Browns Drafting Skill Will Be Apparent This Year
July 13, 2009Kobe Digs at LeBron
July 13, 2009
Last week, we mentioned that the summer league was rolling around that this would be our shot to see what Christian Eyenga was packing. Our most recent first-round draft choice has plenty of upside, but given his competition overseas, he also came with a lot of doubt.
With two games in thus far, we have a few box scores that we can disect. However, let’s start with a review that Eyenga receivedwhile playing in the now infamous five-on-five pick-up games that will be known more for the whole LeBron James/Nike confiscation.
The roster: LeBron, his high school teammate Romeo Travis (now playing pro ball in Germany), Cavs’ reserve Tarence Kinsey, and Cleveland draft picks Danny Green and Christian Eyenga — or, as I write in my notebook because I can’t remember his name, “#30.”
I’m not alone. Seated near me is a prominent unofficial member of the extended Nike fam, and he spends pretty much the entire game talking sh*t on Eyenga — though, granted, some of it is deserved. The quick scouting report: Dude is very athletic and entirely raw as a basketball prospect. He follows a wet three-pointer with back-to-back airballs. He alternates made dunks with failed dunks on a pretty even basis. He attempts no offense in between. If he gets the sh*t coached out of him the next few years (most likely back in Europe) he might be a player someday. That said, it was maybe harsh, in the middle of the game, to ask loudly, “Is this the first time he’s played on a wood court?”
Wow. Well, I guess it could have been worse. He did say he’s “athletic,” so we do have that going for us. Also, keep in mind that this was simply a pick-up game and the intensity level may be a bit different if in an organized, “must win” type of situation.
The line we have heard the entire time is that he needs coaching. He boasts a ton of upside, and the Cavaliers scouts love the athleticism he brings to the table. But as Rock mentioned in an email a few weeks back, a lot of what we’re reading wreaks of players like Darius Miles.
The good thing is, Eyenga was not a lottery pick. He also won’t be asked to contribute right away, if even this decade. He can hone his skills overseas, at no cost to the team, and then come here and perhaps convert back-to-back dunks.
If you’re curious about the summer league, it hasn’t gotten much better.
In the first game, Eyenga came off of the bench against the Lakers and went 0-for-4 from the floor and finished with one point. He did pull down three rebounds and recorded a steal, but the two turnovers didn’t help. One point. Two turnovers.
Thankfully, Eyenga was a little more productive during his second attempt as the Cavs locked up with the Bucks yesterday afternoon. In 24 minutes off of the bench, he tallied 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting. Eyenga added three rebounds, an assist and a blocked shot.
The entire day, however, will be overlooked thanks to Milwaukee’s first-rounder Brandon Jennings and his 23 points, eight assists, five steals and four three-pointers.
Let’s hope that Eyenga can receive similar coaching and competition that Jennings did in his year overseas. I know that a lot of fans are already writing off the man from Zaire, but I’m still holding out hope. Seems low-risk, high-reward at this point. Here’s hoping that he progresses through the rest of the summer league and then continues to roll from there.
15 Comments
Once again, I must ask. Why wouldn’t we better off with Dejuan Blair and Danny Green?
Except that the Cavs passed on Dejuan Blair, someone who could contribute almost immediately, to pick this guy.
Good article Scott. I think you were trying to make us feel better with your comment downplaying the “intensity” of the pickup game. But it makes me feel even worse. If the guy sucked that bad that he was airballing and getting heckled in a low-key pickup game, greater intensity is only going to make it worse. This is what happens when we draft guys from the Spanish Third Division.
I hope he gets better, but I think that’s a very, very long shot.
Cavs did not want to sign someone that would of affected the cap this year. Eyenga is going overseas to play for a couple years so were not paying him anything. Time will tell with him…..
they also passed on sam young. although, if they picked sam, who knows if green would have been available at 46.
How is Sam Young doing?
Guys,
This pick had way more to do with just this year. There are salary cap and roster space issues to be dealt with to keep flexibility.
DF basically wanted to pick a guy that would not take up salary this year while developing overseas. But he could trade the pick for cash or something else because then he couldn’t trade next year’s first pick in a trade this season (if need be).
Feel free to disagree with DF’s long term plan if you want, but please stop implying that the only reason the Cavs picked this guy is because DF thought he was better at basketball right now than Blair, Young, etc, etc.
Nice to see that some information made it out of LeBron’s Nike Skills Camp before being confiscated.
@ Kevin – I’m not sure I’m reading in any of the comments that people think the reason Ferry took The Kinshasa Kid is because he believes him to be better than Sam Young or Dejuan Blair. I think we all understand the long term strategy for the pick and most of us disagree with it.
My take on it is that on a team with a shocking lack of depth it’s not a good time to be stashing assets overseas, regardless of the cap implications. The only way the Cavs are getting Bosh or another max contract is with a sign and trade because the cap is getting lowered. So why not take the best players now in order to make a real championship run and possibly use those assets if a second max. contract is available next year?
Of course this is all wild speculation, but I feel the Cavs will regret 2 things about 3 years from now: 1- passing on Sam Young and, 2- drafting a guy who will never make it out of Spain.
Frankly I’m not surprised to read reports of airballs and missed dunks from Eyenga.
Making that 100 dollar bet that Eyenga will never play a game on the Cavs roster with my brother the night of the draft is going to be the easiest 100 dollars I’ll ever make.
lol @ DocZeus…We should just put Eyenga on the back burner for now and not really even worry about him. We all know that he is very raw and that’s going to stay that way for a while. I would rather like to know what Danny Green is doing (shotting 50% from 3) or Leo Lyons the undrafted stretch PF from Mizzou( shooting 70% from the field off the bench) I like Lyons game a lot and it could translate to the NBA fairly decently. He is athletic has good size at 6’9 245 can hit an 18 footer like McDyess and he runs the floor. Also, like Danny Green, he went to school all four years and has been well coached. I would like to see him make the roster. There’s some nice fottage of him and Mizzou against UConn in the elite 8 game on youtube if you’re interested
the thing about young is in 3 years, hes going to be 27 years old.
@Kevin Hignett, you make a good point that now’s not the time to be stashing picks overseas (that’s a move the Spurs perfected after they actually won a few championships), but I disagree with your contention that our lack of depth is shocking.
Say we start Parker at the 2. That means Delonte is our sixth man, plus we have Ilgauskas and Varejao either coming off the bench or playing only 25 to 30 minutes max in the rotation with Shaq and another forward we have yet to sign. Then there’s the possibility of Gibson recovering from this past season and looking like the 3-point specialist we thought we signed, plus any contributions we’re likely to get from Hickson, D-Block or Danny Green.
Is our bench going to be the absolute best? Maybe not, but it’s going to be top 5, in my opinion. If Delonte’s our sixth man, I love our bench.
Of course DF didn’t pick Eyenga thinking he’s better than Blair, but he picked him thinking we could sign a good free agent with the money we’d be saving. We haven’t made any BAD moves this offseason, but the Eyenga pick looks bad now that we whiffed on Villanueva, Ariza, Artest, who knows who else, and are now just waiting for a great PF to fall into our laps. That PF could have been Blair.
Why is everybody criticising Eyenga?
Nobody knows the talent he’s got, nobody knows nothing about him, he never had any opportunity with DKV Joventut because he wasn’t from Europe.
In his first game he was nervous (if you were playing for the cavs for the first time and you played in a really bad league before, wouldn’t you be really nervous?), in his second game he played 24 minutes and scored 10 point 4-6… What more do you want? In the NBA nobody is pacient except trainers and managers.
PS: If you don’t support him, “he’ll do it even worse”