who'd have thunk it

[Boondocks]

Is that even correct grammar?

Anyways, not only are our hawks doing good sofar, even those who have left the nest are doing fine..

In reply to:

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The surprises don't stop in the Euroleague. The MVP of the first week of the 2002-03 regular season is no doubt the first player from Finland to ever claim such a big honor. The deserving winner is none other than power forward Hanno Mottola (26, 211) of Tau Ceramica. In his first Euroleague appearance against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday, Mottola scored 31 points and led Tau to a huge comeback victory. He made 10 of 13 two-point shots, 2 of 2 threes and 5 of 7 free throws. He also pulled 7 boards, made 4 steals and 1 assist. It added up to an index rating of 40, the top total of the week. Following Mottola, in order, were Lucio Angulo of Real Madrid with an index rating of 35, Marcus Brown of Efes Pilsen (33), and two Montepaschi Siena players, Dusan Vuckevic (32) and Mirsad Turkcan (30).

Mottolo landed in Vitoria this summer from the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA, who drafted him in 2000. Even though he played four years the University of Utah before that, Mottola was fully formed in his country of origin. His career began at NMKY Helsinki in the 1994-95 season, when he was chosen rookie of the year in the Finnish League. That same year he took part in the European Championships in Athens with the Finnish national team. He went on to be named top player from Finland for three consecutive years, 1997 thorugh 1999.

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http://www.euroleague.net/noticia.jsp?temp...da=1&id=479

[KZ3]

Wow, Hanno can do that in the Euroleagues? Makes you wonder why a lot of the first rounders from Europe this year were second stringers who put up 6-10ppg......Tskitishvilli, Nachbar etc. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them ended up more like Hanno and less like Nowitzki.

[Guest]

The 1st rounders from the Euro leagues were young players. Euro leagues are quite different than the NBA - regardless of your "potential" or upside, a rookie player in their league (most of these guys were rooks or second year players) simply don't get much pt due to the set-in-stone heirarchy that exists. It's part of the reason that aging NBAers can go over there and get immediate pt and be treated like stars...

I'm not using that as a prediction on the success of such draft picks, simply stating that their numbers are indicative of very little in most cases.

[KZ3]

Yeah, I realize that. It's not a very smart system though. If you have a Pau Gasol on your Spanish league team, you don't sit him if you want to win. I noticed that he got alot more playing time in the World Championships though....and he was only a year older...

[Boondocks]

Well Skite played behind Bodiroga, who has the nickname "white magic" and who lit it up during the world games.

Look at it like this, would you rather pick someone who has alot of potential, trains every day with semi stars/vets and if lucky gets minutes in actual hard games

or

a HS phenom who can coast through most games since he's so much better then his opponents?

[Catapult]

...though a good one from Hanno.

In the first 3 games in the spanish league Hanno is averaging 5.7 points, 4.3 boards and 4.3 fouls in 18 minutes. Which are quite close to his figures with Hawks.

So there is no need to a) think Hanno has established himself as a star in Europe b) make any conclusions of the competition in Europe because of one game.

That's not to say i wouldn't like to see him succeed or that spanish league is at the same level as NBA.

Shame that he didn,t have any of "those nights" with the Hawks...

Catapult