Practices at the 2012 Nike Hoop Summit

Carl Berman

6 Apr 2012

Blog

2 comments

Here are some observations after attending the practices for the 2012 Nike Hoop Summit which takes place on Saturday at 7PM PST in Portland, Oregon.

• The World Select Team appears to be not as strong as the past several years. Two of the best players for the World team are Canadians, Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins and they have been playing at schools in the states for the past several years. Bennett, a strong 6’7 (239 pounds) is rated as the top power forward and #7 in the 2012 class. He’s considering Kentucky, Washington, Florida, Oregon and UNLV. Bennett will be an NBA player and will likely not be in college very long. He averaged 15.9 points and 10 rebounds at Findlay Prep this season. Wiggins has grown some since we last saw him (6’7 with a 6’11 wingspan). He’s rated the #1 recruit in the 2014 class. Wiggins has improved his outside game quite a bit over the last year. At 17 years of age, he’s the youngest player in the event and likely the most impressive.
• 6’10 Dario Saric (Croatia) will be a first round NBA draft pick when he’s eligible to be drafted in 2013. He has a solid all-around game, can shoot from deep, pass and plays extremely smart.
• The World team was hurt by the injury of Evan Fournier (a likely first round pick in the 2012 NBA Draft). The other guards and forwards on the World team are nice players but none is an NBA prospect. 6’7 Leo Westermann (France) is an interesting player at the point with good size, game awareness and a nice outside shot. He has short arms though, so he plays at less than his actual height.
• The World team’s big men, 6’10 Marcos Delia (Argentina), 6’11 Patson Siame (Zambia) and 7’0 Wang Zhelin (China) will have their hands full with the USA bigs 6’11 Nerlens Noel, 7’0 Kaleb Tarczewski (Arizona) and 6’10 Mitch McGary (Michigan). Zhelin looked the best of the international bigs in practice. Siame is the only World Select player headed to the NCAA as he’s been signed by LMU. All the other world team members are playing professionally.
• There are rumors about John Calipari possibly being headed to the New York Knicks. The undeclared USA players, Anthony Bennett, Shabazz Muhammad and Nerlens Noel are likely waiting to see whether Calipari spurns the NBA overtures before finalizing their decisions on April 11th. We spoke to Muhammad yesterday who indicated that he was down to Kentucky, Duke and UCLA.