Dario Saric and Jusuf Nurcic top European prospects in 2014 NBA Draft

We can be fairly certain that Dario Saric and Jusuf Nurkic did not watch the Cleveland Cavaliers win the draft lottery.

Yes, they have a vested interest in knowing who is picking where.

But business comes first, and both players were sound asleep, resting up for the final round of the Croatian League before their domestic Final Four.

The 6-10 Saric, a 20-year-old forward for Cibona Zagreb, has been having fantastic season, averaging 16.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists in the Adriatic League, Croatian League and Eurocup competition.

Saric has taken his game up a notch the second half of the season, leading his team to an unexpected championship in the strong Adriatic League, and claiming Finals MVP honors with a remarkable 23 points, 11 boards, seven assists and five blocks.

Yes, there is a reason why Joe Kotoch has him going 10th to the Philadelphia 76ers in our latest Mock Draft.

On Wednesday, Saric offered another reminder to all the lottery teams of just how much potential he has, pouring in 36 points and 18 rebounds while draining 5-of-8 3-pointers as Cibona squeezed out a one-point win over Zadar. While some of this year’s top draft prospects were quiet in the NCAA Tournament, Saric has lived up to his reputation as a gamer and has played his best basketball in the most important games.

It’s easy to see what there is to like about Saric. He has excellent ballhandling ability for a big man, capable of taking his man off the dribble, and even showing good ability as the ballhandler in pick-and-roll situations. His ability to push the ball in transition, see the floor and make himself a legitimate threat to attack the rim or set up his teammate makes him a prototype of what some teams are looking for in an NBA landscape in which teams are increasingly playing small ball.

Overall, his combination of ability, basketball IQ and overall competitiveness makes him a very intriguing prospect.

The real question for NBA teams is whether Saric will become strong enough to handle the power forward position or quick enough to handle the small forward position.

Playing almost exclusively at the 4-spot in Cibona, Saric is not matched up against the caliber of athletes he would face in the NBA. While his nose for the ball certainly will still help him rebound, it is tough to picture how he can match up on either end against someone like LaMarcus Aldridge or even Kenneth Faried.

Similarly, his lateral quickness is below average. While Cibona can hide him by sticking him on a lesser athlete, in the NBA there definitely will be some nights where he is forced into a matchup against someone he cannot stay in front of.

Keep in mind that Saric is just 20 years old – parallel to college sophomore – and certainly has a chance to develop his body or more likely make some necessary adjustments to be effective despite being a below-average athlete in some respects. His spirit on the floor and overall gamesmanship, are impossible to teach, and while he may never be a star, the chances of him being a good NBA player are pretty high.

In this draft, it is probably unlikely Saric will crash the top half of the lottery, with Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid, Julius Randle, Marcus Smart, Noah Vonleh and Australian Dante Exum relative locks to fill the top seven picks in some order.

After the seventh pick, however, teams will start to give him a hard look. Sacramento selects eighth and Charlotte picks ninth.

There are some questions as to whether Saric will come to the NBA right away, however, with Cibona set to play in the Euroleague next season after taking the Adriatic League Championship. So a team may view this as an opportunity for him to lead a team in the highest level of competition outside the NBA on someone else’s dime.

Philadelphia has a second lottery pick at No. 10 and Orlando also has a second selection at No. 12. It is possible one of those two teams could draft Saric and stash him with an eye on allowing him to develop while staggering eventual contract extensions for multiple players on rookie contracts.

Nurkic is a 7-foot center from Bosnia who is not yet 20 and a bit more of a project than Saric but still very much a lottery candidate. On the night after the draft lottery, Nurkic confirmed some of the hype he has been getting, going for 16 points and eight rebounds in jjust 20 minutes of a 28-point victory over KK Zagreb.

Nurkic has excellent size, length and a massive frame that more than suggests he will be able to hold his own physically in the NBA. He is averaging 10.9 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in a mere 19 minutes, efficiently backing up former Michigan State center Goran Suton in the Adriatic League, Croatian League and Eurocup competition.

A true big man, Nurkic has potential to be a serious force under the rim. While many European players are perceived as soft, Nurkic is more like Nikola Pekovic, in that he embraces contact at both ends. He always finds himself in the mix in the paint, fighting for position, crowding against penetration or crashing the boards. He moves extremely well for a player his size, which should allow him to handle most NBA bigs defensively, and gives him a lot of potential as a roll man.

Realistically, Nurkic doesn’t project to be a heavy producer offensively, with below average hands (he averages 1.8 turnovers in only 19 minutes) and limited explosiveness. He does a good job fighting for position on the low block and is very difficult to stop once he gets the ball deep in the paint.

Defensively and on the glass – two of the most translatable skills from college and Europe to the NBA – Nurkic has shown tremendous efficiency. He currently is averaging 3.3 fouls in 19 minutes (in Europe you are done with five fouls), but that is not necessarily a bad thing. A good amount of Nurkic’s fouls come from being overaggressive, in contrast to many young big men who foul from falling asleep on defense. It’s much easier to teach a player to avoid fouls to stay on the floor than it is to teach a guy to be consistently aggressive defensively.

While it is tough to truly gauge Nurkic’s ceiling as he has been playing a bench role, his size and potential should at the very least make teams in the top half of the draft give their consideration. He may need another year or two in Europe, as he is probably a good two or three years away from being more than a 10-15 minute backup in the NBA. But with the lack of depth at the center position throughout the league, he may be worth the wait.

While the college season is long gone and the European cups have all been decided, Saric and Nurkic will give scouts one more opportunity to see them before the draft with both players’ squads respectively qualifying for the Croatian League Final Four. It should be interesting to see if the pair can leave a nice final impression with the draft nearly a month away.

AJ Mitnick is an American living in Israel and working as an assistant coach for Maccabi Rishon Lezion of the Israeli Basketball Super League. A graduate of IDC Herzliya, Mitnick is in his third season with Maccabi Rishon, where they have made the Israeli League Final Four, and have twice made the Final Four of the Israeli State Cup . Follow him on Twitter.

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