in the last 3 picks of the draft. Those kind of players largely miss in the NBA and the Spurs were drafting those guys and keeping them overseas so they could keep the draft pick but keep their NBA rosters stacked.
You basically destroyed the case by naming almost all second round picks that have quite a high wash out rate, regardless of nationality.
Top lottery players like Doncic being good right out of the gates has spoiled modern NBA fans into thinking this instant success can be replicated. To think Timmy came into the league after 4 years of college and was still a #1 pick, when nowadays a 4-year college prospect is looked down upon due to age... Or Manu coming into the league at 25.... And people call these 20yo kids busts. Smh.
I thought today it appeared he had been instructed to make quick decisions when he got the ball, which is a baby step forward (in the preseason he completely lost). The execution was not so great most of the time, he went up soft to the rim.
He has all the skill and athleticism, but just has no idea what he is doing on the court.
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