Hamed Haddadi Leads Iran to FIBA Asian Championship

by djturtleface on Aug 17, 2009 12:09 PM CDT Comment 10 comments

Hamed Haddadi, one of the Grizzlies' two 7'3" tall project centers, led Iran to a victory over China in the FIBA Asian Championship this week. Haddadi scored 19 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in the resounding victory over the Chinese national team, who was obviously missing Yao Ming. For the second time in a row Haddadi won the tournament's MVP award with his stellar play.

Despite performing below expectations in D-League, Haddadi has looked great this summer and has impressed in limited time on the floor for the Memphis Grizzlies. Expect him to compete with Hasheem Thabeet for minutes in the Grizzlies' rotation, or to be traded if he isn't seeing enough action.

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Haddadi

When the Grizzlies got him, I thought he was a total stiff. Now, that I’ve seen him play a little bit, he looks like he will be a valuable reserve player.

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by memphiscub on Aug 17, 2009 4:28 PM CDT reply actions

Agreed

He is definitely a talented guy. Honestly I think he would have eventually fulfilled a similar role to Hasheem Thabeet, and might actually be as good of a player. He is a great, flashy (for a center) passer also.

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by djturtleface on Aug 17, 2009 8:08 PM CDT up reply actions

Hadaddi

has definitely shown some improvement. Also was the only one to average a double double in last year’s olympics. He’s already better than Thabeet in most areas. Seems to have more mobility. And while people are questioning Thabeet’s heart, Hadaddi has it in buckets. (see: Iran v. Jordan)

by hueyproductions on Aug 18, 2009 8:47 AM CDT reply actions

Haddadi

How did Haddadi perform poorly in the summer league exactly? He averaged 4.4 ppg, 4.0 rpg and had an efficiency rating of 7.00. Throw in 1.6 bpg in a mere 12.4 mpg and you have a very effective player in extremely limited minutes.

Don’t be fooled by absolute numbers. If he played 24 mpg he would have averaged closer to 10 ppg, 8 rpg and 3.2 bpg and that is solid in any league. Iraq didn’t want him used too much before the Asian Championships so the team didn’t overwork him is all.

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by chipc3 on Aug 18, 2009 11:00 AM CDT reply actions

Same with the D-League

While he isn’t a very good scorer, he can rebound and block/alter shots. I like him.

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by Scott Schroeder on Aug 18, 2009 12:46 PM CDT up reply actions

Summer and D-League

Says “Haddadi has looked great this summer,” and since this year’s summer league I’ve been extremely impressed, so I’m not sure where you got that I thought he was bad in summer league.

And in D-League he didn’t exactly live up to expectations. Normally the expectation for an NBA call-up is starring on their D-League squad, right? While he was blocking shots, he looked pretty inept on offense and didn’t rebound as well as expected. Also he struggled to get minutes.

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by djturtleface on Aug 18, 2009 5:48 PM CDT up reply actions

I have a question

Are the Grizz planning on using the D-League at all for either Haddadi or Thabeet?

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by the_philly_cheesedic on Aug 20, 2009 3:20 AM CDT reply actions

Probably not

It wouldn’t shock me if they used the D-League for Haddadi again this year because there are so few minutes to go around, but its probably unlikely since he was only in the D-League for 18 games last season. Also his contract is quite large (2.something million) for a D-Leaguer.

Thabeet is very unlikely. You just don’t send #2 overall picks to the D-League no matter how raw they might be.

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by djturtleface on Aug 20, 2009 7:16 PM CDT up reply actions

What about the Griz other picks?

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by tomkanti on Aug 22, 2009 4:59 PM CDT up reply actions

Again probably not...

Young and Carroll are absolutely needed on the bench for depth, so not likely. If anyone goes down it would probably be Marcus Williams (if we sign another backup guard).

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by djturtleface on Aug 22, 2009 7:55 PM CDT up reply actions