The secondary market for international free agents has proved to be quite fruitful for NBA teams lately, thanks to the success of players such as Joe Ingles, Jose Calderon, Salah Mejri, Aron Baynes, Mirza Teletovic, Cristiano Felicio, Timofey Mozgov, and Boban Marjanovic -- undrafted players who were signed later in their careers and became NBA contributors.
While there are only a handful of 19- to 21-year-old internationals who are ready to step in and produce immediately each season, forward-thinking front offices have found themselves dipping back into the pool of players in their mid-to-late 20s to try to extract role players on cheap contracts who can contribute and offer immediate value.
Most NBA teams keep deep files on pro prospects who are targets for summer league, training camp, two-way contracts and free agency swings, and with more roster spots available, and the ever-widening gap between NBA and European budgets, we can only expect this trend to increase.
Daniel Theis and Milos Teodosic are two of the latest examples of players the NBA went back to years after they passed them up in the draft, and we'll attempt to outline a few candidates, as well as some players whose rights are currently owned by an NBA team and could be brought over as early as this summer.
For the purpose of this report, we will focus only on international (non-U.S.) players.
Alexey Shved | 6-foot-6 | point guard
Team: Khimki Moscow (Russia) | Nation of origin: Russia | Age: 29.0
No stranger to the NBA radar, Shved is someone we've been evaluating for over a decade now. He has 182 NBA games under his belt, and his career 12.7 PER indicated he was more than a solid option (offensively at least) in his three seasons in the league. Having just turned 29, Shved continues to blossom into arguably the best player in European basketball. He averaged an astounding 24 points and 6 assists per game in the Eurobasket this summer, besting six NBA players for the top scoring mark. He carried Russia on his back to a shocking semifinal berth, where it lost to Serbia despite his 33-point explosion. He's currently leading the Euroleague in scoring by a wide margin at 21.4 points and is exceeding that in the VTB League, where he's averaging 24.5 points.
Shved has decent size for the wing but gets most of his minutes on the ball, where his tremendous creativity, ballhandling and vision allows him to see over the top of defenses with ease, particularly operating out of the pick-and-roll, an area where he truly excels.
Shved is not quite the passer that Teodosic is, but he is a better athlete and a far more dynamic scorer, averaging 21 points per 40 minutes over the course of his career. He's a good shooter both with his feet set and off the dribble but is also extremely effective inside the arc, getting to the free throw line at a strong rate throughout his career (including nearly five times per 40 in the NBA)
Short-armed (6-5 wingspan) and not particularly strong, Shved's defense will always be his biggest shortcoming as far as the NBA is concerned. His size makes him a little easier to hide in different lineup configurations, but coaches will have to live with the fact that he's not going to be a stopper by any stretch of the imagination, as this has simply never been a major priority of his at any step of his career.
In the first year of a three-year contract extension that expires in 2020, Shved is the highest-paid player in European basketball -- making approximately $4 million net per year -- and any NBA team that tries to sign him will have to make a significant investment.
According to a source close to the situation, Shved has the ability to get out of the contract if a firm NBA situation is presented to him, and he is interested in playing in the NBA again. Shved wants to make money, and he wants to have a real role on a team rather than ride the bench.
With that in mind, it's very reasonable to mark Shved as a solid candidate to make a return to this side of the ocean in 2018-19. The NBA has moved toward his direction significantly since he last played for the Knicks in 2014-15, and there's little doubt he could be a solid backcourt option for an offense-minded team looking to add creativity and scoring punch. His Khimki Moscow team is currently 8-6 in the Euroleague after competing in the second-tier EuroCup last season.
Jan Vesely | 6-11 | power forward/center
Team: Fenerbahce (Turkey) | Nation of origin: Czech Republic | Age: 27.6
The No. 6 pick in the 2011 draft, Vesely was a colossal bust for the Wizards, not even making it in the final year of his rookie scale contract. The then-21-year-old was done in by a combination of his own immaturity, a lack of skill level and a poor development situation in Washington, an organization that has completely rebuilt itself since.
Fast-forward six years and Vesely has reinvented himself as a modern-day center, after being considered more of a combo forward earlier in his career. He is a rim-running, lob-catching, offensive-rebounding menace who can guard all over the floor, especially switching on the pick-and-roll. He even has improved his free throw shooting, hitting 72 percent of his attempts this season after knocking down a paltry 41 percent in his three-year NBA career. Vesely's tremendous athleticism and energy level were major components in Fenerbahce winning the Euroleague Final Four last season, and his team is off to a good start this season, currently 9-5 and in third place in the Euroleague.
Vesely's size, 9-1 standing reach and now excellent frame are perfectly suited for what teams are looking for in an NBA center, and at age 27 he is very much in his prime. Vesely was on the record just a few months ago saying he hasn't closed the door on the NBA, and his camp has since confirmed that to ESPN.com, indicating that the NBA is always in the back of his mind.
The market for non-shooting big men in today's NBA isn't all that robust, and a team would have to move fairly quickly in the summer to get a deal done due to his contractual situation, as Vesely's NBA buyout expires on July 15, which is early in the free agency period. He is one of the highest-paid players on the continent, making 3 million euros net per season (approximately $7 million in NBA terms). In terms of ability, there's little doubt Vesely could be a quality rotation frontcourt option, but there are some hurdles NBA teams would have to overcome to make that a reality, including the fact that he is under contract until 2019.
While it's Vesely's athleticism, defense and boundless energy that make him an appealing option in today's NBA, he has improved considerably offensively in recent years and is currently averaging a career-high 22 points per 40 minutes on 66 percent shooting from the field.
Artem Pustovyi | 7-3 | center
Team: Obradoiro (Spain) | Nation of origin: Ukraine | Age: 25.5
By far the least-known player on this list, Pustovyi is starting to make a major name for himself as one of the most promising big men in Europe. He was very well scouted early in his career, making three straight appearances at the Adidas EuroCamp from 2012 to '14, where NBA scouts were frustrated to see the lack of progress he made physically and skill-wise while in the Ukraine.
Since leaving home for Spain in 2015, he has improved infinitely, to the point that he finished second in this summer's Eurobasket in PER (in between Jonas Valanciunas and Kristaps Porzingis). He's now in the midst of a breakout season in the ACB as well, averaging 17.3 points, 10.2 rebounds and 3.8 blocks per 40 minutes, shooting an excellent 65 percent from the field through 13 games.
Pustovyi's appeal is readily apparent on first glance. He stands a towering 7-3, with a gigantic 7-6 wingspan and 9-6½ standing reach, the same as JaVale McGee. By comparison, only two players in the NBA have a longer reach than Pustovyi: Rudy Gobert and Marjanovic.
Pustovyi is not only long, he's also extremely mobile for a player his size. He has exceptionally light feet, allowing him to set screens well out beyond the 3-point line and dive to the rim with terrific timing and agility. His soft hands, feathery touch and the extension around the rim gives him all kinds of interesting angles with which he can finish, but it helps that he is so quick off his feet and barely has to jump to dunk. He's fairly skilled as well, capable of spinning to either shoulder in the post and showing range on his jump shot extending out to about 18 feet. He's shooting 78 percent from the free throw line this season, and if he can continue to stretch out his jumper a little further, he could really make himself into a very versatile player offensively.
Pustovyi's downside has always been his painfully thin frame, an area in which he has made major strides over the past few years. The next step will be to improve his toughness, both mentally and physically, as he still lets opposing big men move him around in the paint. He averaged just seven rebounds per 40 minutes in the ACB last season (8.3 career), a very poor rate for someone his size, but he has made strides on that end this year. He struggles with foul trouble, averaging more than seven fouls per 40 for his career, and despite being a solid rim protector statistically (three blocks per 40 career) his awareness here leaves something to be desired.
Pustovyi is under contract for next season in Obradoiro but has a $650,000 buyout clause that conveniently doesn't expire until the end of July, giving NBA teams plenty of time to figure out their rosters before moving on to a potentially intriguing project like him. The top teams in Spain reportedly also are sniffing around already, so it appears likely that Pustovyi will be moving somewhere this summer. The San Antonio Spurs and LA Clippers both showed a great deal of interest in Pustovyi after his breakout performance at the Eurobasket this past summer, and it's likely that other NBA teams will follow suit if he continues to play as well as he has early on in the season in the ACB.
Jonah Bolden | 6-10 | power forward
Team: Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel) | Nation of origin: Australia | Age: 21.7
The No. 36 pick in the 2017 draft, Bolden is far younger than most players on this list. He would only be a junior at UCLA had he not left the school because of academic issues prior to his sophomore year, which put the Australian power forward on quite an odyssey ever since. He played in Serbia last season for FMP Belgrade and moved to Israel after the draft to play in the Euroleague for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
At 6-10 with a 7-3 wingspan, Bolden has enviable tools for a modern power forward. He is a fluid athlete who can play above the rim, step outside and make 3-pointers and put the ball on the floor. He shows significant upside defensively as a multipositional player who can play the passing lanes, switch on to smaller players and potentially even play some small-ball center with his long reach.
Bolden is gaining significant experience playing a substantial role in the Euroleague for Maccabi Tel Aviv this season, something very few players his age can say. He has struggled somewhat early in the season with his decision-making offensively, and he will have to continue to improve his physical toughness, defensive discipline and overall consistency to earn a spot in an increasingly crowded frontcourt rotation in Philadelphia down the road. Nevertheless, there is plenty of upside with which to work, and there is an expectation that he will be joining the 76ers this upcoming summer. (His buyout is $675,000.)
Janis Timma | 6-8 | small forward
Team: Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz (Spain) | Nation of origin: Latvia | Age: 25.4
While Porzingis was clearly Latvia's best player in the Eurobasket this summer, Timma wasn't far behind. The 25-year-old has made significant strides since being taken with the last overall pick in the 2013 draft, first making the step up from playing in the second-tier EuroCup in his home country, to a significant role with Zenit St. Petersburg in Russia, and now finally finding his way to Spain this summer, where he's playing in the Euroleague for Baskonia.
Standing 6-8 in shoes with a chiseled frame, Timma has always been known as a good athlete with strong physical tools. He has really rounded out his game in recent years, though, becoming a much more consistent 3-point shooter, for example, hitting 39 percent of his 3-pointers in his last two and a half seasons (including a scorching performance at the Eurobasket, and this year's campaign). He's strictly a spot-up threat, almost never shooting off the dribble, but has a quick and compact release with his feet set and can rise up and make tough shots from a standstill. He's also a solid passer who finds ways to contribute within the flow of the offense, generating a significant number of assists passing ahead in transition, finding cutters diving to the rim, and throwing quick-hitting lob passes.
Timma's poor ballhandling skills are the main thing holding him back from being considered a complete offensive player. The fact that he's big and strong enough to get minutes at the 4 helps, as does his propensity for posting up smaller players from the 3-spot. Timma doesn't have great length, but he moves his feet well and plays with a solid energy level defensively, helping him guard wings and forwards alike, a requirement in today's NBA.
Timma's transition from Russia to Spain hasn't been all that smooth, as his team started out the season losing eight of its first 10 games, causing head coach Pablo Prigioni to offer his resignation just three weeks in. Baskonia has righted the ship in a major way, though, winning 11 of its past 13 games, and Timma is playing much better after a very slow start. His usage rate is down on the season, but he continues to be very efficient, hitting 38 percent of his 3-pointers thus far.
Timma was the last pick in the 2013 draft, and his rights have since been traded to the Orlando Magic. He has made real strides in the 4½ years since he was drafted and could be an interesting target for Orlando or another team to pursue this summer, since he's still only 25 years old. His physical tools, shooting ability, solid feel for the game and mistake-free style of play on both ends of the floor are exactly what many teams are looking for these days at the forward position. Timma has a $1 million NBA buyout in his contract that needs to be executed by July 15.