Mario Delas

Completing the all-championship team with Motiejunas, Sloukas, Pappas and Kanter, the Croatian power forward Mario Delas stepped up to lead his team Croatia to the bronze medal. The very skilled and fundamentally sound –albeit rather unathletic- big man showed his versatility staying effective in face-up situations with his jumper, passing game and slashing ability (despite his lack of explosiveness, he manages to step into the lane with solid ball-handling skills with both hands, footwork and excellent use of his body), as well as showing nice activity off the ball and good sense of positioning with some effective cutters, and could sparingly produce in the low post showing nice footwork and ability to finish with both hands. On the downside, defensively he's not particularly tough or active.

A finesse power forward, Delas showcased an excellent skill repertoire, but also left some doubts about his athletic level and potential in general. The Croatian is a very fundamentally sound and coordinated player. He displays nice mobility, but his quickness is pretty much average and he’s slightly heavy footed. Still physically weak, he shows a nice frame and a solid wingspan. All in all, he’s still a 1990-born player with room to develop both physically and technically.

Delas is pretty versatile on the court, perhaps more of a face-up guy, but also capable of playing in the low post. He puts the ball on the floor easily, going both ways and displaying a solid first step and long strides to make up for his lack of extreme quickness. Often opting for passing off the drive (many times looking for his paint mate), when it came to scoring he would go all the way up for the lay-up, but also stop for the pull-up jumper, probably because he didn’t look very effective netting the ball near the basket against opposition. Still, he wasn’t very accurate with his off-the-dribble jumper; he’s a player that feels more comfortable shooting in open spot up situations. Actually, he enjoys range out to the three-point line, from where he netted about half of his shots in the tournament. In the low post he shows good moves, but with inconsistency; sometimes he showcases notable footwork in a post move, but other times he can’t find a proper way to beat his opponent, also because he often gets outmuscled.

Pretty intense rebounding the ball, limited on defense because of his lack of strength, Delas seems to have nice foundations to eventually become a very good player on the European scene.