Slovenian NT

[wardjdim]

Thanks mate

First friendly for any Eurobasket team, if I'm not mistaken. Way too early to judge through stats, still interesting though

[macleopard13]

Thanks mate

First friendly for any Eurobasket team, if I'm not mistaken. Way too early to judge through stats, still interesting though

Actually, you are mistaken - Montenegro defeated Hungary 76-72 and Belgium defeated Netherlands 61-53 before Slovenia beat Ukraine.

Slokar is so out of shape right now - he played the most minutes, yet scored practically nothing. There's plenty of time to get in shape, though.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Slovenia - Macedonia 63-54 stats here
Macedonia led for the most of the game, but lost the last quarter 16-1 (!?) as it was pretty visible they really could use some fresh players and short rotation showed it weaknesses. McKalebovski and Antić that weren't playing in this game would be worth gold from that perspective.
Slovenia played more under the rim nevermind Begić and Slokar seem slightly out of shape and rotated a lot less than in the first game, i like the fact Maljković is promoting backcourt press as most believe he should. Otherwise contiditons in the arena were... hot and the game at lower level due to it, although the game itself didn't seem all that bad considering the point of the cycle our NT is in.

Macedonia missed McCaleb and Antić, Slo missed Nachbar, Lakovič and G. Dragič.

[pimpekaustas]

i dont trust maljkovic. guy lives in the past, this season when he was in zagreb he only talked about jugoplastika, kukoč rađa... stories we heard milion times before... and he cant except critics, big ego who thinks cause of his great results in past everything he does must be good.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

I'm not a particular fan of his either and talk about the good old days on all levels from U14 to seniors is in my opinion one of those mentality issues contributing to basketball stagnation, at least in Slovenia.
But Maljković is the coach we've got right now and now we don't have any other options apart from giving him another chance, from the scratch. Surely he screwed up big time in Lithuania imho, but hopefully he won't do it again and would potentialy surprise. If I would base my view on our NT and my expectations solely on 2011 episode, that would lead to depression, so I'm willing to take it once again from an optimistic perspective, as there is no other healthy option left

Also in the past we've had loads of options of how our NT could play, with immense offensive talent. Right now it doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out our biggest (if not only) chance is agressive defense from Dragič bros, Murič, Blažič, good defensive rebounding and a fast first pass (we've never excelled at btw.) as those guys are devastating in open court. Maljković got that judging from what he was saying. It's a good start... or at least, could be worse

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Lapornik, Prepelič and Morina got cut as expected after todays game.

The roster is following:
C: Vidmar, Begić
PF: Nachbar, Slokar, Balažič
SF: Murič, Z.Dragič
SG: Blažič, D. Lorbek, Joksimovič
PG: G. Dragič, Lakovič

As I mentioned in the preparation games thread, I actualy do expect a 12 man rotation during the tournament, eventhough I haven't expected that at first (due to D. Lorbek, Balažič and Joksimovič), it sure does contribute to optimism, considering these games will be played consecutively day after day and such pace can cause trouble with short rotations as well as enables the team to be able to go for that extra agressiveness. Joksimovič will likely get the least minutes of the bunch, but will definately be usefull as a glue type of PG/SG as today vs. Belinelli.


One more game vs. France to go and as much as there are many things that could hypotethicaly go wrong, considering all those preparation games of our opponents, as long as they stay healthy, i'm optimistic.

[macleopard13]

Very good roster, although I feel that if Erazem Lorbek were healthy enough to help you guys out, you'd probably have the deepest roster in the tournament. Still, you guys will be a formidable opponent to any team, especially because you have the Dragic brothers, Lakovic, Nachbar, Vidmar and Begic. Those are all great names in Europe.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Very good roster, although I feel that if Erazem Lorbek were healthy enough to help you guys out, you'd probably have the deepest roster in the tournament. Still, you guys will be a formidable opponent to any team, especially because you have the Dragic brothers, Lakovic, Nachbar, Vidmar and Begic. Those are all great names in Europe.

There are still quite some limitations nevertheless. Just about every player on our roster has one.

Our NT isn't perceived as deep one as Murič and Joksimović didn't have much (if any) exposure out of adriatic league, same can be said for Z. Dragič and Balažič, while Blažič is inexperienced, kind of late boomer and inconsistent and D. Lorbek to be honest hasn't really played that great the last two seasons after his injury. There still is a noticable lack in experience. As we've seen with Serbia in 2009 that can be overcome, but still is a valid factor.

I definately disagree with opinion that we don't have good individual defenders, as heard at the "in-the-game podcast", on the opposite, that's our actual strong point through all positions but PF, but even individual defenders have to make the team defense work. And defensive rotations, defending passes to the players cutting in the paint certanly haven't been our strongest points through the preparation period.

[Diamantidis Is Fishing]

Very good roster, although I feel that if Erazem Lorbek were healthy enough to help you guys out, you'd probably have the deepest roster in the tournament. Still, you guys will be a formidable opponent to any team, especially because you have the Dragic brothers, Lakovic, Nachbar, Vidmar and Begic. Those are all great names in Europe.

What have Zoran Dragic and Vidmar ever done to be great names in Europe? I can't think of anything.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Well, great names might be wrongly put, but definately are extraordinary players, each with one major flaw.
If Vidmar was able to get his freethrows there somewhere at 65% or more, he'd easily be one of best centers in europe, arguably part of nba rotation.
At the same time Zoran posseses energy almost unmatched, along with what used to be one of the worst shooting for a guard at a profesional level. Same as Gasper improving that on the long term can get him among the elite group as well. So, as far as I am concerned to me they both are one step away from being great names, but nevertheless extra players with distinctive qualities very few posses.

[Alyosha12]

Ok lets get some positivity going in this b!$%h!

Why we can still do better:

Firstly Jaka Blažič, here are his numbers from the last two games Slovenia did poorly:

9MIN/PG 1PPG 1,5RPG 1,5 TO/PG and 1 drawn foul, shooting only 1/4 with no FTA

Blažič didn't play a whole lot, mostly due to the fact that he was a dud with no energy, and on the other hand Lorbek playing like an all euroleague player.

Secondly Lorbek playing like an all euroleague player.

Thirdly, Nachbar went 3/17 the past 2 games and has only been been making 28% of his shots. His EL average was 41% and last year it was exactlly the same, so he is well under his regular average and has a lot of room to improve.

Fourth we only scored 69 PPG in the first round, which ranks us at #19, if we exclude the points scored in overtime against Croatia, we would have scored only 67PPG, which would place us at # 21. We have a sh1t load of room to improve.

Fifth we are ranked #7 in points allowed and 4th in Opponent Field Goal Percentage allowing our opponent to only make 39% of their shots.

Sixth G. Dragic's FG% is only 36%, it was 45% in 2011, 52% in 2009 and 54% in 2007 when his shot was hot garbage. In PHX its 45%. All in all he is well under his average and can do A LOT better.

All in all a lot of our key players are massively under performing offensively, only 1 player is playing better then expected, and our defense in stellar.

We still have some reason to be optimistic. We are not terminal yet

[Joško Poljak Fan]

To be honest, as much as I love being critical and the two (or better put three) latest games deserved criticism, I am actually more optimistic than I've been before the championship.
And I've got to add, that after the heads cooled down a bit, I've never seen so much dissing of pesimism, or against-our-NT-rants-posts on variousl FB, twitters and such as there are obviously a lot of people realising that those players were the same ones that have beaten Spain and not much has changed. They've lost two games, but let's move forward instead instead of ranting pointlessly over the guys. Considering out national psychological profile, that's actually quite an achievement!!

1st game vs. Czech, was really intense, execution didn't go as planned, but those were a matter of luck, nervousness due first game, Czech's didn't suit us all that much and referees brought the game to the close end with some really below the level decisions

2nd game vs. Spain, basicaly one of the best (if not the best) performances I've seen at this championship and Spain wasn't even playing bad, they've had worse games than that in my opinion, they've left one narrow path at the end of the game for Dragič and Nachbar and those two took advantage of it

3rd game vs. Georgia, intensity was visibly cooling down, nevertheless I wasn't afraid for the result through the whole game

4th game, Croatia, watching it again that last action was actually superb, Nachbar should've end it differently, but even with 3 3pointers in the OT we've almost came back. And this was a game where basicaly Croatia was playing our style and we had to play on set defense most of the time, which majority of public is afraid of that much.

5th game, Poland really step up, my only question was where the hell have you been for the past 4 games? they were playing really relaxed and like we did before that agressive in the perimeter, didn't work out for us, we got quite a slap, but after that game vs. Spain that slap in the face might pan out welcome in the future.


Slovenia's roster is still underestimated abroad, but no matter that, isn't something other teams would be afraid of, the strenght of it is in that incredible intensity they are able to pull out when they've got to. Some players are trully beasts when energy is in question.

First thing that's visible is that Lakovič isn't physicaly on 100% and I recognise and respect the fact he isn't trying to get some rest in defense, he is actually trying to match the intensity Dragič bros ussualy try to provide, just that... logicaly... after 4-5-6 minutes of that he visibly gets tired and he slows down the pace significatly followed by making mistakes in offense, that have costed us quite a bit vs. Croatia as well as Poland.
Joksimovič replaced him vs. Poland on PG and even if he wasn't perfect it's obvious he can cope with that assignement for a while.
The pace will slow down and I expect Jaka to cope with the tempo easier accordingly.

Whenever Blažič nails the first shot and the one after that, he can be our no.1 or 2 guy, if he fails he kind of stops trying. He'll go over that with experience, but hopefully he'd explode in a game or two this championship as well.

It's on Maljković to figure out the lineup that can hold onto the lead and keep it for something longer than those 2 minutes. But that's doable, I guess... it must be

As far as the next 3 games go, I don't expect any of the following games to be easy, but we've got some solid theoretical advantage to begin with, deepest, most intense and most agressive perimeter line of them all. Italian perimeter has won against Finland, Kopponen got worn down completely, I believe Italians has shown the path there. Italian guards have also won the game vs. Spanoulis-less Greece in defense. Italy will be a tough job, as all 3 games will be, but we've already won in a pretty dominant way against them after that game I've put Italy among top8 teams on my imaginary ranking list at once, meaning they were far from playing bad basketball. In fact they've played a really decent game back than as well.


Well see what'll happen. People that never played basketball can't realise what a, seemingly ussual as any else, quarterfinal game can do... you suddenly become either the biggest hero or the biggest looser of them all, so basicaly it's all about that one game, for any team, Slovenia included (if we get there, which I believe we should).

[Joško Poljak Fan]

...People that never played basketball can't realise what a, seemingly ussual as any else, quarterfinal game can do... you suddenly become either the biggest hero or the biggest looser of them all, so basicaly it's all about that one game, for any team, Slovenia included (if we get there, which I believe we should).

Ah, sometimes I hate myself being right.

It's time for changing the rest of the generation, meaning Lakovič, Balažič, Joksimovič and Nachbar will be likely out of NT.
Candidates for a refreshment will sooner or later be Prepelič, Omić, Bolčina, Dimec, D. Murič, Rebec, Hrovat, Lapornik, Pajič which still have some time to proove their worth and improve, while I've already given up on Rupnik and Rojc. Hopefully some new Blažič could pop up from nowhere again.

It's unbelievable how many PF's we've had 10 years ago and how few there are right now, even more for PG's. After Dragič... we don't have any single PG with a perspective to do something big. They all get screwed up in the process even if they are the most numerous around the age of 16, 17...

[serbianhoops]

He may not be the panacea to solve Slovenia's lack of bigman issue but there is a 6'11" tall & 255 pounds NCAA division 1 prospect with Slovenian roots in the USA.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Interesting, who is he? I don't think I've heard of any such player there.