Rudy or Belinelli?

A majority of readers on Golden State of Mind would still go with Marco "Rambo?" Belinelli. I suppose here people see that the other way around by a large margin.

The Blazers at least were interested in him back in 2007. "Mike Born: We had two players we had targeted...both international players. But we as a staff hoped we could get Rudy. He was the guy we wanted."
There are not many other international options they could have targeted in that region of the draft, much less on the guard position. Yi (Bucks/Nets) was sure to go way earlier, and fellow big man Tiago Splitter (Spurs - didn't come over yet) was available. We got Petteri ourselves in the end, so no need for Born to mention him as another option. It likely came down to Rudy or Marco.

P.S. Despite Joel, I wish we had drafted Marc Gasol in the second round to complete the Spanish Connection.

over 3 years ago Norsktroll 5 comments 0 recs |

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Belinelli is awful

A near-useless player.

It’s still boggles my feeble little mind how he is expected to be good over HERE, when he was never any good over THERE. His Euro stats are… bad!

If he was some 7’4" stiff from Boogersylvaniastan that’s one thing, he could develop… but an undersized SG?

I’m gonna say Born either misspoke a little and WAS referring to Petteri, or it was Tiago. I agree with you, it’s surprising we DIDN’T get the Gasol fellow, since you know we’re all over the ACB league and everywhere else in Europe… and, he’s pretty solid. I don’t agree with those who say he’ll be better than Pau, but he’s definitely a good big man.

It may have been draft day spin, but I remember them saying they had McRoberts much higher on their board than where he was drafted, so maybe they took that and combined it with him being Oden’s pal and said “what the hell”. OR, didn’t think Gasol would come over/isn’t friends with Rudy/flat out ain’t good?

Who knows.

I guess it’s a good thing the biggest flaw we can find in our drafting lately is 2nd rounders not being that great AND missing out on backup big men ;-) <——— WINK

As a side note, I always find it funny when people assume that people from other countries are friends with each other. Like, if we got Marc Gasol, him and Rudy HAVE to be friends! They are both Spanish!

If I’m in another country and some random American comes over, chances are they’ll suck and I hate ’em. Even if they also were from Oregon. But we always seem to assume otherwise.

Not that this has really come up, just a funny thought in my head that isn’t really funny.

Mortimer

by Mortimer on Jan 7, 2009 9:58 AM PST reply actions

Ya think they were interested in the Splitter and not just comparing the two most promising Euro shooting guards? Good choice to go with Rudy then, Splitter looks like the next Fran Vasquez: “Worst case ceiling: Won’t ever come over”

I was wondering even at that time why Gasol didn’t go higher and was cursing that the Lakers picked him up, even just by following him in the preceding world championships in 2006 a scout could have seen he was already a very solid player on the Spanish national team, much more when you would have checked him out for years and years in the league. Maybe the US scouts wanted their pick, too? Can’t go only with international players when you spend good money and time to scout all those NCAA games ;-) <——- WINK WINK

by Norsktroll on Jan 7, 2009 10:18 AM PST up reply actions

uhhh

Might want to take a look at his numbers in December/January… they are better than Rudy’s (higher shooting percentages, more assists). Bellinelli is also a year younger.

I would still take Rudy, easily. Rudy’s the more talented player and was much more successful in Europe. He’s still adjusting to the NBA and he brings a lot more to the table athletically, plus Marco benefits from the fast pace of Nellie-ball.

Still, there’s little excuse for calling Bellinelli useless (I thought he was also, but he’s proved me wrong the last month+).

Boomshakalaka

by jksnake99 on Jan 7, 2009 11:07 AM PST up reply actions

Geez you're always making me look up stuff like a hobo

And it STILL don’t change my mind, because looking at his game logs you can see he hit a hot streak in the middle of December, and then is back to either going 3 for 11 or 8 for 10. He’s a streak shooter, an Italian Juan Dixon.

He’s getting big minutes because of Maggete’s and Monta’s injuries, so he’ll have a good shooting game every once in a while, because that is what streak shooters do. If you’re giving him more than a heat check (like we were forced to do with Juan Dixon in our horrible years) and he plays major minutes even when not hitting his shot, whoa boy.

Of course you are right, I shouldn’t say he is useless, because bench scoring is almost always needed. But he ain’t lookin’ that good in big minutes, because (at least as of now and before) he’s just a shooter who isn’t a very good shooter.

Rudy has been streaky as heck this season obviously, and has been struggling. I know you aren’t arguing against him, but he can do a lot more than just score as a dumb rookie, and his all-round game still helps us. But thus far, Rudy has been Bellinelli-esque with his streak shooting but because of his great percentages in good Euro-leagues I’m confident it’s been rookie type stuff and not career type stuff.

Bellinelli’s Euroleague stuff is exactly the same as here— 40% or 39% shooting, always, bad 3 point shooting, and not much else. He is young, but I still find it strange that someone who didn’t do very well in Europe (against other not-that-athletic perimeter players) is expected to change in America… with guards, that isn’t likely.

If Bellynelly doesn’t pull a Juan Dixon (who had, like, a streak of 10+ games of scoring in double digits as a Blazer) and continues to be able to shoot decently, then I will be wrong. He’s young enough to prove me wrong.

Its an over generalization, but I find one dimensional volume shooters who don’t shoot very well to be nearly useless. As a fan of true shooting percentage, I’m sure you agree!

Mortimer

by Mortimer on Jan 7, 2009 11:39 AM PST up reply actions