Duane Notice All Photos: Alton Ritter
Players from ten different countries put their games on display for the American public yesterday in the Jordan International Game played at Madison Square Garden and indeed there were a few, notably at the guard position, that have NBA potential. The showcase featured the top 15-and-16-year-old International players in the world. MVP Duane Notice, a 6-2 guard from St. Michael’s School in Canada, ended the game in classic playground “cookie monster” style stripping fellow Canadian guard Kevin Pangos with 4 seconds to go in a 1-point game and ending it with a reverse yam to seal the deal.
Notice (23 points and 8 boards), along with German guard Malik Muller from club team ALBA Urspring (21 points 5 boards), were the top players in the game. Both displayed sharp shooting skills and strong rhythm on offense. Notice has a body similar to a young Deron Williams and might be the next Canadian point guard to play in the NBA, while Muller is a strong jump shooter that looks as if he could knock down jump shots on a windy day in the park with ease.
MVP’s Muller and Notice
One player that displayed Garden jitters but nonetheless has solid skills is 6-7 Kyprianos Maragkos from the Panathinaikos club team in Greece. Although he went 1-9 from the field, he had 8 rebounds and went 5 for 6 from the foul line. Maragkos has played the most games in Greek basketball history on the 16-and-under level and is the country’s all-time leading scorer on that level according to his handlers. Despite pressure from his club team, he’s interested in coming to play college ball in America.
Kyprianos Maragkos
6-7 Augustinas Jankaitis from Lithuania’s Sarunas Academy had 16 points and 13 boards and two other impressive players were 6-8 Francesco Candussi from Italy and 5-11 Carbondell Betancourt, a quick guard from PR with a full jacket of handle.
Another intriguing player was Albert Homs from Joventut Badalona is Spain. Listed at 6-5, Albert has a 7-ft plus wingspan and looks as if he’ll wake up tomorrow 6-11. Homs showed nice, smooth playground wiggle in short burst, but needs to work on his jumper.
Albert Homs
If I had to give out an award for “most playground game” it would go to PR’s Carmelo Betancourt Carbonell.
Carmelo Betancourt Carbonell
He has an open invite to give us a call to show his outdoor game this summer in New York City.
April 19th, 2010 at 10:04 am
ali says:
duane notice and malik muller are tough. they were very impressive. most of the other guys showed some good potential, being 15 or 16 years old. but muller and notice look ready!
April 19th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Sean Couch says:
No doubt Ali, both are guards that have high ceilings and i’m sure one of these days Mike will open it up to have maybe one “international ringer” per squad one day to be a trend setter.