NBA scout on what went wrong for Sasha Vezenkov & the Kings

NBA scout on what went wrong for Sasha Vezenkov & the Kings

gentleman I say coming on Mark decks is a basketball Scout and writer um his Twitter bio which by the way follow him Mark Deeks that’s D KS NBA uh his bio I always love reading the BIOS says a basketball Scout writer occasionally insightful always boring covers all leagues despite the name if you play pro I’ve scouted you if you play pro I have scouted you so Mark we’ll start with this uh uh what’s your scouting report on Drew Timmy who is on our summer league te you know welcome in how are you first off I’m I’m well and good thank you for the uh for the lead in of letting the listeners know that I will be boring that’s uh that’s what every good radio broadcast wants to hear um I think it’s a bit of that subtlety in the Old English self-degradation coming through the accent is not fake gentlemen this really is what I sound like okay hold up Mark Deeks has an accent this is fantastic Mark where where are you uh where do you hail from originally um a part of England just outside London that no one’s ever heard of Okay I uh I I I won’t completely derail this because my my partners are already rolling their eyes but uh I I took on a side job working for huttersfield town I’m on my way out there in about a week as a matter of fact so okay big soccer guy here we just got relegated but now of now all of a sudden I mean you’re in the yes I I have come to know over the last year that uh there is a stereotype about English sports fans uh where where they can be uh incredbly snarky and uh a little negative at times and I found that you know some stereotypes can be true and I love every minute of it man they really can and the English mentality with regards to pretty much everything but including Sports is we are terrible but everyone else is worse that’s our mentality that’s how we deal with the loss of an Empire that we still haven’t quite got over um we will tell you that everything about our country is broken and flawed and warped and corrupt but at least we’re not France that’s what it comes down to ultimately but is it one of is it one of those things Mark where you can poke fun but anyone else trying to do it it’s not allowed that’s exactly what it is you’re dealing with what the aftermath of imperialism looks like we’re a bitter Nation nice to be here oh this this has become 10 times the interview I thought it would and I thought it was going to be a good interview to start so let me start start with this we’re gonna get to the zenov and all that uh but as somebody who Scouts what one thing that that and we were talking about Drew Timmy earlier but in a broader sense along with Zach Edy there is a long list of Zach edies and Drew Timmy’s and Tyler hbos and Luca garas and we can go on and on and on you just have to look at like the NCAA outstanding player in the final four and most most of them uh either translate to barely having an NBA career or not really having one at all it fascinates me how often Scouts actually get it right and you see a guy putting up these insane numbers in college and it doesn’t translate to the NBA how big of a challenge is that to see a guy putting up numbers in in D1 and going yeah but that’s not going to work against Jo lmb it try and bear in mind that whilst the NBA has uh 540 roster spots it doesn’t have the 54 of the world’s best players it has almost all of the top 300 but the bottom third half if you generous of the NBA is fairly interchangeable thus it comes down massively to opportunity I cannot just to bring in fenov briefly he was the Euro League MVP I reckon this is anecdotal half of the players in the Euro league have played in the NBA now some went over there and had better careers Anon Randol a recent example but certainly not the only one that does doesn’t mean they could not have made it in the NBA it means the opportunity to be on the fringes of the NBA or star in the Euro league they took the latter the money’s right when you’re that good so when you talk about how can you assess um a player’s fabulous production at the NCAA level and how that won’t make it in the NBA in many cases it would if they were given the opportunity there is a massive degree of luck involved there is a massive degree of agency power involved um from a raw talent scale scouting point of view a lot of what you’re looking at his physicality if you are not athletic enough you never will be athleticism improves a bit in the NBA but only a bit these are grown men that are joining the league um it’s a it’s it’s the interface between um what you can see with your eyes as to how they do what they do the numbers that tell you the level and the intricacies of uh how they go about that and also what you hear um are they coachable do they listen if they made a certain mistake constantly defense for example was that of their own valtion or was it taught if they overh helped was the coach teaching them that when you put all those things together he put together the eyes numbers in the incel that’s how you can make an assessment and you’re still often going to be wrong because it is hard yeah and and I think if we go back to Sasha venkov who Mark as you know came out here to Sacramento last year a lot of Kings fans were excited Kings have been seeking him out he’s Euroleague MVP and it’s kind of to that point you made opportunity some luck some fortunately he was injured kind of in and out of the rotation and it felt like an incomplete year and now he’s already gone and into Toronto so I guess my thought on him is when he came to the Kings what kind of year did you anticipate Sasha VZ zenov having he wasn’t bad when he played um I would say that if you had given him extra minutes in more games he would have produced much like he did um because I think he was a a pretty good player the circumstances were against him like you said injuries there was a certain sense of entitlement on his part um not because he thought he was better than he was but because he gave up stardom and the uh the riches and the ludicrous Passion of the Olympiacos fan base to come over to the NBA to see if he could and so he didn’t have to come over here and ride the bench and he didn’t want to come over here and ride the bench nonetheless uh I will defend him as a player absolutely um if you go back I believe correct me if I’m wrong that Naman belet’s best seasons in the NBA came with you guys came with Sacramento you could have had the same with venkov had it worked out um because he’s that sort of player not identical no two players are but he’s not just a shooter he’s a very very skilled uh big man who can play center in spots um he has ability off the dribble he’s got a genius level of getting open his basketball IQ is very cute is very high he doesn’t protect the rim but he does move his feet on defense he’s a very smart role player and it’s a shame that that wasn’t really tapped into here in Sacramento and it’s a shame that it ended in a deao salary dump but um that can be the case you have to deal with the person as much as you deal with the skill set so how does this all end mark uh in Canada right now how how do you think this thing ends up uh finishing I think he takes a buy out from Toronto and goes back to Olympiacos where i” absolutely love to have him back where the money will be comparable to what he’s given up in the NBA Toronto do value him as a player they haven’t just taken him on as a contract in that trade and they would probably like to get something out of him um but I don’t think they will I don’t think he enjoyed his NBA experience I don’t think he’s going to enjoy it considering the Toronto aren’t going anywhere anytime soon these are his prime athletic years I imagine he goes back to where he played his best and had his best fun and if he does does he just go back right to that level of of Euroleague type MVP I should can see no reason why not unless some injury um really hampers him about which I don’t know then yes he will plug right back into uh Olympiacos who will like I said absolutely take him back tomorrow and um he will immediately become one of the best players on my Fallen continent so Mark de’s joining us and and you know because Luca donic and there’s obviously I mean we know vad dvat so well uh the late great Dr and petravic you know this isn’t the first time we’ve had an international sensation didn’t start with Luca you you have these players and when you look it goes beyond that obviously yic and be Giannis but but when you’re you’re specifically talking about that League we were talking about scouting again with division one and and with the NCAA also what what what should we as fans look for to see a difference between uh okay this guy’s the MVP over there but probably a rotational player here versus a unicorn like Luca that comes in and just completely takes over the league it’s incredibly hard to answer that broadly it comes down to specific so I’ll use the example of Luca um a friend of mine a colleague of mine who I very much respect um was completely not seeing it with Luca and the reason he didn’t see it with Luca was because he scrutinized uh the clips that were available at this point this is the information age you can get access to everything so you have to Choose Wisely my friend who will remain nameless um heavily scrutinized uh clips of what he could see of Luca and he thought he’s never going to make it in the because he doesn’t have the foot speed he will not get separation however because there’s an absolute ton of of footage of Luca at the highest levels outside of the NBA with Slovenia with Real Madrid against premium NBA caliber Defenders remember half of the Euro league has played in the NBA I can’t prove that but it sounds right then you know that he can get separation against these players not on Raw foot speed but on the N the step back the intricacy the hesitations the ey fakes it’s not hypothetical as to whether he could get separation on these players he already did defensively yeah okay he never had the foot speed to be great you don’t want him to be great defensively because that’s a waste of his energy that you want him going forward where he can dissect defenses in a way that he already had broadly I think the uh answer comes back to what I said before about you’re measuring someone’s athletic progress because the NBA I will defend the Euro league and All European leagues of course I will but there is no dispute that the best athletes play in the NBA because if there are good athletes in the European game the NBA gobbles them up no dispute but if you can tell whether someone will be an NBA caliber athlete fine you can tell whether to be an NBA caliber person that’s also fine but if you take things out of context as my very close personal friend that I feel bad for naming and shaming here did with Luca then you’ll miss the context that will show you or convince you how they will translate to the NBA game is is there anyone on the horizon like like Alca that we should be keeping our eyes on um I would love to say yes uh you’ve had the greatest prospects in a generation and I’m including Luca come over in Victor there’s no one quite that um Earth changing on the horizon in the next two to three years but there will be this is the international game now look at the very top we’re talking Luca Janice Victor jic of course who somehow I managed to not mention the very best are coming from all around the globe and particularly from Europe that’s not going away that’s how it is now the USA has the majority of the world’s top thousand players but it no longer has a monopoly over that you you you can you you didn’t name you just shamed and I I respect that and I don’t want to put you on the spot but did your friends name rhyme with uh schot vivart I I’m just curious I have never spoken to anyone by with name that runs with bat um I I wish not to shame it obviously uh let’s say didn’t work out with uh with with Marvin Bagley um but that’s not who I was referring to no um yeah I feel bad bringing the L thing up now to to a Sacramento audience sorry about that oh we’re over you know what no we’re not we’re we’re we’re over it yeah exactly we’re over it except it’s an open gaping wound that will last forever but other than that Mark we’re fine it’s a bit like the fult of the Empire over here I know what you mean hey uh look I hope this isn’t the last time we talk as I always say when you have a British accent the uh IQ points go up about 50 everything you say it just sounds right it just sounds right uh whether it’s in sports analysis or fantasy movies where someone’s playing a wizard uh it always helps I guess my last question would be for you um blood sausage really like is is why I don’t get it don’t scrutinize what it sounds like I’ll give you another one haggis it sounds horrific if you read the ingredients on that thing oh boy it’s not good so blank it out um willful ignorance is the way forward and try it it’s all right it sounds like it shouldn’t be but it is we don’t have what you would call a refined pette over here it’s another stereotype that is based in fact I’m obviously biased towards it larly through Nostalgia but do try the blood sausage do try the haggus and you might be surprised or you might be horrified risk it somebody told me once they said that the blood sausage haggus that’s uh the European version of hot dogs over here like you don’t want to know what’s in a hot dog but it just tastes good yep absolutely hot dogs it’s worth paying that bit extra we might get some actual meat in there but um just go in blinds and cover your eyes and deny everything that’s my advice Mark de good advice is a scout a writer and a phenomenal interview follow him at Mark decks that’s D KS NBA Mark appreciate your time uh have have a safe time over there have a fun time and we’ll talk to you soon thank you gentlemen thank you for having me thank you take care that’s Mark DS

NBA scout and writer Mark Deeks joined The Carmichael Dave Show with Jason Ross on Thursday morning to give his take on what went wrong between Sasha Vezenkov and the Sacramento Kings.

Plus: Will Vezenkov remain with the Toronto Raptors or head back to the EuroLeague?
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