By Panos Katsiroumpas/ info@eurohoops.net
Panathinaikos’s home stretch in the transfer market continues since after Chris Singleton, the clover team announced the acquisition of Mike James.
The American guard had passed through Greece two years ago, wearing the jersey of Kollossos Rodou for two months before Laboral Kutxa acquired him. James is a player who is going to help Argiris Pedoulakis’s team quite a bit, as he has elements that were missing from Panathinaikos’s perimeter.
Biography
James is one of the few top class players in the Euroleague right now who hasn’t played college basketball at a high level. His college career included two universities, the first being Eastern Arizona, a college that wasn’t even in the top division. After two good years there he was transferred to Lamar University, which is a Division I college but which doesn’t have any achievements to show for in the college championship.
As one would expect, the 26-year-old went unnoticed in the draft and right after his graduation he headed to Europe. His first stop was KK Zagreb, where he played for half a year, then getting a transfer to Hapoel Gilboa Galil. In the following season he played in Italy’s second division before making the decision to go to Greece to play for Kolossos. He had an amazing couple of months with the Rhodians, which resulted in Baskonia acquiring him after just two months of action. He had two amazing years with the Basques, skyrocketing his career but also his cache. He was one of the protagonists in Baskonia’s amazing year, getting one shot away from playing in the Euroleague final.
What he can offer
If there is one thing that is most characteristic of Mike James’s playing style that’s his offensive talent and the tremendous explosiveness that characterizes all his moves in the game. He has very fast feet and is an excellent ball handler, something that makes him hard to deal with in clear one-on-one defenses.
He really likes hitting defenders with dribbles and he likes going all the way to the paint and finishing his penetrations with a huge eruption. He’s not at all afraid of contact. On the contrary, we could say that he seeks it, since a lot of the time he finds balance in the air in this way.
Aside from the flair that he has for penetrations, he also shoots well from the perimeter. He can do it with ease either after a dribble, or as a spot shooter. His shooting is not always consistent and effective, but he’s a rhythm shooter, a rhythm which if he starts to find he can score one basket after the other under any circumstances. A characteristic example is the game against Real Madrid in the Euroleague, where the American scored 6-for-6 three-pointers, many of which were very difficult shots.
Two aspects of his game that he has to improve are those of creation and self-control in the game. The truth is that in the part of creation he needs work. He’s not in any way a pick-and-roll player even though he’s trying to introduce it to his game. Of course, Baskonia played very few or even no pick-and-rolls at all in their games last year. In Panathinaikos that role is going to be primarily Nick Calathes’s, but that doesn’t mean that James doesn’t have to work on this aspect. In general, he has to work on the pass in his mind more than anything, since in all his teams he was the leader and most people asked him to carry the weight of scoring. It’s also necessary to get better at controlling himself and his decisions in the game. In Baskonia, together with Adams, he had a lot of freedom, but Pedoulakis’s playing style requires greater concentration and more prudent basketball.
Another area of the game in which the American is excellent without most people noticing, is that of defense. He can press excellently on the ball, he has a rather strong trunk and he’s very fast, which essentially allows him to constantly stay in front of his opponents. His height is an issue as he can be targeted by his opponents when playing in the post, but despite this it’s not very easy to drive him inside the key because he knows how to use his body and defends very aggressively, trying to steal balls.
Overall, though, he’s a player who is going to offer Panathinaikos a lot of things, since he can be aggressive, can create a threat, is a good scorer and a good defender. If he can control his decisions and stabilize his shot, he’s going to do great things.