You want your future prospect? BiE’s got your prospect right here; BallinEurope’s man in England, Sam Chadwick, today analyzes the recent performance and the near future of Tobias Borg, a 17-year-old who made some waves at this year’s Future Stars International Basketball tournament in the UK and is currently competing for Team Sweden in the FIBA U18 competition currently going on.
Name: Tobias Borg
Country: Sweden
Position: SG
Height: 5’9” (1.82 meters)
Age: 17 (born in November 1993)
I had the pleasure of watching Tobias play at the Future Stars International Basketball Tournament on the 9th of July at Brunel University; I was impressed by how well he shot the ball firstly in the warm-up and then in the game, how well he played denial defence and hustled. He scorched the USA Select team to the tune of 33 points, including seven threes in addition to some emphatic breakaway dunks and steals.
Borg’s hot shooting seems to have carried over to the current Under 18 Division B Tournament, where, at the time of this writing, he is currently fifth in scoring at 17.5 ppg on 53.8% success from the field and 61.9% from within the arc. His three-point shot isn’t falling at the moment but that will hopefully come back. As well as the shooting/scoring, his ability to play denial defence has continued and he is currently four in steals with 3.5 per game, while his 3.5 assists (12th overall in the tourney) isn’t bad for a shooting guard.
The one negative about Borg’s current play is his five turnovers per game! However, this doesn’t worry me as bad for two reasons: One, he is a shooting guard with a hot hand who doesn’t necessarily need to pass; two, he has solid fundamentals in the ability to make good, clean passes and his handling skills are fine – his problems are more a case of experience and playing against some of the top players in Europe.
I think Tobias has a great future ahead of him, after the injury to Marcus Eriksson, Sweden’s starting SG and a highly ranked prospect over at Euro Hopes; Tobias has filled in the scoring role perfectly and could potentially lead this team to a Division A promotion, if they can get back at Boris Bojanovsky and his Slovak Republic teammates. My tip is to look out for this guy at next year’s Under 20 Championship.
Sam Chadwick is a university student, part-time sportswriter and a coach in the Solent Kestrels organization.
