An article in the Wall Street Journal about Brooklyn’s newest signing, Bojan Bogdonavic, contains a little gem about another Nets acquisition.
Fran Fraschilla, an ESPN college basketball and draft analyst who specializes in evaluating foreign-born players, praised the Nets efforts to acquire and develop overseas talents – in particular, The Nets acquisition of last year’s pick, Sergey Karasev.
“As crazy as it sounds,” Fraschilla said “[Karasev] would have been a top-five, top-six, top-seven pick this year. He’s very talented. I don’t know if the situation in Cleveland was dysfunctional or not, but I also would tell you that at 19, he was not ready for the NBA last year.”
The top 7 in this draft class, considered one of the strongest in recent memory: Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid, Aaron Gordon, Dante Exum, Marcus Smart, Julius Randle.
Karasev struggled in limited time last season, averaging just 1.7 points in 7.1 minutes per game in 22 NBA games. He had more success in 18 D-League games, putting up 13.5 points per game on .452-.416-.836 shooting. Fraschilla views Karasev “as a skilled off-guard who can handle the ball,” and praised the 20-year-old prospect as “a coach’s son” who “understands the game and makes the right plays.”
It’s just one analyst’s opinion, but acquiring a prospect with lottery-level potential after ceding three first-rounders to the Boston Celtics helps mitigate for a lack of young assets. Nets fans should hope Fraschilla evaluates talent better than the Cavaliers front office. Not such a far-fetched notion.
Alex Raskin, The Wall Street Journal –Nets Introduce Bogdanovic, Highlighting Their Balkans Pipeline
