During the trip to Kaunas for the Nike International Junior Tournament, I had also the opportunity to follow a game of KK Baltai playing University of Tartu in the Baltic League. KK Baltai is in fact the reserve team of Zalgiris Kaunas and one of the several places where the Lithuanian Euroleague team can stack some of their 46 players currently under contract. With the recent addition of Jonas Maciulis, Baltai had a surprise win during last week but it was not enough this time against the Estonians of University of Tartu. The roster of Baltai features some interesting players so here is the report about them.
The biggest name next to Maciulis is of course Mario Delas. The Croatian forward joined Zalgiris exactly 2 years ago but moved around a bit on loan to several teams. He played for Zalgiris in the beginning in the Euroleague but was loaned to Cibona Zagreb last season to get even more Euroleague minutes. Once the Croatian team was eliminated, he played for BC Siauliai in the Eurocup but he never really made a break-out season. This is why Zalgiris has put him on the Baltai roster right from the start this season and he is not with the Zalgiris team at all. It could not have come worth for his automatically eligible Draft year but the way Delas presented himself on Saturday, he also looked far away from being a NBA prospect at the moment.
The 2m07 tall power forward showed only a couple of low post moves that he finished with either hand and a nice dunk on a back door cut. For the rest, his presence on the offensive end was not really felt as he took some bad inspired shots that he could not make. The game structure with Baltai is also not really favoring his game as the team plays a lot of wild offenses and without any really clear set plays. Delas looks to be a player who does a better job in a more organized system where he can use his individual technical skills. He has good ball handling for a player of his size, he tried several times running the break even going for a behind the back dribble at full speed, and his jump shot mechanics look great.
Delas really needs to find his way back on track and use his strengths in a stable environment. We were told that he was on a good way right now and that Zalgiris prefers giving him 25-30 minutes with Baltai than being a 5 minutes player on the Euroleague team. For next season, it has to be however the one where Delas should get more comfortable to be a part of a Euroleague rotation as he has certainly the talent to be on that level. For the NBA, it does not look like any team will take a gamble on him but you never know what will happen until June
