Julian Dekker | Scouting Report
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, Sasa Obradovic, 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 main areas are all of age group in Africa and from U12 to U20 European and NCAA. MY BIGGEST GOAL IS SCOUTING! Anyway, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and feel free to DM!
Team: Donar Groningen
DBO: March 05, 2003–17 years old
Nationality: Netherlands
Shooting hand: Right
Watched games: 11 (2019–2020)
Primary position: Shooting guard.
Secondary position: Point guard
Offensive roles: Spot-up three-point shooter with consistent shooting form, transition finisher.
Defensive roles: Effective on the ball and high-level motor defender.
Measurements
Height — Shoes off: 6’1”
Height — Shoes on: 6’2.5”
Weight: 175
Hand length: N/A
Wingspan: 6’3.5’’
The Netherlands has some notable prospects, like Keye van der Vuurst de Vries and Yannick Kraag. Also, some under the radar Dutch prospects stand out with their dazzling skill-set. And Julian Dekker is one of them.
Background
Dekker was born in Groningen in the Netherlands. Some members of his family had played handball, Dekker played handball for a while when he was 5–6, but Dutch football was good in his time. He played football for a while, but when he was 8–9 years old, he completely turned to basketball.
Julian Dekker was one of the two most important players in the Netherlands, who won a silver medal in the 2019 U16 Euro Championship B. Dekker, who played well with his contribution to shooting on the offensive hand, had a good harmony with Armin Strojil, one of the stars of the tournament.
In this tournament, JD averaged 12.5 points, 1.5 assists, 1.5 rebounds, 2.6 turnovers and shooting 49.3% from the court and 40.6 from the 3-points line in four attempts per game. He showed his best performance in this tournament against Denmark, a semi-final game. He finished this game with 19 points, four rebounds and one assist. Also, he took important minutes and did a great job in the final game against Poland.
Locally, he playing for Donar Groningen, where he begin and turned professional. He trains with the senior team sometimes but usually, he plays in the under-18 league. Despite playing against 17-year-old, 18-year-old kids, Dekker is the best scorer in Donar’s U18 team.
Physical Tools, Approach and Athleticism
Medical history: 2019, knee injury, one month out, not a serious thing.
Standing 6-foot-2 shoes with a +1 wingspan and skinny 175-pound frame, Julian Dekker has a lot of important room to grow, narrow shoulders, almost no length arms, hollow chest, thin core. His lower body is by far better than his upper body in every sense. Vertical pop is excellent, not explosive but good for someone with a 6-foot-2. Dekker moves quick laterally, especially on the defense. Very, very fast linearly. I think that’s the best thing about his physical tools, his combination of speed and coordination.
But end of the day, what negatively impact Dekker’s career projection most is his lack of physical tools and athletics. This kid has the potential to be an above rim and traffic finisher, and his BBIQ on the defense can may make him a versatile defender, but his lack of both length and strength limits his basketball skill-set on both sides of the court.
If he can physically fill his upper body a little bit, if he can make the jump that Jalen Brunson made, I think he could find a very comfortable place in the NBA. But otherwise, he may be a player like Arnoldas Kulbolka, who is not able to jump into the NBA because of lack of good physical tools and athleticism package.
Mental Fight and Awareness
Julian Dekker is mentally strong. He was the biggest factor in Netherlands’ silver medal win, was the best second scorer in his team. He never collapsed mentally in the final game, but more importantly, he took on the most important role in his team in the semi-final game. Mentally he was always alive both in his local team and NTJ.
On the awareness side, there are not many good things I can say about him. JD can be a good piece in team harmony when he focuses completely on the game, but usually focuses too much on the game for individual scoring. Defensive awareness is by far better than offensive awareness. But I don’t think he is an ideal awareness prospect in general.
Offense
Julian Dekker’s game generally revolves around spotting up for the 3-pointer, running the floor in transition looking for easy layups/floaters or playing clear area one-on-one offense.
Average finisher with solid, quick but hard touch. Can finish with either hand, also, his quick footwork, his great acceleration ability, hip turns and body coordination make him a good finisher but there are some bad things.
Julian Dekker can’t finish in traffic due to lack of ideal physical tools. He is not someone who can play and finish in tight spaces with the ball. Plus, he is not good off the ball finisher in the painted area. I mean, he is not someone who can run without the ball to under the basket from corners or wings and score after taking the ball, this is something that is never included in his offensive identity.
He can dribble the ball quickly and has BBIQ (1–2, through legs, behind, change of pace/hesitations) but he can only use this speed well on clear area one-on-one offense. In other words, he is not someone who can change direction and score between two defenders on the strong side of the offense. Also, he cannot use tricks like long floaters because he has not soft touch. Quick leaper/finisher in the paint, but not someone who really explodes up. If the Dutch prospect can increase his ability to drive and attack the hoop strong and can do it consistently, he will inevitably draw more fouls to get to the line.
Dekker’s shooting form is solid with a smooth follow through, EXCELLENT quick catch and release and smart footwork. After Dekker takes the ball, he can take it out of his hand in a very short time, using the coordination in his body, the energy he receives from his hips and the fluidity in his wrists. He is not the best shooter in the 2003 class but has one of the best shooting mechanics.
Despite forcing some possessions in crowded paints, Julian Dekker does not take many poor shots elsewhere. Has good shooting BBIQ and mentality. If his team needs a 3-points, he is going the left corner (mostly) waiting, taking the ball, stepping his right and shooting.
Dekker is not a good mid-range and a self-creator shooter, He should improve on mid-range jumpers and has room to get better as a movement shooter but as a spot-up shooter, he creates his shooting spacing by taking a very quick and smooth step to his right or left to get out of the ball if he is in his opponent’s block angle.
Advanced momentum ballhandler and half crafty-half classic passer. Reliable handler with quick footwork and average awareness. His handling awareness is not always high but he did show some really good things about it.
For example, while finding a layup hit in transition in possession at the 2019 FIBA U16, he saw that his opponent was running from the left-wing and he carried the ball to his right.
The biggest problem with his handling is that he can lose the ball in tight spaces or against intense defense because he is not physically strong, but this is not a big problem as he is not a primary handler, but of course, it is something that he needs to improve.
He is not an assist machine but showed some impressive flashes as a mixer and in drive-and-dish possessions. If he is fully committed to the game, if he plays to win the match with 11 other players on his team, he can give excellent creative passes. Am I buy his passing skill-set? Yes. Is he a great passer? No. Good skills but some chemistry problems. But I always buy his reliable handling and good dribbling abilities.
Defense
Julian Dekker does not have a great length and size to be a good defender, also, does not have a great deal of defensive versatility but brings a huge fight and BBIQ to the floor competing and doing some important things on the ball defense.
On the ball defense, Dekker’s lateral movement, excellent speed, good hand-eye coordination, ability to transfer energy from his feet and react very quickly make up his physical tools to lack of strength and elite length. He has no perfect steal or deflection ability in any area of defense, but he is very good at covering all angles of his opponent and doing this for 22 seconds from the full court. The high-level motor is dazzling.
However, when his man going to the basket with using his physicality, Dekker’s on the ball defense is not working. So is struggling to defend from within two steps of the perimeter.
As I said, I’m not a fan of Dekker’s overall team awareness but I think he’s a little better at this on defense. He’s not someone who talks to his teammates, always does the right rotate, and he’s never a defensive playmaker either. But he does a nice job guarding his man along the perimeter and also knows how to protect the shell, go to open man / extra pass/sliding, etc. He does a good job tagging the roll and recovering to his man. However, he sometimes does an unnecessary help-defense.
Pick-and-roll defense, he shows good anticipation and a degree of tenacity guarding handler. His smooth stance and quick body reaction work. Lack of size and length precludes him from being switchable going forward, again.
I’m a huge fan of his transition defense. In transition, he is good at returning to his half-court as quickly as possible and closing his opponent’s angle with his hands and BBIQ, and he also knows how to make a right foul.
Does a great job closing out. His quick body and quick reactions make him a good closeout defender in my opinion. Does not have great athlectisim tools in terms of smoothness or popping when getting out to shooters but his coordination and motor help him here.
Need some works on off the ball defense. Despite he does a good job running around the screens, and his BBIQ, Dekker’s physical tools limited him here. Struggles against second screen or burst fakes too much. Also, sometimes he gives too late reactions.
Questions
Physical development is important for every player, but how high will Dekker’s progress in this matter?
Will he be able to add a good finishing bullet to his offensive arsenal?
Will has a team awareness and do it consistently?
Overall
Julian Dekker is a reliable shooter and an excellent scorer on some net basket possessions. At high levels, he can be a player who can come off the bench and give his team a good score. But the limitations of his physical tools raise a big question mark in my mind. Because of many of the deficiencies in his game package due from this. But it’s important to remember that he is only 17 years old and still has time to develop.