The Euro Stash: Bolden Does His Thing, Lessort Goes Off, and Pasecniks is an Evil Prototype Robot

Jonah Bolden

Jonah has continued to do his Jonah things, and has been staying consistent over his last two games, putting up 10 points in each, as well as 12 total rebounds and a block. One thing I was looking for Jonah to do as the season progressed was attempt to expand his range. He’s already begun to do this: in these last two games 4-10 from the three-point arc (that’s 40% for those keeping track at home (s/o Hollis)).

The two Bolden highlights you can find here are at the 0:25 second mark, when he quite literally out-muscles his defender in the post, then faces up and drills a jumper. At the 2:42 mark he skies for an offensive rebound, and passes out for an open three-pointer for teammate and fellow UCLA alum Michael Roll.

In Jonah’s game on Thanksgiving, he struggled a bit more on the boards. Although Jonah is a superb rebounder, he wrestled to work his way around the 287 pound Barcelona Center Kevin Seraphin. Seraphin grabbed 11 total rebounds and was a dominant force the entire game for Barcelona. That didn’t stop Jonah from cleaning up the offensive glass and grabbing four offensive rebounds.

Although Jonah hasn’t necessarily been stuffing the stat sheet, he’s been doing tons that don’t show up in the box score. Every shot that goes up, Jonah is either already in, or fighting to get into rebounding position. He seemingly always gets a hand on every miss that is remotely in his area. Jonah has also been capable of starting fast breaks with his two handed rocket passes up court, but those never show up in highlights.

Jonah’s play overall so far from what I’ve seen in Summer League/Euroleague has reminded me of a Kevin Love/Draymond Green hybrid. You guys can let me know what you think about that in the comments, but I’ll go in more in depth on that in a later article.

Mathias Lessort

Mathias had his worst game of the season against Hollis Thompson and Olympiacos, when he tallied one point, three rebounds, and three turnovers. Much like Bolden’s latter game, Lessort also had his hands full with a bulky opponent in the paint: The 6’11” Nikola Milutinov, who totaled 7 defensive rebounds and 5 offensive boards. Milutinov made sure that Mathias couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm. It didn’t help that Lessort also got into some early foul trouble in the second half.

Some of Lessort’s problems might’ve been due to the tear gas that was leaking in from the rafters at the ironically named Peace and Friendship Stadium in Piraeus, Greece.

However, Lessort’s slump wouldn’t last, as he then played his best game of the season against Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz and former 87ers legend Jordan McRae. Lessort exploded for 19 points on 7-11 from the field and 5-7 from the line. Lessort had an average game until late in the 3^rd quarter and the entire fourth quarter. The bully of a Frenchman bulldozed his way in to the low post and drew three and-one plays to help Crvena stay in the game (they ended up losing by 4).

Lessort also had an Olajuwonian move in the post that led to an assist and for WHATEVER REASON I can’t find a video of it anywhere. But believe me, I almost jumped off my bed when he got his defender in the air and then went underneath him and dished it off.

Much like Bolden, Mathias does a lot that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet… In his 19-point game he only recorded four rebounds, but Baskonia knew that he was such a threat on the boards that he often drew two people to box him out and allowed his teammates to slither in for rebounds. I also counted at least six times where Lessort got a hand on a ball when crashing the glass and even if Lessort didn’t get the rebound, his hustle and energy made an impact that kept the dismal Crvena Zvezda team around for the entire game.

Anzejs Pasecniks

Probably tricked you and made you think Pasecniks went off and became some sort of super villain, but nah. In Pasecniks’ only game last week he recorded 10 points on 4-8 from shooting and only grabbed 2 rebounds. Not much to talk about here, but I am going to talk about something completely different… the comparison between Anzejs Pasecniks and Kristaps Porzingis.

HOWEVER, I am not going to do it with stats or workout videos or sabrmetrics or anything like that; instead, I am going to show you how Pasecniks stacks up against Porzingis by using one of greatest movies of all time, The Incredibles. Yes, I’m going to compare two 7 foot Latvian basketball players by means of a Pixar movie from 2004.

Ok, so you know the scene that takes place on Syndrome’s isolated island in the South Pacific and Mr. Incredible sneaks by the lava wall and discovers Syndrome’s secret computer and finds out the secrets behind Operation KRONOS and about all the Supers that Syndrome’s giant robots has killed?

If not- watch this… part I’m talking about starts at the 1:10 mark.

While Mr. Incredible sits there and watches all his former friends that have been mercilessly killed by a butt hurt super fan, you can see the different versions of Omnidroids that Syndrome had created to train, fight, and kill Mr. Incredible. You’ll notice the progression of the Omnidroids as the first prototype is the Omnidroid v. X1 and the final version is the Omnidroid v. X10.

Are you still reading this bit? Ok good, cause now it’s back to Pasecniks/Porzingis. The Omnidroid v. X9 is the robot that presumably terminates Mr. Incredible, THAT is Kristaps Porzingis. Basically, if you were to build a unicorn robot, Porzingis would be pretty close to a perfect killing machine in the NBA

That being said, I think Pasecniks is probably the Omnidroid v. X4, the one that kills Hyper Shock and Apogee. He has the potential to be Unicornish, but he still has lots to work on before he can become the Porzingis v. X9. I don’t think Pasecniks will ever work his way up to a v. X9 prototype, I think his ceiling is a v. X7 prototype.

Ok, so hopefully that analogy made sense because I thought of that at 3 am.

(Also, you better watch that full Incredibles clip because the 37 second scene in which Mr. Incredible tries to escape has about 80 individual shots and is a masterpiece of a scene. Yes, I’m using my platform to promote a 13-year-old movie).

Vasilije Micic

*whispers* Sorry, I forgot him last time.

Micic dropped 10 points (went 4-4 from 2-point range, 2-2 from the line) and 6 assists and his sexy teammate Brandon Davies chipped in 6 points. Now you can’t yell at me for forgetting him.

The Others

Hollis Thompson looked like Hollis Thompson again in Olympiacos’ game against Mathias Lessort and Crvena Zvezda. Hollis had a spot on “shooters shoot” night, dropping 14 points and not recording a single assist or rebound.

Pierre Jackson has been up and down. He had 19/6/4 in Maccabi’s win against Khimki Moscow and former Sixers Alexey Shved (21 points, 4 assists, 3 steals), Thomas Robinson (17 points, 13 rebounds, and one powerful dunk) and James Anderson (13/6/4).

Sergio Rodriguez has averaged 20.5 points and 4 assists over the last two games as he has had a big hand in why Moscow is a league’s best 7-2.

Chukwudiebere Maduabum has had a quiet couple of games as of late. He’s only averaging 9 points and 6 rebounds a game so far for the Cyberdyne Ibaraki Robots of Japan.

Arturas Gudaitis is averaging 11 and 6 and tied his season high in PIR with a score of 28. Thanks again Vlade.

Luka Mitrovic really hasn’t done anything notable, but I needed to mention him because I wanted to thank Vlade one more time. Thanks again, again Vlade.