USA – A different point of view (2/2)
HAMBURG (FIBA U17 World Championship) – Taking an even closer look at the current Top10 rankings after the preliminaries, it is obvious how important the point guards have become to their respective teams. China's leader Ailun Guo drops a tournament-best 20.8 points per game, with Mantas Mockevicius (LTU, 17.0 ppg) coming in fifth and Pangos (16.2 ppg) at nine. Few teams – especially those who do not have a really strong bench – can afford to give their facilitators much rest.
Tony Wroten (USA): "Either you got it, or you don’t got it"
In part one of this two-piece feature we discuss point-guard play with Canada’s number 4 Kevin Pangos
HAMBURG (FIBA U17 World Championship) – Taking an even closer look at the current Top 10 rankings after the Preliminary Round, it is obvious how important point guards have become to their respective teams.
China's leader Ailun Guo drops a tournament-best 20.8 points per game, with Mantas Mockevicius of Lithuania coming in fifth (17.0) and Canada's Kevin Pangos ninth (16.2). Few teams – especially those who do not have a really strong bench – can afford to give their facilitators much rest.
In minutes played three "Ones" can be found in the Top 10: Guo (3rd, 33 minutes per game), Pangos (7th, 32mpg) and Australia's Daniel Hill (9th, 30mpg) as well.
Tony Wroten is a backup point guard for the US team and comes into the game as a sixth or seventh man. "Either you got it, or you don't got it," he replies when asked about court vision.
"Seeing things before they actually happen, seeing gaps where none are."
In an offensively overloaded roster, Wroten has the luxury of being surrounded on court by four potential threats at any given time.
"But you can't just pass, because defense would easily make a 4-against-5 out of it. So you can't always be 'pass-first', you have to be a threat yourself."
The left-handed, 1,98m tall prospect out of Garfield HS naturally gets into attack-mode as soon as he has the ball in his hands.
"Any time I got the ball I look ahead of me, I survey the floor for open men or an open lane I can run. It's about deciding quick what to do next", he says.
"I don't care about my defender, because I know I'll beat him anyways."
Wroten explicitly cares about his team-mates and gets rewarded for it.
"To me it's a reward when they love to play with me and have fun with it. On the one end you have to be unselfish to be a really good point guard, on the other hand you can't be too unselfish, because your opponent will play off of that," he warns.
That's quite a task; there’s little room for error, as Wroten explains: "You're holding the strings in your hands. If you do something wrong at the point in critical situations, all the blame is on you."
Love it or hate, being a point guard is more than just being one out of ten players on court. It is the most-watched position in basketball. Being of exceptional height comes naturally, or it doesn't come at all, that's what the saying is all about. Being a good "One" is a lifetime long challenge.
FIBA U17 World Championship results are pusblished on the FIBA TTwitter and Facebook page.
All final round games will be streamed live on fibatv.com.
FIBA / JB