Erazem Lorbek, Davis Bertan, Adam Hanga, DeShaun Thomas

[SilverSpur]

What is the update on these players? Are they ready to make the team?
Any news on other draft rights players , Livio Jean Charles , Ryan Richards, Denmon?

[Robz4000]

Davis Bertans will prolly be on the team next year, but none of them are really worth a damn.

[jeebus]

Ryn Richrds. That scrub can't even compete at summer league level.

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

Adam Hanga is the best of these players right now, but he's unlikely to make it to the NBA due to his age and low upside. Actually Printezis is clearly the best player that the Spurs have rights to, but he's also very unlikely to go to the NBA at this point. He's good enough to be a contributor though.

Bertans definitely has the most upside due to his shooting and length but he's a long way from being a rotation NBA player.

LJC can sort of force himself on the team but he's raw and needs at least two years in Austin, but has intriguing athleticism.

Thomas has been in Austin the whole season.

The others are scrubs. Lorbek hasn't played basketball in a while.

[lmbebo]

Center from last year, Bertans and LJC are all the spurs assets really overseas. Rest won't really make it or don't want to make it over here.

[cjw]

When you're picking in the mid-to-late 20s (or 30th) every year with one exception (20th), the chance that you hit on these picks is slim to none.

If any of these guys can be cheap rotation players that can be molded into anything worth a damn, it's a positive at this point.

[DJR210]

When you're picking in the mid-to-late 20s (or 30th) every year with one exception (20th), the chance that you hit on these picks is slim to none.

If any of these guys can be cheap rotation players that can be molded into anything worth a damn, it's a positive at this point.

"slim to none"

[elemento]

Ryn Richrds. That scrub can't even compete at summer league level.

Sadly, give that body and athleticism to Matt Bonner and we have an all-star

ing waste of great genes tbh

[cjw]

"slim to none"

Around half the players from that point in the draft end up out of the league after their rookie deals. Around a 20% chance of hitting (3 All Stars out of 90 picks in past ten drafts - Butler, Lowry and Rondo. Rondo and Lowry were both ten years ago, and the other guys from 20-30 were Balkman, Marcus Williams, Josh Boone, Shannon Brown, Jordan Farmar, Sergio Rodriguez, Maurice Ager, Mardy Collins and Joel Freeland. Some world beaters in there.

It's a crap shoot.

Spurs were obviously pretty good at unearthing talent from 20 onward from the first le in '99 up through 2011, but less impact players over the past four drafts. Lots to be seen still.

[TheGreatYacht]

All of them are scrubs, RC is getting pretty good at drafting duds like them and Fathead

[gambit1990]

really hoping bertans plays on our summer league team.

[objective]

Actually Printezis is clearly the best player that the Spurs have rights to, but he's also very unlikely to go to the NBA at this point. He's good enough to be a contributor though.

His rights were traded away on draft night.

[YGWHI]

All of them are scrubs

People who didn't even watch a game of them in this year...call them scrubs.

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

His rights were traded away on draft night.

While dude's rights have been traded about a million times and been held by half the NBA teams, which is difficult to keep track of, they're currently owned by the Spurs again from the Splitter trade last summer. Not sure if any team ever offered him a contract or whether he ever even intended to go to the NBA.

[Mal]

Bertans will join, and play garbage time to be ready for the future. Noone else from your list will made NBA.

[Hoops Czar]

Around half the players from that point in the draft end up out of the league after their rookie deals. Around a 20% chance of hitting (3 All Stars out of 90 picks in past ten drafts - Butler, Lowry and Rondo. Rondo and Lowry were both ten years ago, and the other guys from 20-30 were Balkman, Marcus Williams, Josh Boone, Shannon Brown, Jordan Farmar, Sergio Rodriguez, Maurice Ager, Mardy Collins and Joel Freeland. Some world beaters in there.

It's a crap shoot.

Spurs were obviously pretty good at unearthing talent from 20 onward from the first le in '99 up through 2011, but less impact players over the past four drafts. Lots to be seen still.

What about players like Draymond Green, Andrei Kirilenko, Jmmy Butler, Paul Milsap, Danny Green, Trevor Ariza, Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic, Marc Gasol, Deandre Jordan, Hassan Whitside, Lou Williams, Wesley Matthews (undrafted) etc. Some were 2nd round draft picks but, they still count.

It's hardly a crapshoot. It's about having good talent evaulators and not settling for draft and stash raw euro trash. Excluding Leonard which they traded up for, their best pick since 2008 was Goerge Hill (pick 26). Yeah, a lot of players don't work out but when you're dealing with the so-called "best of the best" PATFO that never gets it wrong according to the media contingent, they've swung and missed quite a bit.

[objective]

In case anyone wants to make up their own minds:

There's full games on YouTube for a lot of these guys. You can watch Bertans & Hanga, Dangubic, Milutinov, and Livio Jean-Charles all in their full glory.

I've been watching a few (just watched d a half of Dangubic in the Adriatic finals) and my impressions are:

Bertans is legit as long as he's healthy. Should play right away. Plays tough too. Doesn't have the strength to handle PF, but he plays hard on both ends when he could probably get away with being a lazy shooter like Marco or Novak. Should be a rotation player right away if Pop doesn't find some washed up crappy vet to take a pay cut and play over him. I want to go back and chart his shots.

Hanga would be a useful hustle wing, but probably not on the Spurs at his age. He doesn't have the playmaking of Simmons or the overrated hunched over playmaking of Anderson. He's arguably a worse shooter than Anderson and older than Simmons. So in a rotation at his age he'd be in street clothes a lot if Manu returned.

Milutinov I think could play right now 15-20 minutes as a backup center. His minutes are strange at OLY but not due to poor play. Just weird euro stuff on a great team where Milutinov might start, play well, and sit the second half. His only real flaw is some dumb fouls, which is not that bad for a young backup center. But a bigger, less clever Splitter might be a fair comparison. One thing I like about him is that he can pass. There's nothing that should hinder him in the system, he can execute all the passes and is willing to pass, he's no Yinka Dare. So many young bigs can't pass, but he can. He's not a force like Boban. He won't put up those numbers. He can't shoot or pass like Boban. But he can cover the pick and roll better. So he might be an option if Boban leaves.

Dangubic I watched a lot last year and have only started to catch up. Great athlete and very good perimeter defender. Looks like he improved his 3 pt shooting to serviceable levels, which is great. Last year, he was always last on the totem pole with touches, so it didn't look like he had the necessary ball skills. He rarely ran a pick and roll, rarely iso'd. Just defending and cutting. Interested to watch his tape to see if there was progress. He is a guy I would like to see signed and parked in the d-league to work on his skills. Just touching the ball every time and trying to run stuff through him. He's young enough to still improve and his defense is good enough already, he routinely picked up point guards full court at 6-7.

I don't think LJC is an NBA player. He was a mature enough athlete to hustle his way to great stats against high schoolers and get drafted. But his physical tools aren't that big a deal at the NBA level, they're solid but not rare, and he's a good but not game-changing athlete. Maybe he's still recovering from the knee injury and it's not fair to judge his explosiveness as it is currently. But it's also hard to see any basketball skills from him other than rolling to the rim at an okay level or being decent at contesting shots.

Maybe I'm suffering from recency bias as the last game of his I watched was the worst game I've ever seen from a draft & stash. He was terrible in almost every facet of the game including strength where he was manhandled on the defensive glass by scrubby euro 4s. He's like a homeless man's Hakim Warrick. Or a smaller, unskilled, unpolished Jeff Ayres.

Putting him in the d-league wouldn't hurt anything. But I don't have much hope for him out of all these players.

[TXstbobcat]

In case anyone wants to make up their own minds:

There's full games on YouTube for a lot of these guys. You can watch Bertans & Hanga, Dangubic, Milutinov, and Livio Jean-Charles all in their full glory.

I've been watching a few (just watched d a half of Dangubic in the Adriatic finals) and my impressions are:

Bertans is legit as long as he's healthy. Should play right away. Plays tough too. Doesn't have the strength to handle PF, but he plays hard on both ends when he could probably get away with being a lazy shooter like Marco or Novak. Should be a rotation player right away if Pop doesn't find some washed up crappy vet to take a pay cut and play over him. I want to go back and chart his shots.

Hanga would be a useful hustle wing, but probably not on the Spurs at his age. He doesn't have the playmaking of Simmons or the overrated hunched over playmaking of Anderson. He's arguably a worse shooter than Anderson and older than Simmons. So in a rotation at his age he'd be in street clothes a lot if Manu returned.

Milutinov I think could play right now 15-20 minutes as a backup center. His minutes are strange at OLY but not due to poor play. Just weird euro stuff on a great team where Milutinov might start, play well, and sit the second half. His only real flaw is some dumb fouls, which is not that bad for a young backup center. But a bigger, less clever Splitter might be a fair comparison. One thing I like about him is that he can pass. There's nothing that should hinder him in the system, he can execute all the passes and is willing to pass, he's no Yinka Dare. So many young bigs can't pass, but he can. He's not a force like Boban. He won't put up those numbers. He can't shoot or pass like Boban. But he can cover the pick and roll better. So he might be an option if Boban leaves.

Dangubic I watched a lot last year and have only started to catch up. Great athlete and very good perimeter defender. Looks like he improved his 3 pt shooting to serviceable levels, which is great. Last year, he was always last on the totem pole with touches, so it didn't look like he had the necessary ball skills. He rarely ran a pick and roll, rarely iso'd. Just defending and cutting. Interested to watch his tape to see if there was progress. He is a guy I would like to see signed and parked in the d-league to work on his skills. Just touching the ball every time and trying to run stuff through him. He's young enough to still improve and his defense is good enough already, he routinely picked up point guards full court at 6-7.

I don't think LJC is an NBA player. He was a mature enough athlete to hustle his way to great stats against high schoolers and get drafted. But his physical tools aren't that big a deal at the NBA level, they're solid but not rare, and he's a good but not game-changing athlete. Maybe he's still recovering from the knee injury and it's not fair to judge his explosiveness as it is currently. But it's also hard to see any basketball skills from him other than rolling to the rim at an okay level or being decent at contesting shots.

Maybe I'm suffering from recency bias as the last game of his I watched was the worst game I've ever seen from a draft & stash. He was terrible in almost every facet of the game including strength where he was manhandled on the defensive glass by scrubby euro 4s. He's like a homeless man's Hakim Warrick. Or a smaller, unskilled, unpolished Jeff Ayres.

Putting him in the d-league wouldn't hurt anything. But I don't have much hope for him out of all these players.

thank you for the analysis of the Spurs overseas players.

[spurtech09]

Wouldn't hurt to bring some of these guys in.....Lets see what they can do...

[koriwhat]

I actually don't think yall give anderson enough credit. dude is young, thrown into the fire early in his career and has a ton of upside. give the young buck a break.

[wildbill2u]

The real reason the Spurs draft these guys is that they don't have to pay them anything or count against the cap. So they take a flyer on the foreign draft choices. It's like throwing mud up on a wall and seeing if anything sticks. No risk, maybe a return.

Unfortunately the fans get caught up in the hype and the explanation that the FO gives about their skills and then blows it up in their minds that the guy is another potential Ginobilli or Parker. We found two of those quality guys in almost 20 years.

[cjw]

What about players like Draymond Green, Andrei Kirilenko, Jmmy Butler, Paul Milsap, Danny Green, Trevor Ariza, Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic, Marc Gasol, Deandre Jordan, Hassan Whitside, Lou Williams, Wesley Matthews (undrafted) etc. Some were 2nd round draft picks but, they still count.

It's hardly a crapshoot. It's about having good talent evaulators and not settling for draft and stash raw euro trash. Excluding Leonard which they traded up for, their best pick since 2008 was Goerge Hill (pick 26). Yeah, a lot of players don't work out but when you're dealing with the so-called "best of the best" PATFO that never gets it wrong according to the media contingent, they've swung and missed quite a bit.

Agree - a lot of swinging and missing recently. There are a bunch of productive players that have come from that part of the draft but the dropoff is real after the lottery (about 2x the expected estimated wins added by the 13th pick as where the Spurs typically draft ... 2.4 compared to around 1.0). Second rounders are spins of the roulette wheel, and this is where scouting kicks in. Below from an ESPN piece a year ago:

[dabom]

I actually don't think yall give anderson enough credit. dude is young, thrown into the fire early in his career and has a ton of upside. give the young buck a break.

Cost us a 'ship. What more of a break do you need?

[koriwhat]

Cost us a 'ship. What more of a break do you need?

he cost us one? him alone? lmao! yall seem to always try to find a scapegoat. this is a team, not an individual's game.

[dabom]

he cost us one? him alone? lmao! yall seem to always try to find a scapegoat. this is a team, not an individual's game.

Do I need to point it out to you, you stupid .