By Panos Katsiroumpas / info@eurohoops.net
Coach Bartzokas was fired and in his place came Sito Alonso, a coach who has shown great things in every team he’s worked. He left something behind and had successes with his last three teams in Spain: Gipuzkoa of San Sebastian, Bilbao, and of course Baskonia, who he coached last season.
In Barcelona, we will probably see huge changes this summer, since many players are going to leave the club and others will take their place. Within this context, we’ve had the first arrivals of players, with Thomas Heurtel returning to Spain, the country where he made his name with Baskonia, aiming to return to his top level of performance but also provide a new impetus to Barcelona, one they were in bad need of in the season that just ended.
Who he is
The French guard was born in France in 1989 and started his professional career in Orthez. From there, he moved to Strasbourg for a year, before taking the road of exile to neighboring Spain.
There, he played in Alicante for a year and from there, he found himself in Baskonia, where his career took off. He did amazing things with the Basques and he came to be considered one of the best guards in Europe.
In December of 2014 he was transferred to Anadolu Efes, a team that he served for two and a half years, though without ever reaching the standards that he had set in the last year and a half he spent in Vitoria.
Now, he returns to Spain and Barcelona with a two-year contract. Through this collaboration, both sides are looking for their own redemption: Barcelona to become the protagonists once again after a year in which they failed miserably, and Heurtel to remind everyone of Baskonia’s Heurtel, who had caused a sensation with his performances.
Player’s features
I’m not going to hide it, as a person who loves and respects the kind of basketball principles that Baskonia stand for, I declare myself a great admirer of Heurtel. Through his magical inspirations, the man made Tibor Pleiss look like an NBA-level center. Talent was clearly never lacking in the French guard. We are talking about a player that, on a good night, is an assist-producing machine, while he has a fearsome shooting ability and is a killer from mid- and long-range. The bad thing is that, in Turkey, he showed that he lacks consistency in his performance, but also that sometimes, mentally, he can be out of the game and disappear completely, and even become a negative factor for his team.
His advantages are all located in the offensive half, while his disadvantages are on the other end of the court.
Offensively, Heurtel is a complete player. He’s an amazing creator in the pick-and-roll, whether we’re talking about passes that end up in the paint, or passes that require good reading and fast thinking and acting, like the ones that go to the sides when defenses close in.
He can shoot very well behind the screen as well as on the defense, and has a wide range of ways he can be a threat, as he can execute with ease from four meters out as well as seven. He’s not afraid to attack the paint, but he prefers to finish plays with floaters since he’s not that strong or athletic to reach the basket.
His biggest disadvantages are located in the defensive department. He has a problem in all kinds of defenses and this could be seen in Efes, since rival coaches targeted him systematically. He’s not very good in one-on-one defense, while he can’t break up screens with great ease.
He has trouble in every switching defense as he can’t use his body right to push, or to mess up angles for a pass, or to get out in front of the attacking player. In general, he has issues in defense and this is his biggest problem.
The point is the kind of mentality he will have in Barcelona, as in Anadolu he had huge ups and downs in his performance levels. The only thing that cannot be disputed in any way is his multifaceted talent and his skills in creation and execution. What remains to be seen, is which player we’re going to see in Barcelona, the Heurtel of Baskonia or the Heurtel of Efes.