Watching Hezonja at U17 World Championship leaves one question – What if?

REGENSBURG (David Hein’s Eye on the Future) – What if? Sure, it’s a loaded question. Sure, it’s often meaningless to ask. Sure, it can never be answered. But, watching Mario Hezonja play at the 2012 FIBA U17 World Championship just leaves you asking that question.

What if?

What if the 17-year-old Croatian shooting guard hadn’t seriously injured his ankle? What if during his recovery he hadn’t come down with a case of mononucleosis? What if he hadn’t basically missed the entire 2011-12 season?

Hezonja was coming off a huge 2011 spring and summer. He helped Croatian club KK Zagreb win the 2011 Euroleague Nike International Junior Tournament and competed as a 16-year-old at the 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship and was the team’s fourth-leading scorer including a 21-point showing against Canada.

And then came the U16 European Championship in which he guided Croatia to their second straight U16 gold as MVP and fourth-leading scorer of the tournament – prompting the start of the Super Mario nickname.

But Hezonja was stuck with plenty of time to play Super Mario games the following season as he injured his ankle at the very beginning of the 2011-12 season and then went ill with mono – putting into question if he could even play at the U17 Worlds.

Well, despite only beginning working out just over two months before the tournament and playing just four warm-up games ahead of time, Hezonja has shown in Kaunas why he is one of the top players in the world in his age class.
 
The Dubrovnik native is the second-leading scorer in the tournament heading into the Quarter-Finals while collecting two double-doubles with more than 20 points and scoring 30 points against Spain – a game Croatia needed to win to secure first place in the group stage of the tournament.
 
Hezonja has done all that despite claiming he is only at about 75 per cent of full health.

In fact, Croatia coach Ante Nazor, who coached the U16 team last summer, was astounded by what Hezonja was doing, telling Eye on the Future: “It’s amazing that he can play like this. This really shows us that he is a real leader and fighter for this team.”

Despite his lack of full health, Hezonja is displaying much of the same tantalizing skills from the spring and summer of 2011.

Possessing a superb body at 2.00m, he handles the ball well, can drive to the basket and finish and shoot from outside – though he has struggled to under 31 per cent from long range in this tournament.

His defense in Lithuania has been subpar – though it’s unclear if he’s saving it for spurts so that he can provide his team with offense. There is also talk by some observers that he’s being too individualistic.

Regardless, it’s clear that the superstar potential is there.

But it’s hard not to wonder where his game would have been had he played all of 2011-12 at KK Zagreb alongside superstar Dario Saric and top talent Dominik Mavra.

What if?

You know what? Forget, what if? Let’s just enjoy a superstar emerging before our eyes.

David Hein

FIBA

FIBA’s columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

FIBA takes no responsibility and gives no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy of the content and opinion expressed in the above article.