International Flavor From Josh Giddey, Gaby Deck, and Marina Mabrey | Gabe's Favs
Before the NBA season starts, let's look around the world (and in the NBA) for some great basketball.
Ball and Order is a newsletter with basketball analysis, reporting, and takes that strives to cover the game no matter who is playing. My name is Gabe Ibrahim (twitter: @gabe_ibrahim). I cover the Washington Wizards for Bullets Forever, women’s basketball for Her Hoop Stats, and coach JV basketball at Meridian High School. Subscribe and tell your friends! Also check out the YouTube channel!
The air is getting a bit crisp, the leaves are starting to change colors, and the Miami Hurricanes have already suffered one of the most embarrassing football losses in school history. That can only mean one thing: It’s basketball season! Obviously, the WNBA is basketball that I’m obsessed with. But the WNBA season doesn’t take place in the traditional basketball season. There’s nothing quite like seeing your breath before heading into a gym. The NBA’s regular season starts tonight and teams have had a few days off. In the lull before the season, I watched a lot of European basketball because I’ve finally figured out how to use a VPN. We’ll obviously talk a lot about the NBA in this space, but I’m excited to pay closer attention to European basketball this season.
Josh Giddey, Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City is still a year away from being two years away from any sort of contention, especially with Chet Holgrem missing the season. But the offensive talent of the baby Thunder continues to impress. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is clearly the team’s best player, but Josh Giddey is the player that most captures the imagination. He established himself as one of the league’s best passers last season. It seems that he has only improved in the offseason.
The fastball he sent to Tre Mann there has been in Giddey’s bag since last year. His decisions are coming just a bit faster, his passes have a little more heat on them, and he’s throwing even more ambitious passes this year. In particular, this one-handed bounce pass made me stop in my tracks. It’s a pretty simple pass, but not many players can locate the cutter, find a passing lane, and put enough juice on the pass off one touch.
Last season, he ranked in the top 20 for assists and threw the 11th most passes per game in the NBA. But just 10.7% of his passes were converted into baskets by his teammates. The Thunder’s uhhh… development strategy did not provide Giddey (or SGA) with much finishing talent around them. Rookie Jalen Williams may change that this season. He was one of the nation’s best rim finishers in college and is already figuring out how to operate with Giddey in the pick-and-roll.
Williams’s finishing (and other skills) should make Giddey’s assist numbers look even better this year. Another thing that could bump up that number is giving him more opportunities as an inbounder. He brings creativity and daring to SLOBs and BLOBs.
Look at what Giddey saw at the moment he decided to throw the pass. That’s some Pat Mahomes stuff.
It’s truly an astonishing pass. As an inbounder, Giddey knows how to use his eyes and positioning to create passing lanes for his teammates. Hopefully, Williams and the other Thunder cutters are able to see those lanes too.
Gabriel Deck, Real Madrid
The newsletter's name is GABE’s favs so Gaby Deck of Real Madrid after playing in 17 games for Oklahoma City from October 2020 to January 2022, gets in on a losing effort. Real Madrid fell to Barcelona in El Clásico: Euroleague edition. While most Madrid fans will happily take the soccer win over the Catalans, they can also hang their hat on Deck’s performance against Barça. The Argentine wing led a furious but ultimately unsuccessful comeback attempt. Madrid trailed by 17 points with about 7 minutes left when he got going.
Deck scored all 13 of Real Madrid’s points in the final 4:16 of the game. He did most of his work at the line by drawing six fouls and going 7 for 8 from the line. Madrid pulled within two and had a chance to win at the buzzer. But the rally failed on a last-second miss by Sergio Llull, the Madrid legend for whom Daryl Morey once paid $2.25 million to get a shot at.
Deck, a.k.a La Tortuga, probably should have received a chance to finish his comeback. Still, his performance was a great reminder of what makes his game special. He’s an expert cutter as many Spaniard players are. Madrid’s spacing creates a lot of space to cut backdoor.
Deck’s main drawback is his inability to shoot threes. He is a career 34% three-point shooter and has only taken four deep balls for Real Madrid this year.1 It’s one of the reasons why Oklahoma City felt comfortable letting him go last January. Another reason was Josh Giddey’s performance in Deck’s role of point forward.
As Jonathan Givony wrote in Deck’s 2017 draft profile, he’s a tweener. In the NBA, he isn’t fast enough to cover athletic small forwards and he isn’t big enough to guard big power forwards. His ability to punish mismatches offensively is similarly muted. However, Deck’s style and skillset get rewarded more often in Europe. He can find a bit more space to do funky post-ups and he has enough speed to cross up power forwards.
Gaby is an NBA-caliber player who is held back by his lack of position in the US. But his style is so fun to watch in another setting where the quality is also elite. Guys like him are one of the reasons I’m excited to have access to a lot of European basketball this year.
Marina Mabrey, Famila Schio
Mabrey is spending her WNBA “Offseason” in the northern Italy town of Schio. In her first Italian league game this year, she popped off against Virtus Segafredo Bologna in a rematch of last year’s LBF Finals, which Schio swept. Mabrey put up 16 points for the game. 11 of them came in a 3-minute stretch in the third quarter where Schio took control of the game. She was not efficient but she was very fun.
I highly recommend listening to the call of that play in the YouTube video. Immediately after that circus shot, she got her team free throws by drawing a technical foul after plowing into a screener.2 She butted heads with Bologna star (and former Minnesota Lynx starter) Ceci Zandalasini and sent mean looks all over the floor. Mabrey even admitted that getting mad at herself and the team during halftime led to her big quarter.
Schio figures to sit atop the Italian league once again this year. They went a perfect 28-0 in LBF play last year to win their 8th title in 10 seasons. However, they have never reached the Euroleague Final Four. Mabrey could be part of a group to change that. Grabbing Rhyne Howard early in her career before she likely eschews European play is huge. Mixing two inefficient scorers was difficult for Mabrey’s Dallas Wings last year. We’ll see if Greek coach George Dikeoulakos finds a way to get it done. Astou Ndour and Amanda Zahui B are high-quality bigs who can stretch the floor. Costanza Verona was the team’s best player against Bologna, to be honest.
With Ekaterinburg banished for good reasons, there’s room in the ELW hierarchy for a team with this much talent. Hopefully, Schio can make it to new heights this year. If nothing else, Mabrey’s mean mugging and ruggedness will be fun to watch on the biggest stage.
Weirdly, he was very solid from the three-point line playing with Argentina this year.
I couldn’t quite understand what happened because I don’t speak Italian (yet).