Beno Udrih

Overview: A tall point guard with pedestrian athleticism, but a good stroke and an advanced feel for the game. Has good height for the point guard spot, and a decent build to match. Isn’t quite strong enough to take advantage of his size. Doesn’t bring a lot to the table in terms of leaping ability or quickness. Knows how to the run the point effectively. Makes a living as a distributor, but has proven capable of putting points on the board as well. Doesn’t have the physical assets to be a good defender, but knows how to hold his own. Honed his skills in Slovenia as a youth, but played in a number of countries before finding his way to the NBA. Won NBA Championships with the Spurs in 2005 and 2007, but wasn’t an integral part of either playoff run. Was known as being very injury prone throughout his career. Has found himself since landing in Sacramento. Signed to a long-term deal now for the full mid-level. Yet to show whether he can hold up and be a starting caliber point guard on a winning team.

Offense: A solid offensive point guard who is a solid distributor, a good shooter, and a decent overall scorer. Gets more than half of his offense from pick and roll situations, reflecting the fact that he needs a screen typically to get going off the dribble. Displays a consistent shooting stroke with great range. Knocks down three pointers at a great clip, but doesn’t shoot many. Great catch and shoot guy. Decent shooter off the dribble. Displays very good touch on every shot he takes. In contrast to his shooting ability, he has a very hard time finishing at the rim. Doesn’t deal well with help defenders or physical contact. Simply isn’t quick enough to gain separation or athletic enough to make dynamic plays. Likes to drive right to go to the rim. Displays very good ball handling ability, but will over dribble drives periodically. Gets to the line at an average rate, but is a great foul shooter. Does a good job getting his teammates involved. Doesn’t have a distinguished offensive game outside of his shooting, which is something that doesn’t help his numbers. Still growing on the offensive end. Needs to cut down on his turnovers.

Defense: An average defensive point guard who maximizes his limited physical tools with effort and great awareness. Lacks the lateral quickness to play physically on most ball handlers, so he uses his height to maintain a safe distance from his man. Will get beaten off the dribble, but not as often as players with comparable foot speed. Collects some steals by playing great help side defense. Knows when to get into position and meet the drive. Solid rebounder for his position. Not the best defender, but shows that he can be effective against lesser point guards despite his lack of quickness.

After a bit of a disappointing season in which his minutes and production went down when the Spurs decided to sign Nick Van Exel to fill the backup combo guard role off the bench, Beno Udrih will be looking to show his team both what they missed out on and what they can look forward to next year with his timely outside shooting, passing and mature play with the extremely talented Slovenian national team.

Udrih’s bid to showcase his talent to his fellow Europeans fell short last year the Eurobasket tournament following an injury, which means he should have even more motivation to help his team finally live up to their massive potential and make a deep run in this tournament.

Udrih is in an interesting situation playing with Slovenia. He is a pure point guard in a shooting guards body playing next to a dangerous shooting guard in a point guard’s body in Jaka Lakovic.

The versatile Udrih will be starting at either the 1 or the 2 for his team, taking a good amount of the playmaking duties on his shoulders, providing leadership despite his youth and trying to get all of his many talented offensive options involved while trying to get his own offense going at the same time.

Udrih is a talented ball-handler who knows how to use a wide array of sharp cuts and head and body fakes to get into the lane with ease. He understands the team concept and has shown excellent potential in terms of controlling the tempo of the game and running an offense. He also has deep range on his jump-shot and the ability to play intelligently off the ball to free himself up on the perimeter to take advantage of that. Defensively he is fairly solid as well because of his size and high basketball IQ.

His weaknesses mostly lie in his lack of experience playing at a high level of basketball such as this, along with his average athleticism which is more of a problem in the NBA than it should be here in Europe. Udrih has seen sporadic playing time over the last four years, but will be thrown straight into the fire and asked to lead a talented, but unproven (with Charlotte Bobcats center Primoz Brezec, Nuggets draftee Sani Becirovic, Pacers draftee Erazem Lorbek, Raptors rookie Uros Slokar, New Jersey Nets swingman Boki Nachbar and others) team into at least the quarterfinals of the Championship. There will be very little margin for error for the 24 year old Udrih and it will be very interesting to see how he handles the pressure.

This is a good chance to show the Spurs that he is capable of handling substantial backup minutes at both the 1 and the 2 next year and that bringing in more veteran reinforcements will be unnecessary this time around.