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[Editor's Note: Jan Vesely/Czech Republic guru Lukas Kuba (@Luke_Mellow) provides us with (translates) more classic Jan Vesely things via the Czech media. Enjoy! -Kyle W.]
[via iDNES.cz]
Jan Vesely didn’t score the 100th point on Sunday, Washington ended up with just 98 in their win against the Pistons (77 points), but he did end up with the play of the night. We talked about people getting down on Vesely in a recent post, and it’s those people who need to keep their eyes on sequences like in the video above. Again, Vesely is already the best Wizards big man at defending the high pick-and-roll, even more evident in him getting the steal from Detroit’s Will Bynum. But the scene of Vesely’s ability to run the floor with Wall, them sharing with each other until Jan ends up with the dunk, is a sign of things to come from the Czech rookie. No, he’s not a dazzling stud of a 6th overall pick, but he could develop into a defensive player as solid as Joakim Noah, but perhaps more athletic. Now wouldn’t that be nice to have at that draft position?
Wizards win their second road game in Detroit 98-77 and improve to 6-22 on the season. Head over to the Daily Dime Live on ESPN.com to read my rapid reaction for the game.
People are kind of down on Jan Vesely right now. Some say that as the sixth overall pick in 2011, he should be playing better. Really? There are high standards for the sixth pick in a weak draft? Let’s all take a step back and chill, add some lockout-shortened season/tainted locker room perspective to the mere 19 games of Vesely’s rookie season thus far. He’ll only be 22 in April; he needs more of a chance.
For starters, Vesely is part of the Wizards’ “core” of seven players. Dan Steinberg on the DC Sports Bog relays that on ESPN 980′s The Sports Reporters, Coach Randy Wittman was asked about key future pieces in the rebuild aside from John Wall. Wittman acknowledged that fans aren’t the only ones having trouble identifying impact players on the roster outside of the 2010 No. 1 pick, saying, “That’s what we’re trying to figure out ourselves.”
Now, one can certainly deduce that Wall is the one and only true piece, but I’ll argue that there is a core of seven players: Wall, Shelvin Mack, Chris Singleton, Jan Vesely, Trevor Booker, Jordan Crawford, and Kevin Seraphin. I place Crawford and Seraphin last because the team should not marry themselves to either, but both have shown enough glimpses of promise to keep looking, especially Seraphin with his massive build. Also, ESPN.com’s David Thorpe (on ESPN Insider) has noted both Crawford and Booker as NBA sophs “with starting, if not starring, potential.” JaVale McGee? I’m apathetic when it comes to his future in Washington. Maybe he stays at the right price, maybe the Wizards take drastic actions to help him grow up. McGee is a huge maybe. But that aside, this is your Wizards core. No, not dazzling. And yes, it’s legit to question who amongst this group is starter-quality material — If you ask me, Wall, Singleton (potentially a better version of Bruce Bowen), and Booker (his progression must be recognized and potential slightly adjusted), but the latter two certainly stretch the boundaries of imagination at this point.
Editor’s Note: Jan Vesely is getting a crash course on a lot of things past the simplicities of basketball — culture, a new country, the media — and it’s a lot to digest. After he made his NBA debut against the Minnesota Timberwolves last Sunday, not a lot of people stuck around to talk to him. This fact was not, however, an oddity. For whatever reason (likely treatment), Vesely was one of the last to dress in the locker room after the game, and to be honest, media deadlines (for most) and the shock of the Wizards looking so horrible in losing their eighth straight game to start the season spawned more urgency in other coverage, which thus left Vesely’s debut in the dust. Although, people certainly noticed him airballing his first NBA shot attempt, a free-throw. He would miss the second free-throw, but not long after, teammate Trevor Booker found Vesely for his first points, a dunk. I was one of the few who stuck around to speak with Vesely after his debut. Language barriers aside, it wasn’t exactly the best, most exciting opportunity for him to speak, as he seemed really jarred by the level of losing that’s kicked off his NBA career. -Kyle Weidie
What was the experience like, finally being able to make your NBA debut?
“It was a good experience… what to say?”
What about that missed free-throw? Can we just chalk it up to nerves?
“I was a little bit nervous. I was thinking about what to expect, how to play, so… nerves.”
Wizards owner Ted Leonsis said he would release it on DVD, but footage of Washington Wizards rookies singing karaoke last Wednesday remains unseen. Still, it was the talk of the Verizon Center on Media Day Thursday.
Flashback to the Tuesday before, Wizards rookie guard Shelvin Mack was asked if he had been hazed yet, and if he had a song ready to sing (as singing in front of an audience is tradition for team rooks during training camp).
“I had to get some donuts, it wasn’t too bad, but I haven’t had to sing anything in front of anyone … I got one [song] prepared just in case they try to pop one out on me.”
That “in case” happened during dinner at Hill Country Barbecue Market near DC’s Chinatown/Penn Quarter section. Mack, along with fellow rookies Jan Vesely and Chris Singleton, were made to bellow out tunes, karaoke style. According to Leonsis, Vesely brought the house down with a Serbian polka, while Andray Blatche revealed that the Singleton and Mack duo butchered a rap song.
The media peppered Vesely about more details on the polka, but he played coy. Rashard Lewis had one verdict on Jan’s version of Serbian Idol, “It sounded like he was just screaming up there the whole time.”
[Jan Vesely works on his shooting form with Flip and Ryan Saunders. - photo: K. Weidie]
Many folks are naturally a bit more curious about Jan Vesely than others on this Wizards team, and that includes the likes of John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee. Reason being, not many have seen the sixth overall pick of the 2011 NBA Draft in a setting outside of his role as the “Dunking Ninja” on YouTube. They want to know if he’s up to NBA snuff.
The fair warning is that expectations of Vesely should be immediately tempered. This is not to discourage potential, nor preemptively quell disappointment. It’s just that there are a myriad of factors as to why Vesely’s integration into a pro basketball team in the nation’s capital will take some time. And that’s okay. We might see a bodacious dunk or two early on, but it also might take 10-15 games (about a sixth of this shortened season) before we see Vesely truly comfortable on an NBA court. Until then, feel free to remain confident in the scouting of Vesely performed by team management which led to his draft selection. He’s got the tools, he just needs to learn how to hammer.
Flip Saunders and Roger Mason Jr. talk about Vesely, along with a couple shots of training camp action and comments from Jan himself.
[Editor's Note: Lukas Kuba (@Luke_Mellow on Twitter) lives in Slovakia, was born in Czechoslovakia, and is TAI's correspondent for all things Jan Vesley, monitoring the Czech media for coverage of their new star and the Washington Wizards rookie-to-be. Today, Lukas translates a recent Q&A with Vesely from iDNES.cz. -Kyle W.]
[You like my plaid shirt? Then you'll LOVE my 'serious' plaid shirt face.]
What delayed your Prague-Copenhagen-Washington, D.C. flight?
They wanted to know an address where I‘m going to stay, so I had to call my agent and ask him what’s the address of the hotel where I’m gonna live. Actually, I’m homeless now. I have to find an apartment [in D.C.]. My girlfriend is going to come on Christmas. Those two weeks I can hold out without her.
What are your feelings prior to the departure for the first season in the NBA? Read more »
[You don't want to see Jan when he's angry.]
[Editor's note: This is Lukas Kuba's first post for TAI. He is a longtime San Antonio Spurs fan (going back to the days of The Admiral Robinson) from Slovakia, Europe, but when the Wizards drafted his "sort-of" fellow countryman Jan Vesely in the 2011 NBA Draft (they both were born in Czechoslovakia), Lukas immediately became a fan of the Washington Wizards too (Well, except when they play the Silver & Black). Lukas has been monitoring Czech media coverage of Vesely and is praying for a resolution to the lockout. Words can't explain how eager he is to see Vesely play ball with John Wall. Follow Lukas on Twitter: @Luke_Mellow]
Don’t worry (or rejoice, depending on your point of view), that’s not Jan Vesely’s new girlfriend. Want to find out who it is? Read on.
Last Friday, my man Kyle Weidie send me an e-mail, saying: “Looks like Jan is heading back to the Czech Republic… Not being able to see him play is one of the most frustrating aspects of this whole thing.” I wholeheartedly agree. Wizards fans are being robbed of a chance to see his highlight dunks, ‘wow’ plays, everlasting hustle, and this spectacular plaid shirt.
Sabermetrics. They have been a continous hot topic of conversation in modern sports circles, recently sparked (and fueled) by Jonah Lehrer’s Grantland column, The Math Problem. Lehrer argued that while sabermetrics — the computerized measurement of statistics, in this case basketball data — can be extremely useful at times, the allure of definitive measures of production leads us to ignore the oft-underrated intangibles. Worse, the popular obsession with quantifiable sports values has resulted in shortsighted personnel decisions. The horror!
But this post isn’t about the great paradox of sports statistics nor whether dismissing math in sports is the right call. It’s about how Washington Wizards 2011 draft pick Jan Vesely played on paper — was he a slam dunk in Europe or something less spectacular?
The Wizards brass had their hearts and minds set on adding the 6’11” combo-forward to the roster for over two years, so I wanted to take a look at what attracted the team’s attention (assuming, of course, that the front office dabbles in advanced hoops data).
Our friendly neighborhood basketball statistician, ESPN.com’s John Hollinger, has determined that there is a predictable relationship between how a player performs in the Euroleague and how he will compete as a rookie in the Association. When transitioning to the NBA, a Euroleague player’s pace-adjusted per-minute stats will be affected as follows:
“Basketball in my country is not so popular, but after this night, I think — I hope, that the basketball will be more popular. I will do my best to help that.”
-Jan Vesely, Draft Night 2011
Jan Vesely wants to put Czech Republic basketball on the map. Good luck.
“The Czech media have been really lame covering the story,” direct-messaged Yon Pulkrabek via Twitter. I’d sent out a tweet wondering if any follower spoke Czech, and the instant world of the Internet connected us.
Pulkrabek says he’s lived in Prague permanently for the past decade, working as a translator, journalist, and editor. He grew up in upstate New York to Czech émigré parents and has been a fan of the Boston Celtics since the 1980s, keeping up with their recent success thanks to League Pass, streaming web video and his DVR. Now, Pulkrabek has taken an obvious interest in the Washington Wizards.
He writes that initial coverage of Vesely in Prague was limited to a couple stories in the paper and a report on the evening news, but otherwise, soccer and hockey get the most attention in the Czech Republic. “But they are off now,” messages Pulkrabek. “Tennis is the headliner now, followed by inline hockey and hockeyball.”
The basketball world knew who the Washington Wizards were going to select with the sixth pick in the NBA Draft well before David Stern took the podium.
The Wizards, longtime fans of Jan Vesely since his emergence on the international scene in 2009, had considered selecting him in last year’s draft, before he decided to return to his Belgrade-based club Partizan for another year. And on draft afternoon, the paper trail spoke louder than ever. The Wizards’ sales department had invited staff members from the Czech Republic embassy to the team draft party in downtown Washington.
Now, while the selection might not have mystery, the player certainly was. To some extent, Vesely was misrepresented—even undervalued—having been surrounded by the popular, though incomplete, rhetoric from just a handful of available scouting reports and YouTube highlights. But the wing from Ostrava, Czech Republic, who has played basketball professionally since he was 16 years old, was the perfect pick for the Wizards. But you don’t have to take my word for it, consider head coach Flip Saunders’ review:
“He’s a perfect fit for us.”
By now, via the quick courtesy of Dan Steinberg and other Internet denizens, you’ve heard about (and have likely seen), Washington Wizards sixth overall pick Jan Vesely jump up and passionately kiss his girlfriend after being selected in the NBA Draft on Thursday night, as I can only imagine someone from the Czech Republic would do. (And if someone has video of fellow NBA Czechs Jiri Welch and George Zidek kissing their girlfriends on their respective draft nights in 2002 and 1995, please do share.)
In the video below, Jan and Ms. Eva herself (last name Kodouskova — see if you can pronounce it correctly before watching), discuss each other and the now semi-famed kiss. The whole affair just might be worth another kiss.
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