Overseas Scouting Report: Nikola Pekovic
By my count, there are eight players coming to the NBA after spending at least a year playing overseas. Throughout the week we are going to look at each player’s individual game one by one, to see what we can expect from them this year in the NBA.
Nikola Pekovic is a 24 year old 6’11″ center who was taken by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the first pick in the second round in 2008. After playing two seasons for the Greek club Panathinaikos Pekovic signed a 3 year deal with the Timberwolves, guaranteeing that he will be taking his talents to the NBA.
Quick Note: In the following clips, Nikola Pekovic is #14 playing for Panathinaikos, who are wearing green.
Strengths:
Work In The Post
The first thing that you notice when watching Nikola Pekovic play is that he absolutely loves throwing his body around when working in the post:
Pekovic is willing to bang bodies with his defender whenever he thinks he can improve his position by doing so. Pekovic has good but not great post moves and a good but not great ability to dribble in the post, but what makes him so good is that he gets such good position that all he needs to do is take one dribble or make one move to get a shot off:
