Cleveland Cavaliers swingman Cedi Osman and center Ante Zizic have been impressive as they prepare for the World Cup Qualifiers.
Cleveland Cavaliers youngsters Cedi Osman and Ante Zizic have been terrific in their preparation games ahead of the 2019 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers.
Just 23-years-old, Osman has played two games in the VTG Supercup in Hamburg, a tournament of preparation games for his native country of Turkey.
In his first contest, a 100-79 shellacking of Germany, Osman would go 4-8 from three-point range en route to a 20-point night (he played just 24 minutes).
While his three-point percentage (50.0 percent) was impressive in this contest, what was more impressive was that all of his threes were made off-the-dribble. One was even a couple of feet behind the line and with two defenders on him.
That’s not a shot Osman was taking a lot of last year, converting 3-9 (33.3 percent) of his pull-up threes last year.
In the Las Vegas Summer League, much was made about Osman changing his shooting form to mimic Kyle Korver’s but he only shot 21.4 percent from three (7.0 attempts per game). This is the first evidence that Osman’s altered shot will be effective.
Osman’s play with the ball in his hands, especially his comfort in performing advanced dribbles to create space and ability to get to the rim and finish, also stood out.
Osman scored 24 points against the Czech Republic in his second game, an 89-80 comeback win in which Turkey was once down 23 points.
His play against the Czech Republic was much like his game against Germany, except that he went 5-10 from three in this contest instead of 4-8.
The 21-year-old Zizic has also played two games, though not for the Supercup.
He posted 12 points and 5 rebounds in 23 minutes in his first contest, a 87-86 loss to Slovenia. In Croatia’s rematch against Slovenia, which Croatia would win 83-75, Zizic posted 15 points and 7 rebounds in 18 minutes.
Croatia is a team with a few actual NBA players, even if they aren’t stars. Besides Zizic, Philadelphia 76ers power forward Dario Saric, Indiana Pacers small forward Bojan Bogdanovic and Los Angeles Lakers center Ivica Zubac are playing for the Croatians in the upcoming Qualifiers.
That said, the numbers that Zizic is putting up with another talented young center in Zubac requiring playing time is impressive in and of itself.
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Osman’s play in particular is important for this upcoming season, with him looking to take on a bigger role in the offense than he had last season (15.7 percent usage rate, per basketball-reference). However, should there be an injury to either Tristan Thompson or Larry Nance Jr., Zizic will get the first crack at filling in for them at center. As a result, his performances and progress as a player are necessary to keep track of.
Speaking of Thompson, he’s also playing for his national team (Canada) in the World Cup Qualifiers.
An injury-plagued season made him a shell of himself for much of the season and he averaged career-lows in minutes (20.2 per game), offensive rebounds (2.4 per game), total rebounds (6.6 per game), steals (0.3 per game), blocks (0.3 per game) and points (5.8 per game) while playing a career-low 53 games.
With time to rest his body and get as healthy as possible, it’ll be interesting to see if Thompson looks more like he did in the Cavs’ tumultuous regular season or like he did in the postseason, when he regained his starting role and even found himself throwing All-Star Al Horford off of his game.