April 7, 2010

- Damir Markota

Former Bucks forward Damir Markota is with Bizkaia Bilbao in Spain. Like Serhiy Lishchuk in the previous entry, it is instantly clear both why Markota went to the NBA, and why he left it. On some days, Markota is everywhere; driving the ball, fighting on the glass, passing well and spotting up for jumpshots, even occasionally capable of playing frustration defense on the perimeter and interior with his combination of size and speed. And on others, he just can't be bothered with any of that, save for the jumpshots bit. He's good enough to be desirable, but not good enough to coast.

Markota's minutes are tailored accordingly. Bilbao are a deep team who have underperformed domestically, and inconsistent minutes affect many players on the team, but it's particularly true of Markota. In his 16 Eurocup games this year, Markota's minutes per game have read 21, 19, 24, 26, 5, 32, 20, 41, 1, 4, 23, 25, 5, 14, 19 and 7. He has only one double figure output in that time, a 27 point 7 rebound outburst against Mallet's Turk Telekom. Overall, Markota is averaging 5.3 points and 3.2 rebounds per game in the Eurocup, alongside 4.8 points and 3.6 rebounds per game in the ACB. The numbers belie his talent.

Also on that Bilbao team is former UCLA and Celtics big man, Jerome Moiso, whose whole career has been plagued by the same problems with consistency and apathy. You can see what Bilbao did there; by acquiring both, they've hedged their bets. If only one of the two brings it on any night, they can just play that guy next to Marko Banic and have a strong front court. I'm pretty sure that this strategy of signing multiple apathetic talents is riddled with the stench of genius. It's killing one stone with two birds.

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