Unlike last season, when the world of the NBA went crazy for Ricky Rubio, it appears there might only be one player out of Europe making waves as a potential lottery pick for the 2010 draft this summer.

That player is Benetton Treviso forward Donatas Motiejūnas, who remains inside the top 10 of most of the recent mock drafts despite seeing his draft stock drift a little bit downwards since early projections he could go in the top five, not long after now consensus No 1 John Wall from the University of Kentucky.

(Discuss Donatas Motiejūnas and Lithuanian Basketball)

Motiejunas is a seven-footer with excellent ball skills who has been compared to the likes of Dirk Nowitzki, a star since being drafted out of Wurzburg in 1998, and Andrea Bargnani, who overcame some early teething problems and is now into a second superb season with Toronto.

The Lithuanian has responded well in his first season with the Serie A giants, even though they have struggled domestically, and with the extra minutes he is seeing as the season is going on he is showing the kind of skills that had him tabbed as a high draft pick from the early days.

Playing as a 19-year-old in such a tough league will prove to be the perfect grounding for Motiejunas, much as Brandon Jennings proved this season with the Milwaukee Bucks, who could be one of the teams in the running to make a second successive signing from Serie A in this season’s draft.

On the downside, and probably the reason for his drop in status, is his defensive work, which goes down as a work in progress that isn’t really progressing all that quickly.

His rebounding has been nothing short of poor so far this season, but this is where his lack of maturity hurts more than when he is playing on offense – his body just is not up to the rigours of bouncing off stronger opponents in the paint at the moment, but given a few extra pounds and some conditioning, and things could be very different by the time he hits the United States.

NBA betting suggests that it is fairly likely that whichever team drafts him in June will leave him in Europe for a season, given that it seems harder for younger forwards to transition to the NBA game than guards, but they will have high hopes that he develops into a player as far away from a bust than the luminaries he has been compared to.