Why is Uros not in the D-League?

Update: This article over at the Sun was written before my post, but I just found it now. It has his stats from last year, but other than that it more or less just has the same conclusion as me: Uros Slokar is not going to be in T.O. for long. Just as importantly, there is a nice little blurb about D-Mart's clutch 3.


While I understand that it could be doing him some good to be practising with vets like Rasho, Greasy Garbo and, of course, player/coach D-Mart, the simple fact is he needs to get some serious burn if we want him to improve. Does anyone else remember the good it did for Pape to go down, get some minutes, put up some numbers and gain some confidence? The irony here is that were it not for Pape's injury I wouldn't be writing this entry and Uros would be in Italy, maybe playing more minutes, maybe not.

Pape was getting a ton of chances with the Raps to show that he was capable of providing something (anything!!) of value to the team. When his opportunity came knocking, Spiderman Sow accomplished one thing: he managed to get it through managements thick skulls' that he needed more experience of the non-NBA variety before he could be ready to contribute! When he returned to the Show, he was still a player with obvious limitations, but he was nonetheless a better player who was that much closer to being an asset, potentially of the tradeable variety. Can you imagine how crowded the frontcourt would be if he was still around? I doubt he'd be getting much playing time, but I guess that's a moot point either way due to the neck injury.

The case for sending down the Slovenian Assassin is even more clear cut than it was for Sow (I'm posting that just so I can call plagiarism on the Swirsk when he inevitably comes up with a nickname for the kid). Unlike Pape, Uros isn't exactly playing much . When your career stats read "No Data", I think it's a sign that maybe a change of scenery might be a good thing. He essentially hasn't played major minutes in years after being stuck behind Il Mago and others at Bennetton. If he is expected to improve, he needs to play a lot of games while getting a chance to make his mistakes far from the bright lights of the ACC, so that if he ever does play for us he won't have to go through the growing pains while hurting his team in the process (we all remember how fun that is with Hoffa, don't we?).

On the bright side, when he has gotten a chance to play, he has not looked like a rusty player. He looked good in the Summer League at times, all the internet reviews of his play at Jr. and Sr. International competitions has been postive, and he has showed glimpses of certainly having the potential to be an NBA-caliber player. My major concern is that if he doesn't start to play, and soon, he may never get there.

Speaking of his potential, I see Slokar as being the able to take over a lot of the minutes that the club is currently giving to Rasho, likely to begin some time in mid-2007 or 2008. If Colangelo is to maintain good control of the salary cap over the next few years it will certainly be helpful is he able to replace our current Slovenian Big-Man's production with a younger, and more importantly, much much much cheaper version.