Game Scouting Reports | Joventut Badalona vs. Unijaca Malaga: Arturs Zagars (Deep) and others

I’m Kuzey, 19. I’ve been writing about basketball since I was 9. I have been working in Eurosport Turkey for the last 1,5 years. I have written on various sites and magazines before. I’ve been working as a freelance scout for three years. I worked as a consultant. I have interviewed dozens of prospects such as Theo Maledon, Deni Avdija, Henri Drell, Aleksej Pokusevski, Arturs Kurucs, Yves Pons and dozens of notable basketball people such as Luis Scola, Xavi Pascual, Jonathan Givony, Dimitris Itoudis, Joan Plaza, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Derrick Williams. I write an article every day. I live in Turkey, I go to all the Euroleague and Youth League games. MY BIGGEST GOAL IS SCOUTING! Anyway, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and feel free to DM!

Artūrs Martins Žagars

18 minutes

10 points (Five points as a PnR ball-handler and three points as a spot-up shooter)

1/2 2FG

2/3 3FG

2/2 FT

Two rebounds

Three assists

One steal

13 PIR

Physical

His thin frame, which I doubt most about Arturs Zagars’ career projection, caught my attention in this game. I think the 6–2 Latvian prospect should improve his frame in general. His shoulders are narrow, his arms are of average length but lack strength, his core muscles give him fluidity, this is good, his lower body is fast but weak. I don’t think he needs a lot of power in his lower body because shifty handling abilities are based on fluidity and quickness. However, he must gain muscle in his upper body; arms, shoulders and chest. In this match, he made simple mistakes, as he was physically slim in two positions on offense and four on defense.

Offense

I think it was the best game Zagars played in the EuroCup in the 2019–2020 season. He scored 10 points and made three assists in 18 minutes, and also showed a lot of things about why he is an important prospect. Zagars, a classic European guard, showed his drive and dish skill seven times in that game. Three of these seven positions turned into assists and four turned into assist passes. Featuring crafty and shifty handling and dribbling abilities, Zagars was the offensive leader of Joventut in the minutes he was on the court. He is a leader in every set. Four minutes before the end of the first quarter, after a pick and roll, he gives the pass to the roller with impressive creativity. In the last second of the first quarter, he made an assist with very good timing after drive to the corner catch&shooter. He set up backdoor sets four times in the second quarter. I mean, he talked his teammates which are on off-ball. He directed their positions. Zagars is definitely a pick and roll maestro, but my two favorite things about him in this game were his hesitation moves and his confidence in three-point shots. Zagars made hesitation moves that disrupted opponent defensive geometry in many parts of the second and third quarters. His dribble tempo was good. As I said, I was very impressed with his three-pointer performance in this game. Zagars is generally not a very good three-point shooter but has three-point hits against Malaga in the first quarter and third quarter. While using these shots, smooth shooting mechanics and shooting without hesitation were an important signal for AZ’s future. The most remaining position in my mind about his offense was the passing of Frank Elegar and going to the basket at the end of the third quarter. Because Zagars, despite being physically weak, passed a strong player like Elegar with the speed-dribble-handling package and finished it in traffic.

Defense

Being physically weak hurt him here. In the second quarter, he did good things on defense with his fast hands, high BBIQ, and ability to move around screens. However, in the offensive sets of Unijaca Malaga, which played a lot of pass and played at low tempo, Zagars was one of the weakest defense rings of his team when AZ was on the court. Zagars was bad at mismatches and PnR defense. I think his biggest problem on defense is that he is physically weak. Because, when you look at the defense performance of Arturs Zagars, you can see how accurate and fast he is, not making any rotate mistake on team defense. I mean, Zagars is theoretically perfect on defense but bad at practicing it.

Other Notabla Prospects

Nenad Dimitrijevic

He was bad in the first three quarters, he made two fouls in the first five minutes but played with nine points and two assists in the last quarter, where his team made a big difference. His basketball IQ, fluid athleticism, and off-ball activity were good.

Joel Parra

He played with nine points and eight rebounds but he was like a ghost on the court. He made too many rotate errors on defense. He could not find turned buckets in easy three-position (open court layups).

Pablo Sanchez

I think it was very good. On offense, he created a six-time spacing on his team with three-point threat. In the second quarter, he controlled the tempo well in some sections. He managed Malaga’s PnR-based sets well and showed drive and dish examples four times. Smash mechanics looks smooth. He was born in 2002 but I think looks physically good. Generally speaking, he needs to develop fundamentally.