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Jonah Bolden-
Drafted 2nd Round 36th Overall 2017 PF/C
Plays for Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv (Euroleague/Israeli Premier League)
Well, it’s officially the year that Jonah Bolden comes over. The Aussie just celebrated his 22nd birthday on January 2nd
If there’s one clip that tells you what Jonah is all about, it’s this sequence from his latest Euroleague game…
Jonah is a hustler who really only has one major thing to improve on… shooting the 3 ball.
On the season he’s shooting 31% from distance, but has clearly been working to expand his range. He’s been lurking around the 3-point line a lot more and cutting into the lane when he sees fit.
Some bad news though, over his last 4 games, Jonah is only shooting 2-9 from three, including a game which he shot 1-5. (Over those last 4 games, Jonah has also posted 27 points, 25 rebounds, 8 assist, 8 steals, 4 blocks, and a total Player Index Rating of 50 (that’s good)).
There is still a lot of time for Jonah to improve on his 3 point shooting.
If you’ve heard of this guy named Dario Saric, he also shot 30% from three his first Euroleague season with the Anadolu Efes. Sixers fans have recently seen the emergence of Dario’s expanded range, and can expect a similar journey with Jonah’s 3-point progression.
Mathias Lessort-
Drafted 2nd Round 50th Overall 2017 PF/C
Plays for Crvena Zvezda (Euroleague/Adriatic League)
New Year, same Lessort
In Mathias Lessort’s last Euroleague game, he put up 14 points on shooting 5-7 from the field, and going 4-5 from the free throw line. Lessort still isn’t looking to shoot the mid-range shot at all, but his form is almost all there from the free throw stripe as he finished up 2017 shooting 69% from the line.
The Frenchman’s motor is also soaring as he easily chased down a defender and met him at the rim
Anzejs Pasecniks-
Drafted First Round 25th Overall 2017 (acquired from Magic via trade) Center
Plays for Herbalife Gran Canaria (EuroCup/Liga ACB)
Anzejs is coming fresh off a 3 point, 1 block game in 13 minutes in Liga ACB for Herbalide Gran Canaria. I really have nothing new to report on Pasecniks, he’s still not Kristaps, and he’s nowhere close.
Vasilije Micic-
Drafted 2nd Round 52nd Overall
Plays for Žalgiris (Euroleague/Lithuanian Basketball League)
Micic’s most impressive stat this season is that he has a grand total of 69 assists. Nice. He’s coming fresh off an 11 point 3 assist game against Hollis Thompson and Olympiacos. That’s a perfect segway in to talking about…
The Others:
Hollis Thompson just had a 10-point game on 4-8 shooting and 2-4 from three. Oh, and he also recorded a season high 8 REBOUNDS (I know, pretty impressive right?) Hollis and Olympiacos now sit at 11-4, and CSKA Moscow has moved in to sole possession of 1st place in the Euroleague. By the way, that another perfect segway into…
CSKA Moscow’s Point Guard Serio Rodriguez, who just tied his season high with 25 points on 6-9 shooting from three-point range. He also tacked on 8 assists and 6 rebounds as the 31 year old made me want to fly to Moscow and bring him back to replace a certain backup guard that we currently have on our team.
Pierre Jackson is averaging 16 points and 6 assists over the last 3 games and he is starting to find his Pappy Gawd form.
Chukwudiebere Maduabum continues to be the hardest player to find stats for, because I have to scavenge Japanese websites and translate them to even find out that he put up 5 points and 4 rebounds against Hiroshima Dragonflies.
Arturas Gudaitis- had a game of crazy 8s as he posted 8 points and 8 rebounds against Mathias Lessort. So it’s a good thing Arturas didn’t go off in any way.
Luka Mitrovic isn’t that good at basketball. Which makes it so much sweeter that he was part of Pick Swapocalypse. He’s still averaging 5 points and 4 rebounds and yeah, we (Sam Hinkie) fleeced the Kings.