European Marquee Matchup: Jakim Dupas vs. Uros Kavalu

Not entirely a "marquee" matchup, in the sense that both players are considered only borderline draft prospects as of now, both players certainly have some NBA-caliber attributes which they can build upon. Both players only being 19 years old at the moment, 1987 born, they probably have three ripe good years at this point to develop, so there's a lot of time. Dupas in particular has received more exposure in the EuroLeagues in the early going, but Kavalu is gaining ground in that respect as well. Both players are 6'5" but have rather completely different games, with some underlying similarities. Denis Walzykovin takes it from here:

All has been well in the EuroLeague front, but this matchup of two solid guards was absolutely hard to miss, and I had to fly a couple minutes early to make it in time for this matchup held at Nice, France. When I arrived to look at warmups, I saw Najuvett Pontja practicing his jumpshot, at one point even hitting what looked to be 7 or 8 in a row; considering he's known as a slasher, that must evidently show the improvements he's made with his jumpshot. I spotted Uros Kavalu lying on the ground, doing knee-bends and then some push-ups to prepare himself for the game. Looking at the other end of the court, it was just shootaround for Beilienna, and guards 6'1" Patrick Sparks (from Kentucky) and 6'0" Alex Worfel were taking turns lobbing the ball to Dupas, who amazed the crowd with his rim-rattling jams and splendid-looking dunks. It's clear that Dupas has elevation and this aspect of his game will definitely look good in a workout setting, but he's got to show more in-game awareness before I can judge him there.

The game soon got underway, and I started pinpointing that matchup between Dupas and Kavalu. Dupas started off the game being rather ball-dominant, making many easy plays quite frankly, look really hard for him at times. He continually persisted in dribbling the ball and played right to the opponent's hands, getting himself into frequent traps, and not possessing the awareness, or passing ability, or general basketball IQ, to free himself from it, often led to turnovers and rushed plays offensively. His general polish with regards to his ballhandling and passing need work, and thus handling the ball for major periods of time is definitely something he should not look to be doing. Dupas's troubles in this area as well as his fellow guards' inconsistent and cold shooting early on helped Beilienna jump out to an early 8-2 led within the first 5 minutes of the game. In the meantime, Kavalu really showed flashes of his interesting skill set, being rather completely opposite, yet effective, than Dupas; he gains a step on his man towards the basket and slashes effortlessly, and Cultaramie's porous interior defense did not help matters much as Kavalu repeatedly scored on layups or got fouled in the process doing so. Of those 8 points, Kavalu had 5 early on, while Pontja had the other 3. It's nice to see Kavalu start out the game aggressively, because it's normally his teammate Pontja who carries the load, while Kavalu acts as that secondary player.

As the game progressed, Dupas got himself out of the tangle that he created for himself, starting to let the game come to him and doing much less ballhandling, in effect playing to his strengths. Dupas reenergized himself via the help of transition game, using his rather long arms to make effective gambles for steals and taking the ball the length of the court for layups or the impressive dunk. Dupas lacks great fluidity in running the court (as he's not the fastest player, it's just his vertical which stands out) and Kavalu actually caught up to his heels at times; however, Kavalu, knowing that he was too late, just let Dupas get the points. Also, Sparks and Worfel started to penetrate and dish passes to the open Dupas underneath the paint or 10' in to feed him for highlight reels. Dupas is an impressive player, but he just needs such play to get his game going. It may be a detriment to his game, for better or for worse.

Kavalu continued to play solid throughout this period, slashing opportunistically and making several clever drive-and-dish passes which show some of his veteran savvy for such a young age. He understands the game well and started to pace himself, playing rather unselfishly while letting teammates Pontja and feeding fellow big man 6'9" Feliz Kirven, an import from Spain playing on the Croatian team, for close points to the basket. Kavalu showed no noticeable flaws throughout the first period, although he didn't make an impact consistently with his scoring and seemed invisible at time sonly to appear at others.

The middle portions of the game, early in the second period, saw both Dupas and Kavalu go through seemingly cold spells on the court. Dupas was seriously in the case of forcing the issue, in effect showing the severe weaknesses he has with regards to ballhandling and passing polish as well as general basketball IQ. His jumpshot was completely off (he was never great to begin with), he started forcing three point shots out of his range and his game got into a complete funk as the swarming aggressive defensive tandem of Pontja and Kavalu continually rotated and made life miserable for him. Fortunately for Beilienna, Dupas had his fellow teammate, a 7'2" giant named Volce Harbin (who reminds of Todd MacCulloch both in physical stature in game) and a possible future draft prospect in his own right, start putting back Dupas's missed shots and getting to the line repeatedly by foraying his big body into the lane. Dupas clearly showed in this stretch, however, that he cannot slash, thus neutralizing all of that great athleticism, and his 40' inch vertical, that he can sport ONLY when open (think James White in this respect, except with even less polish that is quite alarming). Dupas rarely made attempts to get to the painted area to perhaps capitalize on that aforementioned athleticism, where he could have gotten easy offensive rebounds and buckets based on leap alone. But alas, his intangibles simply weren't there, thus really clouding his draft potential with regards to this same. This was a stretch and sequence which clearly showed Dupas' weaknesses.

In this area Uros Kavalu was not much better; he too was also missing shots, albeit not really forcing the issue, and Najuvett Pontja also got into a funk at this team so all the passes thrown his way were rendered ineffective. It is at these stages where he is missing shots that Kavalu seems to be invisible; some of his slashes became really hit or miss and the collapsing defense forced him to make changes in mid-air, something that he's not really good at (thus making him not a pure point guard). He lacks the ability to change his mind once he's made it up, and he seems to prevaricate and determine the situation ahead of time, for better or for worse. At this stage of the game, it seemed to have backfired, because the defenses surprised him and his stroke wasn't doing him any favors.

At the end of the game Dupas decided to give his slashing forays another try; matched up against Uros Kavalu on defense, Dupas tried to take him off the dribble, and on a couple of occasions embarassingly spoon-fed the ball into Kavalu's hands leading to 2 points on the other end. However, when Dupas finally decided to utilize his shift of gears and nifty change of speeds to slash, he was able to get Kavalu hanging somewhat in defense and effectively finish his layups. He's not extremely proficient in this area because he's not much of a slasher, and this may seem foreign to him because of his lack of ballhandling skills and fluidity in slashing, but he really seemed to make strides in this area at the very end. He's still better jumping off the ground vertically rather than moving than jumping, but efficient nonetheless. This caused him to go on a mini-run of scoring where he started even combining some mid-range shots with his signature vertical crowd-pleasing dunks which brought the crowd to their feet. Beilienna overtook the lead late in this game at 53-47 at its peak and in large part to Dupas' resurgence, although Alex Worfel also heated up and was responsible for feeding the ball to Dupas during this spurt.

This clearly wasn't one of Kavalu's better games, disappearing on and off and putting up stats sporadically, and the ending was emblematic of this; he was responsible for Dupas's early slump as much as he was for his late surge, and that cost them the game at the end. Kavalu wasn't helping that by merely inconsistently hitting his shots and setting up his teammates, and his defense started to suffer as Dupas began to figure things out with regards to maximizing his offense. Kavalu backtracked and halted, while Dupas raced towards the finish line, to make an analogy.

Overall, this was a game of two very interesting matchups, and although Kavalu had the edge early on, it was Dupas who started to heat up right at the very end. The NBA actually is very appreciative of Kavalus's smarts and versatility as much as its with regards to Dupa's athleticism, both necessary traits to survive in the league. However, Dupas seemed to show how eerily one-dimensional he can be by merely being an athlete, and not much else. The rest of his game, which includes his poor jumpshot and lazy defense as well as his lack of intangibles and fill-in-the-blanks all-around game, is not much to cheer at. He still needs to make great development and strides in this area before he can even be considered a 2nd round prospect. On the other hand, Kavalu showed spurts of an all-around game, acting as a "foil" to Dupas, some smooth athleticism and some potential leadership ability, but he lacks an attribute that stands out, as well as great range and the ability to expand his game. His conundrum with regards to decision-making actually hinders his potential for expansion with regards to possibly his passing and shooting ability. He's okay as he is and will make some strides, but those legitimate concerns may at best make him a 2nd round pick.