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Draft profile: Donatas Motiejunas

March 10, 2010

Now that NBA mock drafting is in full swing (despite the total lack of clarity regarding playoff positioning, not to mention seeing how the damn lottery ping-pong balls fall this year), BallinEurope’s man in the U.K., Sam Chadwick, will be taking a look at some of Europe’s prospective high draft picks. Today, it’s all about big man Donatas Motiejunas.

Vital stats
Position: Centre/Power Forward
Height: 7’0”/2.13m
Weight: 224 lbs/101 kg
Date of birth: 09/20/1990
Current Club: Benetton Treviso

Strengths: Donatas is a highly touted, talented centre coming out of Benetton Treviso (the same team that produced NBA draftees such as Toni Kukoc, Jorge Garbajosa and Andrea Bargnani) and is a shooting centre with range all the way out to the 3-point line and can hit it from almost anywhere, as well as this he has a good dribble-drive and can finish with either hand, resulting in him being exceptionally hard to guard.

Donatas has great agility and athleticism, and European Prospects’ take notes that “The combination of talent, size, coordination and skills is rare in European basketball,” i.e. as well as being a great outside threat, he can bring it inside and has a range of interior moves. His great court visibility and height mean that when double-teamed, he can easily spot the open man and hit him for the assist.

Weaknesses: Unfortunately, due to his obvious talent, Motiejunas sometimes lets his game drop to a lower level against lower opposition and needs to learn to keep his game at a high even against lesser NBA players, as the level of talent will be a lot higher than he is used to: He cannot let his game slip against them. Motiejunas’ last and only other weakness is his lack of experience, as he is only 19 and has not yet had the sort of experience other European bigs such as Dirk and Gasol had when they entered the NBA.

Mock draft forecasts: Currently, Donatas is typically ranked anywhere from no. 2 to no. 12 overall pick in this June’s draft; the majority of draft analysis site such as NBADraft.net and NBA Draft Guru reckon the Lithuanian to be picked up by either the Utah Jazz (currently 7th-worst overall) or the Minnesota Timberwolves (8th) due to their needs for size and outside shooting.

In Utah, he can learn from fellow long-range shooting centre Mehmet Okur, who currently has been injury prone, while he can also back up Carlos Boozer at power forward. (If Boozer sticks around in Utah, eh? –Ed.)

The Timberwolves, too, could use the backup size and may feel Motiejunas will well complement Al Jefferson and Kevin Love (while also serving as improvement over Ryan Hollins); with both being mid-range to interior players, Donatas can stretch his man outside the paint while also grabbing rebounds and using his versatility to dribble-drive and dish to the likes of Jefferson and Love inside.

My analysis: If Motiejunas is availible when the Wizards select, I’d suggest they pick him up. Washington has a solid core with the likes of Al Thornton, Andrey Blatche and Nick Young, but JaVale McGee is not the guy which they can contend with in the starting centre position. Blatche is an inside, post-up power forward who can grab rebounds and Al Thornton has also developed in the rebounding area, too, so Donatas will therefore be able to stretch defences to allow Blatche to go to work on the interior while he can also provide a rebounding presence on which other teams must focus. If, in the event that Blatche gets into foul trouble, Donatas has the ability and the offensive moves to fill in for him at this position.

Other particularly appropriate teams might include the Philadelphia 76ers and Golden State Warriors.

Philadelphia need to be ready for the complete disappearance of Samuel Delambert and the team needs to get back to its running-and-gunning roots that made it so successful last year. The Sixers are also generally terrible outside shooters, and Donatas can help them improve in all of these areas. While Dalembert is playing badly and is not the best fit in Philly, Donatas can run the floor and, for a seven-footer, is incredibly athletic and fast; he also brings a shooting presence much like that of Andrea Bargnani or Danilo Gallinari. If he is available to the Sixers, I suggest they pick him up and see what they can get trade-wise for Delambert.

Golden State is short and needs some height, but Donnie’s free-flowing system likes short players, especially guards who can shoot and guys who can run the wings. Donatas provides them with a big man who can not only bang on the inside, but can also run the wings and shoot the 3 ball. Playing along side fellow European Rony Turiaf will also help him get used to playing on a different continent.

Evaluation: In the end, whoever picks up Donatas is looking at a great player and maybe a team cornerstone (much like Dirk was for Dallas): He has great athleticism and size and will continue to develop over time. Overall, I feel Motiejunas is a much better player than last year’s number two overall pick, Hasheem Thabeet.

Sam Chadwick is a assistant coach for the Solent Kestrels U13 team. He also writes a basketball-centered blog called Behind The Back.

Mar 10, 2010ballineurope
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This post was published on March 10, 2010
Important note for "Euroleague Fantasy Boss" fansFantasy tips from the Euroleague boss: Final week
Comments: 10
  1. Can't read this
    15 years ago

    This shows up as Silver type against a black background for me

    Cant see anything

    Bye

    ReplyCancel
    • Os Davis
      15 years ago

      Hmmm … i’m not sure what to tell you on this, but it sounds as though your browser isn’t loading the page all the way. It seems to work well enough on the most recent versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox…

      Cheers,
      Os.

      ReplyCancel
  2. Hold Up
    15 years ago

    Didn’t Dirk play Division Two in Germany before going to the NBA? He had no experience at all in any level of good European Competition.

    Motiejunas has already played a year in the top league in Lithuania and now a year in the Italian first division and the Eurocup. To say his lack of experience is a weakness is questionable, I doubt there are many 19 year olds anywhere in the world who can compare to him in that field

    ReplyCancel
  3. radallo
    15 years ago

    Coordination and body control makes him an excellent power forward, but still have to develope hi-low passing skills.

    Great size ( not weight so far.. ), he mainly selects turnaround baseline jumper.

    When outside, he trust his shooting ability and sometimes forgets to attack the basket

    Rebounding can improve a lot.

    He’s 19, GREAT prospect, BIG margin!!

    ReplyCancel
  4. Sam Raphel Chadwick
    15 years ago

    Guys thanks for the comments, I agree that he needs to put on some weight to get up close to the size of the bigs in the NBA.

    With regards to his level of experience i feel Dirk really was the leader of his team and lead them to a promotion where as Donatas is just a solid contributor at a high level so its hard to compare.

    Thanks again look forward to more comments

    ReplyCancel
    • Shilas
      15 years ago

      “With regards to his level of experience i feel Dirk really was the leader of his team and lead them to a promotion where as Donatas is just a solid contributor at a high level so its hard to compare.”

      Seems you know nothing about Motiejūnas, could atleast see his last year stats…

      they are 21 points 7,3 rebuonds.

      http://www.lkl.lt/index.php/b19sYW5nPWhlJm9fc2Vhcz0xNSZvX2xlYWc9MSZmdXNlYWN0aW9uPXBsYXllcnMubWFpbiZ0PTY0JnA9NzEx

      Also you have 3 times said, that Donatas has great athelizm, but actually it is his weakens… Unless he has improved very much during the last year…

      ReplyCancel
  5. Sam Raphael Chadwick
    15 years ago

    With regards to his athletisism this has improved if you check say www.nbadraft.net they say that for his size he has a very good ability to get up and down the floor and rate his athletisism as an 8 out of 10

    with regards to the stats you showed they were his stats in lithuania and at a slightly lower level his stats on his current team are more of a solid contributor

    thanks got the comments thought 🙂

    ReplyCancel
  6. Boris
    15 years ago

    Benetton didn’t produse Kukoč in NBA. He came to Benetton as alredy established player, one of the best in Europ. He spent there only one year. Before going there he won 3 stright euroleague championships with Split (jugoplastika and POP 84 back then), and few olympic, euro and world medals and also was drafted before he played for them. He also had ofers before he singed for benetton to go in Chicago, but He was bit scared of juping in US

    ReplyCancel
  7. Sam Raphael Chadwick
    15 years ago

    Boris I know he didnt spend the most of his crer at Benetton I was just saying that he played there before the NBA, Thanks for the information thought.

    ReplyCancel
  8. Inzaghi
    14 years ago

    He is good enough for NBA game.

    ReplyCancel
Pingbacks: 4
  1. Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog » Blog Archive » Draft profile: Jan Vesely
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  2. Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog » Blog Archive » Beyond Vesely: Five European names North America must know for 2010-11
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  3. Ball in Europe, the European Basketball Blog » Blog Archive » Searching for Kings’ men in Paris, Treviso: Geoff Petrie’s European tour begins
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ballineurope
15 years ago 14 Comments More, NBA/NCAA2010 NBA Draft, Al Jefferson, Al Thornton, Andrea Bargnani, Andrey Blatche, Benetton Basket Treviso, Carlos Boozer, Danilo Gallinari, Dirk Nowitzki, Donatas Motiejunas, Golden State Warriors, Hasheem Thabeet, JaVale McGee, Jorge Garbajosa, Kevin Love, Lithuania, Mehmet Okur, Minnesota Timberwolves, NBA, Nick Young, Pau Gasol, Philadelphia 76ers, Rony Turiaf, Ryan Hollins, Samuel Dalembert, Solent Kestrels, Team Lithuania, Toni Kukoc, Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards
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