(On a second attempt, I’ll be trying to make these random notes a more regular thing. There’ll be a lot to discuss throughout he domestic season run-in and off-season.)

Spotted and exposed: The weak link

It does appear as though game preparation suffers, as you would expect, under the increasingly busy game- and travelling schedule. Is a Top16 game subject to the same level of preparation as a quarter final series? Probably not, but that is just an assumption. If this assumption is true, though, you may get away with a couple of low-percentage options in your unit through most of the season, but you might get exposed once preparation level rises – which usually happens when it matters most.

Creative on-ball talent is expensive, which is why Europe’s best shot creators are playing for the financially potent or heading there within a year or two. Or, as in Vassilis Spanoulis’ case, they make a large percentage of their team’s salary total.

Defenses collapse on key ballhandlers and leave weak shooters wide open.

Too often they get away with it.

• That is how Panathinaikos famously neutralized Juan Carlos Navarro in the 2010/11 quarter finals, double- and triple teaming Navarro on every catch. Ricky Rubio did not make them pay, and neither did Victor Sada in 2013. Barça’s full-season offensive rating is only marginally worse with Sada on the floor rather than off the floor, but in that quarter finals series versus Panathinaikos he was so much of a liability that Xavi Pascual elected to play him only 18 and a half minutes combined through games three to five.
• In the same series, Pascual turned to a zone defense that left a wide gap wherever Roko Ukic (plus Xanthopoulos, in limited time), Kostas Tsartsaris or James Gist were positioned.
• Pascual also elects to have his point guard defender rotate over to Jaycee Carroll/Rudy Fernandez in every Clasico, giving Sergio Llull plenty of room to operate. I won’t act as though that strategy was particularly successful – Real Madrid had a very good offensive output in those matchups – but that is because Llull has turned into a pretty damn good player who is shooting 38.9 percent from three point range in Euroleague and ACB combined for the season.
• Dontaye Draper dropped deep off of Sada in the 2013 Copa del Rey quarter final – another game that was most likely sophistically prepared for by both teams.
• Vassilis Spanoulis rotated deep off of Aaron Jackson in this year’s Euroleague semi final and Olympiakos hedged hard on Teodosic’s 1-5 pick and roll plays – both left unpunished. CSKA finished their Euroleague season tied for second in both three point shooting (38.9 percent) and offensive rating (111.2), but Jackson was their weak off-ball link, at 30.0 percent three point shooting in Euroleague & VTB League combined.
• Et cetera

Montepaschi Siena at times surrounded Bobby Brown with four players that are not just good shooters, but elite shooters. They posted a staggering 123.1 offensive rating with Tomas Ress playing the stretch five (335 minutes).

Teams that are playing elite offense based on quality halfcourt execution should not hand well-prepared opponents cheap escape routes. Top-level on-ball talent is rare, but quality role players are still out there to be recruited.

CSKA’s tall lineup: Found late, then forgotten

CSKA’s tall Teo-Weems-Khryapa-Erceg-Kaun lineup first appeared in week 12 of Top16 due to lengthy injuries to Viktor Khryapa and Zoran Erceg at different stages of the season. They were fantastic in their first four games, then had a net minus in the next two (Games 2 & 3 of the Baskonia series) before Ettore Messina reorganized the starting five, sending Aaron Jackson in instead of Erceg, a game CSKA won in controversial fashion. Messina chose to start Jackson in the semi final, too, to defend Spanoulis. A “defensive” strategy that did not pay off; The tall five was 5-2 in three minutes.

Hines: Worth how much exactly?

Kyle Hines is going to get a raise.

There were some interesting discussions going on around the Final Four. One of them centered around, inevitably, Kyle Hines’ future. Christophe (European Prospects) and myself said he could easily play in the NBA. Others were tentative. Van den Spiegel thinks Hines is worth 700.000 to 800.000 Euros. Hines’ current two-year-deal is worth 200.000€ net (330.000€ before taxes), according to a late 2011 Gazzetta.gr article. That’s right.

I believe he’s one of the competition’s top centers, one that can handle and pass the basketball and fits well in a transition- and pick-and-roll offense. That, and an incredible motor. Why should this multidimensional player, this formidable character not be worth 1.3 to 1.5 million Euros net in the context of center rivals? Here it is, the context, in reported numbers: James Augustine, a 4/5, 750.000€ net; Nenad Krstic (last season), 3.000.000€ net; Marcus Slaughter, 800.000€ net; Felipe Reyes, again a 4/5, 1.400.000€ net.