FIBA U18 EuroBasket Scouting Notebook Part I: What I Learned in Trentino
From Stefan Joksimovic’s dominance to new questions about Fabian Kayser, my scouting takeaways after seven games in Trentino.
The FIBA U18 EuroBasket wrapped up Sunday in Trentino, Italy, with Slovenia bringing home the crown behind tournament MVP and projected 2027 lottery pick Stefan Joksimovic.
But for this article, I’m less interested in handing out winners and losers and more interested in figuring out what the last week taught me.
For the record, a seven game youth tournament is still a very small sample size. One great week shouldn’t erase years of questions about a prospect, just as one poor week shouldn’t outweigh everything a player has shown leading up to the event. But seven games against some of the best international players in the U18 age group can provide valuable information and add another layer to an evaluation.
So rather than simply recapping who scored the most points or made the All-Tournament Team, I went back through my notes on several prospects and asked three questions:
What did I learn?
What questions remain?
And where does the evaluation go from here?
Here are my scouting observations from Trentino.
Stefan Joksimovic | Slovenia
What Did I Learn?
I wouldn’t necessarily say I learned anything new about Joksimovic in Trentino. I’ve been studying his game under a magnifying glass for the past year, and if anything, this tournament gave me more evidence to support what I already believed.
