Celtics Show Interest in Greek Prospect

Greek Freak Prospect draws Danny Ainge to Greece
2 Comments
By Chris Sheridan
April 06, 2013 at 7:27 AM
In the latest installment of “Catch a Rising Star,” Boston Celtics president Dany Ainge traveled to Greece to get a first-hand look at Giannis Adetokunbo, the 6-foot-10 point guard who is moving up draft boards by leaps and bounds.

Aingle was in the house — and got heckled by Lakers fans — as Adetokunbo scored 19 points and grabbed 9 rebounds and two steals in the championship round of the Greek A2 league.

Ainge also saw the CSKA-Panathinaikos Euroleague game, an qs quoted by Greek media as comparing Adetokundo as reminding him of a young Scottie Pippen.

So who is this Greek freak? And why is he surfacing on the draft radar so late in the process?

For one thing, Adetokunbo grew up as an undocumented immigrant of Nigerian ancestry, and he does not currently hold a passport. That may change in the weeks ahead, as both the Greek and Nigerian national federations are trying to secure him for their national teams, and Adetokunbo’s next big test — should that passport arrive — would be an appearance at the NBA pre-draft Eurocamp in Treviso, Italy.

Our draft guru, Joe Kotoch, currently has him at No. 24 in Mock Draft 1.0.1 and says he would not be surprised to see him shoot up into the lottery, much like Bismack Biyombo did a few years back.

Adetokunbo recently signed a four-year contract with Zaragoza of Spain, but the deal contains an affordable buyout that could facilitate making the jump to the NBA next fall for his rookie season.

Oklahoma City, Denver, Toronto and Houston executives also have traveled to Greece to watch the 18-year-old play.

For more on Adetokundo, click through to this piece from a week ago that helped put the kid on the international radar.

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I am not sure why Chris Sheridan calls this guy a point guard.
Everywhere he is listed as a SF/PF.
If you watch videos of him, he is not a point guard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=km632hL-XCo







http://prospectsforthenbadraft.blogspot.com/2013/03/scouting-giannis-adetokunbo.html


bob


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First thing I thought of when I saw that picture in Bob's post was that I hope he's been checked for Marfan syndrome.

Outside wrote:First thing I thought of when I saw that picture in Bob's post was that I hope he's been checked for Marfan syndrome.

outside,

Marf(h)an(d) syndrome.

I'd like to point out two things which did not occur to me earlier.

1. That picture was taken in Europe, no doubt.
2. The major denominations are in units of 10.

Put these together and I am concluding that this is metric. If it was a regular tape measure like we have here, it would be in 12ths, not 10ths. Each unit, therefore, would be a centimeter. A centimeter = .4 inches.

25 centimeters = 10 inches.

So, this pic says his hand is 10 inches from the tip of his middle finger to his wrist, which is stil pretty amazing. He'd make Rondo's hand, which is practically gecko-like, look like a child's.

It would be just tooooo freaky if those were inches...


bob

China, now Greece.

We may eventually get around to looking in the Carolinas. Now there's a thought.

Bob,

Thanks for the metric conversion, but I have to say I didn't even look at the numbers on the tape measure. It was more that his hands are so large compared to the person holding the tape and the fingers are so long and thin. Sometimes that just means that the person is tall and has long hands, but I've seen in the past when young basketball players were diagnosed with Marfan and had to quit playing because there is a major cardiovascular component to it.

Here's an article on Flo Hyman, a top-level U.S. volleyball player who had Marfan syndrome and died during a match in 1986.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1064510/

She died, as did several other athletes, from an aortic aneurysm caused by Marfan syndrome and its effect on connective tissue.

It's not necessarily a death sentence, and numerous athletes with Marfan have had long careers without incident, but the risk is substantial, and the first cardiovascular symptom may be the athlete keeling over dead from an aneurysm.

The aortic aneurysm aspect to it should ring some bells among Celtic followers considering both Jeff Green and Chris Wilcox have had surgeries for that, but I would think that they were checked for it, and Wilcox in particular doesn't have the typical "thin" look associated with Marfan.

I'm certainly not an expert in Marfan syndrome, but I am aware of it, particularly the long, thin fingers and sudden death from aortic aneurysm.

http://redsarmy.com/2013/04/06/danny-ainge-scouting-6-10-pg-in-greece-giannis-adetokunbo/