EuroBasket MVP candidates

PARIS (George Eddy's International Show) - In my last column I went over a non-exhaustive list of players who will not participate in the Eurobasket in Slovenia.

Players like Pau Gasol, Juanca Navarro, Luol Deng or Andrei Kirilenko who all would have made fine candidates for the MVP trophy or a perennial spot in the Top 5 players of the tournament.

So now, who will carry the torch in Slovenia, leading his team to important victories while racking up some big statistics?

I would start my list with Tony Parker, who just came off his best season as a Spurs and was brilliant in the NBA Finals which he rightly feels the Spurs should have won! Tony, very faithful to the French national team and as motivated as ever, will pull out all the stops to make up for the absence of several centers.

Portland's Nicolas Batum should have a breakout performance as the second major scoring option behind Tony.

Vassilis Spanoulis should have the same type of role and impact with Greece that Parker will have with France because both players are scorers first and playmakers second.

Be assured that opposing defences will try to force them to PASS! If Greece wins the Eurobasket I see Spanoulis, at the summit of his art, as the MVP.

You might be surprised that I see Goran Dragic having a breakout tournament too. He'll be playing at home and if legendary coach Boja Maljkovic gives him the keys to the locomotive and freedom to play his uptempo game, he should speed around defences like a race car and possibly lead Slovenia into the semi-finals which would confim his excellent season-individually speaking- with Phoenix.

Rudy Fernandez and Marc Gasol are MVP candidates if Spain goes far in the competition even though they are such a strong team collectively, the stats will be spread around between alot of talented players.

Another surprise, in the vein of what F.Y.R. of Macedonia accomplished at the last Eurobasket, could come from Montenegro which boasts the best tandem of inside players in the tournament with the two Nikolas, Vucevic and Pekovic who represent building blocks for the future in Orlando and Minnesota.

Vucevic has superior rebounding skils and Pekovic is a fabulous back to the basket scorer. Both players are much better than expected at the NBA level. Those are the main stars to watch for MVP but let's not forget Russia's new leader,also from Minnesota, Alexey Sved or Bo Mccalebb who surprised everyone two years ago in Lithuania.

I would add Marco Belinelli, the new Spur and Andrea Bargnani the neo-Knick, who are both prolific scorers on an Italian team that looks to recapture past glory similar to Milos Teodosic with Serbia.

As Tony Parker said recently, the key at the Eurobasket will be to not waste time worrying about who is absent while putting in the time and work to get the most out of those who are present!

George Eddy

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