18-year-old Giannis (pronounced Yawnis) Adetokoubo, a Nigerian-born Greek, is little more than a few sketches on a pad. But they are very interesting, intriguing strokes, that have some comparing him to a young Nicolas Batum. This is a young prospect who knows how to play.
NBA types have been flying over to Europe in increasing numbers over the last month, to see what the big deal is with Adetokoubo, who is playing for Fliathlitikos, a team in Greece's second-tier league, not the one with traditional Greek powers like Olympiacos and Panthiakos. Adetokoubo (there are other spellings of his name out there; this is the one I'm going with) has wowed people with his passing ability, to the point where some teams think he could play some point guard in the pros.
"I walked out of there saying/ 'Holy cow, this kid's a freak,'" one general manager said. "He has no body. He's got pipe fitter legs. But he's got Magic Johnson kind of handle and court vision ... what I saw was a guy who can handle it, who can make plays. People are going to want to make him a point guard. He might be a point forward at the end of the day."
Adetokoubo's wingspan and hands alone are making some people giddy. But others aren't as convinced.
"There's a little bit of a hype behind it," a Southeast Division executive said. "He's not [Portland's Nicolas] Batum, my friend. A lot of conflicting reports, but the guys who've seen him have told me not to get too excited."
The likely scenario is that Adetokoubo (whose brother, Thanasis, also plays for Filatlhlitikos, and is also an NBA small forward prospect) will be a long-term project for anyone that takes him.
"I can't imagine how he plays in the league for a couple of years, maybe longer," another executive said. "Especially the way the rules are. You have to absorb the cap hit over the summer so you really lessen your ability to spend money."
Said yet another executive: "it's going to take a while. You know how that goes. How many times have we seen that with European players? And you've got to be careful in this draft, because it's a perceived weak Draft. It's easy to hype somebody and shoot them up the board."
Taking a first-round gamble on such an unproven yet promising European talent is nothing new. But Adetokoubo has so little in the way of a proven body of work at his age, it is reminiscent of when the Nuggets took Nikoloz Tskitishvili No. 5 overall in the 2002 Draft, even though he played very little in actual games for his team, Benetton Treviso.
"In my opinion, he needs to stay," one Western Conference birddog said. "Very long, thin body. Big ol' hands. He needs to come in a year later. He played in a low division. He's not ready yet. Very, very skilled, very talented. Somebody's gonna pick him. If he does stay in, I would say second round. But I think he should go back."
Others echoed that sentiment.
"I try to follow these guys from a certain age," one general manager said. "So you watch them in the Under 17s, the Under 19s, the world championships. The guys that don't do that, the guys that I've noticed, they seem to have a way of not making it, failing. Even if they don't [fail], it just takes them such a while. Their talent springs up. Guys like Skita, [Mouhamed] Sene [taken 10th overall by Seattle in the 2006 Draft], [Bismack] Biyombo [acquired via trade by Charlotte in 2011] to an extent. He played that last year [before the '11 Draft] in Spain but the year before that he played in Qatar."
Adetokoubo still does not have a visa to travel abroad, and sources indicated his parents also have issues with the requisite papers. Initially, he was scheduled to be part of the Nike Hoop Summit in Portland last week, but the document issues kept him abroad. He is expected to have everything in order by the end of the month.
