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The Kaunas “Žalgiris” team started the new week in an active way, when on Monday they announced about two purchases a day: Blankets Kalnietis and Josh Nebo.
The tall man from the United States of America (USA) has been the center of attention of Kaunas residents for some time, and was also drawn to Tel Aviv’s Maccabi team, but the center chose Kaunas and worked with Martin Schiller.
J.Nebo, 23 years old and 206 cm tall, is a different purchase than what we are used to seeing when the Austrians took command of Žalgiris, a player with little experience in men’s basketball, since this season at Hapoel of Eilat was J. Nebo’s first post-NCAA study. It can be said that the purchase in the style of Šarūnas Jasikevičius is more like that, when looking for players without the greatest basketball experience, but with great potential for improvement.
Nebo, born in Houston, decided to study at Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania, where he did very well: in the second season he scored 12 points, bounced 8.2 balls, blocked up to 2.6 shots from opponents and was chosen as the best defensive player in The conference. .
However, Nebo was not happy there because he missed his home and because his parents could not attend all the games at home, so the athlete decided to choose a “red jersey” and spent a year without basketball to move to the University of Texas A&M and being very close to home.
As it should be, J.Nebo played his best season in his final year of studies: 12.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks in 29 minutes. Before COVID-19 ended the season, the University of Texas was only ranked seventh in the conference, so it was not seriously competing in the March Madness competition.
Nebo did not apply for a contract with the National Basketball Association (NBA). He didn’t have good deals in Europe either, but the Hapoel scouts saw this player’s talent and defensive skills, so he invited a newcomer to his lineup and the risk was worth it.
Speaking of J.Nebo, we have to start by defending what his horse is. “Keeping the arc” is the essential in what Žalgiris was very short last season, when opponents easily outplayed Joffrey Lauvergne’s defense. J.Nebo will cement the penalty area, where opponents will receive a block at least once during the match. Often times, a powerful jump from J.Nebo alone is enough for the opponent to change the throwing trajectory and the ball does not land in the basket. It is regrettable that such influence is not recorded in statistical protocols. It is true that sometimes an excessive desire to hinder an opponent and block his shot leads to requests from opponents and easy points under the basket.
Another advantage of J.Nebo is that he has extremely fast legs, which will be useful both when using defensive defenses and when competing with other tall people. It is true that the management of the perimeter with the defenders was quite normal: they missed 1,091 points per attack.
Despite his solid body, J.Nebo still lacks defensive skills when opponents play back to the basket. An American does not yet know how to get into a firm position with his legs so that his rivals do not push him so easily. However, this skill is really honed and the headquarters of “Žalgiris” will help J.Nebo to be more solid in defense near basketball, where, according to “Synergy”, he defended “on average”: opponents scored 0.943 points during the attack.
In attack, Nebo plays well “two against two”, as evidenced by Synergy’s statistics, which show that Israel scored 1,623 points in an attack, which is the best indicator in the entire league. Often such Pikenrolas It ends with just one ball hanging over the basket and J.Nebo placing it from above.
The new player from Žalgiris will also create a lot of opportunities for his teammates, as he is an extremely good fighter for rebounding against opponents’ basket, including 3.6 balls per game, which is almost 4 additional attacks. It was the situation where J. Nebo corrected a teammate’s throw that was more in his game last season: 22.9 percent. and 1,231 points were scored in one attack, which is the “average” score.
J.Nebo also does a lot of invisible work: he builds strong and reliable barriers that create good opportunities for teammates during the combination or unleashes pitchers who have a moment on the boat and can punish opponents from the perimeter.
J.Nebo needs to work hard on his attacking skills, when he is allowed to play “one on one” – there is a lack of movement arsenal, so situations where J.Nebo will focus his back on his opponent in the basket, we will probably see little. He also does not attack from a medium distance, so opponents will be able to bravely retreat and meet the opponent on the penalty line.
Opponents will be able to stop J.Nebo quite bravely with fouls as the center hits just 62.9 percent. shots, which were 83 of 132 attempts last season in Israel.
It is worth noting here that if J.Nebo adds more weapons to his abilities in his defense, then “Žalgiris” would already be a player without a bite.
Conclution. Žalgiris added athleticism to the front row with the arrival of J.Nebo, who we miss after acquiring Tyler Cavanaugh. J. Nebo will definitely do his job on defense, and on offense he is extremely dependent on creators, so “Žalgiris” now needs to acquire a good player and defender who is able to use J. Nebo’s skills in “two against. two “situations. It will be very interesting to see how long it will take for Nebo to adapt to EuroLeague basketball, where speed and physics are at a much higher level than in the Israeli championship. It is also interesting how he will manage to cope with the role of substitute, because “Žalgiris” will not give him 30 minutes.
A kind of exclamation is the longing for J.Nebo’s home and attachment to family, which influenced his career during his studies. In Israel, he was one of the first to flee the country when riots broke out, so Nebo did not play in the final of the regular season and the playoffs, where Eilat lost 0: 2 to Maccabi Tel Aviv in the semi-finals. On July 17, J. Nebo turned 24, so he is still a young man who, faced with difficulties, does not necessarily choose the most rational way to solve them.
The arrival of J.Nebo means that “Žalgiris” now have four nominal centers and, unlike Augustine Rubit, this player cannot help in the position of a strong forward, so Martin Geben or Marek Blaževičius will be loaned to another. team. All in all, Žalgiris has acquired a really interesting and potential player who can really improve and maybe in 2-3 years we will talk about him as another success story, when former Žalgiris joined the strongest team in the Euroleague for a much more solid. salary.
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