Oleksiy Pecherov

Overview: Big Ukrainian post player who can double as a center, but has an offensive game more suitable for a power forward. Decent athlete with good size and some bulk. Not as skinny as he was early in his career. More of a finesse player who uses his mobility and shooting to score from the outside and his size around the basket. Billed as a draft prospect during his time with BC Kyiv and Paris-Levallois Basket. Spent a year in the Ukraine before joining the Wizards after they tabbed him in the middle of the first round in 2006. More of an end of the bench type at this point who hasn’t been efficient in the limited opportunities he’s received. May be on his way back to Europe sooner rather than later.

Offense: Power forward who is capable of doing some damage from the inside and out. Gets about one-third of his touches as a spot up shooter, with other significant parts of his offense coming from a mix of post-ups, offensive rebounds, cuts to the rim, and pick and rolls. Shows NBA range on his jumper, though his form is a bit erratic, stemming from a lack of elevation and odd mechanics. Still a threat to hit the three, albeit on poor percentages thus far in his career. Looks pretty comfortable hitting shots on the move from the midrange, but really struggles when he’s forced off balance. Uses his jumper in the post as well, showing a decent turnaround jumper over his right shoulder. Extremely predictable down low, getting almost all of his touches on the left block, and either wanting to use his turnaround jumper of go to a running hook over his left. Doesn’t make many aggressive moves to the rim. Definitely more of a finesse player, though he attempts to back his man down low. Lack of strength hurts his impact on the interior. Not a good finisher at the rim, though he’ll occasionally surprise with his leaping ability with a putback jam. Could stand to be more aggressive to better utilize his solid free throw shooting ability. Capable rebounder who uses his length relatively well. Not much of a passer, nor a terribly aggressive player off the bounce. Needs to improve in one area of the game to be more efficient. An inside-outside threat who doesn’t do either with ideal consistency. An extremely poor passer who doesn’t appear to have a very good feel for the game.

Defense: Not a good defender at all due to his lack of athleticism, strength and physical toughness. Will get pushed around on occasion, though he’s much more prone to fighting for position than he once was. Shows nice fundamentals on the block staying in front of his man pretty well and not being too aggressive. Doesn’t have the lateral quickness to defend the perimeter all that well, but does his best to stay in position. Lack of quickness and leaping ability limit his ability to use his length as a shot blocker. Does a nice job boxing out when shots go up, making him a decent rebounder, and shows a similar level of hustle when hedging the pick and roll. Doesn’t close out well or show explosiveness when contesting shots, but keeps his feet moving and tries to work within the team concept if nothing else.

A prospect who has largely been ignored here on DraftExpress over the past month, Pecherov decided to keep his name in the draft and appears likely to be taken somewhere in the 15-25 portion of the draft.

Pecherov made a name for himself in the States with the work he did in the Global Games in Dallas in the summers of 2005 and 2004, playing against strong American teams made up of numerous NBA draft prospects such as Rudy Gay, Rajon Rondo, J.J. Redick and Marcus Williams.

As our Director of International Scouting Luis Fernandez so eloquently put it, Pecherov is indeed your stereotypical European big man. He prefers to face the basket and has a very smooth looking high arching jump-shot that he gets off from above the top of his head. He’s a dangerous threat on the pick and pop, and if crowded, shows no hesitance to blow by his man with a nice first step and excellent ball-handling skills with either hand. Not being particularly strong or tough, he prefers to pull-up smoothly off the dribble from mid-range or use a fancy pivot stepping into a turnaround jump-shot. Overall he is a very good athlete for a European big man, featuring good footspeed and decent leaping ability.

This athleticism combined with his size and length makes him a good rebounder at the European level, as he has nice soft hands as well as a good initial and secondary bounce to go after the ball as it comes off the rim, showing nice anticipation skills in the process. When coming away with an offensive rebound, he goes back up fairly strong and has nice touch to finish off the glass.

At this point Pecherov isn’t strong enough to fully take advantage of his size around the basket, and he indeed has trouble establishing position in the post. Even when he does, he doesn’t appear to be the most contact loving player in the world, which causes him to either go to his turnaround jumper or float out to the perimeter and look from his offense from there instead. This certain lack of strength and toughness makes him a fairly average defender as well, being back down around the basket and generally showing fairly average awareness in everything revolving around his team defense, particularly in terms of rotating and defending the pick and roll. His lateral quickness is not stellar even for a player his size.

Pecherov had somewhat of a breakout season in Europe this past year, finally being given consistent playing time at the senior level after riding the pine for the most part over the past two years with BC Kiev. He is a candidate to draft in the 15-25 range and send back overseas for another year or two to work on his strength and overall polish, or he could be signed right away and used as a space creator and mismatch threat on the perimeter coming off the bench. Not being too unlike fellow Ukrainian Slava Medvedenko, he leaves a little bit more room for optimism regarding future improvement in the attitude he shows.

One of the biggest success stories in early 2006 in the French league is the play of Oleksiy Pecherov. The Ukrainian prospect has shown flashes of dominance, especially on the offensive end where his inside skills are complimented by a sweet shooting touch from the perimeter. He has looked very accurate from all ranges and his shot selection has shown almost no flaws. On the defensive end, he shows progress in each outing. Pecherov is very active on both sides of the court and has a good understanding of the game. His timing and athleticism enable him to get rebounds easily and always be a shot-blocking threat on the weak side.

Pecherov was loaned by BC Kiev to Paris for the remainder of the season in November and started playing with Paris in December. He chose Paris amongst other options from Eastern and Western countries in Europe, ranging from small teams to established Euroleague teams. Paris was the perfect fit when considering playing time, exposure and the level of the league.

1122

After a summer in which he looked solid with the mediocre Ukrainian National Team, Pecherov expected to continue to improve his game with the Ukrainian champion BC Kiev. However with the signing of big man Ratko Varda, Pecherov and his coach Renato Pasquali knew his playing time would be pretty small. That fact led him to Paris and the French league which has been successful in revealing talent to the scouts: Johan Petro and Ian Mahinmi for example just last year. Pecherov came to Paris in order to play around 20 minutes per outing and develop his game next to Gordon Herbert, Paris’ coach who is known for his love of defense and structured play, but still always manages to make his teams overachieve and help his players make progress individually.

So far, the bet has paid off. Over the last 5 games Pecherov has averaged 14 points on 62% shooting, 7.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in just 20 minutes per game, with big outings like a 20 point, 10 rebound performance in a win against Pau-Orthez three weeks ago. There is no reason to think that he won't get more playing time as the season goes on.

Pecherov is still under contract with BC Kiev for at least another year, but a strong end of the current season could make him a target for Euroleague or even NBA teams, as he has already been scouted by some GMs.

Strengths
Oleg Pecherov is another example of your stereotypical European big, a long guy not in love with the paint but rather skilled who enjoys a very nice shooting touch. Standing 6-11, the Ukranian is gifted with excellent size for a power forward and nice athleticism to play that position, indeed fairly good if we consider that height.

Pecherov’s main virtue and best skill on the floor is his shooting stroke. Many of the offensive situations he enjoys have the jumper as the final purpose. He displays nice mechanics, looking fluid while executing it, being able to nail his shots off the dribble, although feeling more comfortable in static fashion, while he enjoys three point range. He also uses his shooting ability in the low post, where he likes to finish with a rather effective turnaround jumper that rather difficult to stop.

Oleksiy can put the ball on the floor for slashing purposes. He has a decent first step, feeling more comfortable going to his right, and enjoys the quickness and ball-handling skills to be capable of beating his power forward matchups. Able to play without the ball, he’s automatic finishing around the rim with a dunk whenever he receives the ball near the basket, showing a good vertical jump and reactivity. He certainly has very good resources to put the ball in the basket regardless his opponent.

In the rebounding department, even if he isn't the most active or aggressive player on the floor, he displays good positioning to take advantage of his size and athleticism to come up with a good amount of boards.

Showing a nice basketball IQ, Pecherov’s best weapon rests in his potential. He has some intriguing tools for a guy of his size, and could develop into an offensive force.

Weaknesses
Pecherov shares most of the stereotypes for Europeans bigs in the weaknesses section as well. The first and most noticeable, his poor intensity, which primarily affects his overall game. He’s not a natural-born fighter; that’s easy to see at first sight. He’s not the first guy going after loose balls or looking for rebounds, and the level of activity he shows on court is average at best.

That problem is reflected in his defensive rotations, rather timid and therefore inefficient. When it comes to his man to man defense, things don’t get too much better. He has more than enough mobility for a power forward, but his lateral defensive movement is not on par. He is too upright defending his man, hurting his reactivity and mobility to stop his matchups. He should start by bending his knees better, getting lower to the ground and continue by being a bit more aggressive. It doesn’t help that he usually gets outmuscled, which leads us to another of his serious flaws: Pecherov is a skinny player, and what’s even more worrisome, his frame is not the best to add weight, as he shows rather narrow shoulders.

When it comes to his skills, there’s work to be done. With his nice mobility, he could take advantage of it better by putting the ball on the floor more, which would also help him to get more spaces for his jumper, although it’s not easy for a youngster playing with veterans to take these kinds of offensive responsibilities. Also, some other resources in the low post beyond his shot, such as more polished footwork or a semi-hook shot wouldn’t hurt his game; at least make it less predictable. He’s also nothing more than an average passer. Even speaking about his jumper, he’s not still a deadly shooter. In general, his accuracy suffers whenever he’s forced to make a sudden rhythm or direction change, whether with the ball in his hands or cutting to receive and fire.

All in all, the Ukranian is still a rather immature player who needs to continue to see consistent action against veterans at a good level before he’ll be able to reach his full potential. It’s starting to happen more lately, but he’s still behind many of his generation mates in terms of the high level experience he has garnered in his career so far.

Competition
After spending a couple of seasons playing for Politekhnik Kharkov in the Ukranian second division, Pecherov made a big splash in the international scene by leading Ukraine to the gold medal at the Global Games in Dallas in 2004, earning MVP honors while averaging 24 points and 10 rebounds.

After moving to BC Kiev (a team soon to become the strongest act in Ukrainian basketball), he spent most of the 04/05 season playing for the second team again in the second division.

However once the summer arrived, he shined again in what seems to be his favorite competition, the Global Games, averaging 26.2 points and 14 rebounds, including 19 points and 10 rebounds against a nice US team made up of top college players. Earlier he showed up at the U-20 European Championships, settling for 12.7 ppg and 9.4 rpg. The summer was crowned by a call from his National Team to play in the 2005 Eurobasket (Men’s European Championships). Ukraine displayed the worst basketball in the competition, so Pecherov enjoyed ample opportunities to play, and didn’t disappoint averaging 6 points and 4 rebounds per game.

The start of the current season again brought the doubts about his playing time in BC Kiev, so it was decided to send him on a loan to Paris Basket Racing to play in the French League, which globally is considered to be as good of a league, if not better than the Ukrainian, although Paris is not in the range of BC Kiev in terms of quality as a team. Since arriving in France he’s averaging 9.6 points and 5.2 rebounds in less than 15 minutes of playing time. In the last five games, these averages raise to 14 points and 7.4 rebounds in less than 20 minutes of action. Excellent production per minute indeed that NBA scouts have surely noticed.

Outlook
At this point, Pecherov is probably nothing more than second-round material, a possible bet for some team willing to gamble on nice upside in the part of the draft where that makes the most sense. Even if his current situation in the French League might allow him to significantly change his current stock, it’s not clear that today’s Pecherov is the answer to what NBA teams look for in the first round.

Therefore it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see Oleksiy waiting another season, to gain consistency, experience and strength, improve his overall game, and try to make a run at the first round in 2007 when he becomes automatically eligible.


Comments
Pecherov is the kind of international player that seems to scare NBA teams away as of late. He’s very skilled considering his size, particularly facing-up the basket, but also inconsistent, skinny and not too intense.

It might be significant that he has been forced to temporarily leave BC Kiev looking for playing time. Kiev is not a bad team at all, but also it’s far from being a European powerhouse; and the competition this team plays in the Ukranian League and FIBA EuroCup are not by any means top-tier leagues in Europe. Whether this is the team and coaches fault for not trusting him, or his own fault for not being ready enough is a matter of debate, and will likely be answered by his play the rest of the season in Paris.

In a National Team as weak as the Ukrainian (a clear candidate to be the worst team of the Eurobasket), the talent of Pecherov is hard to hide. However, he’s not a player ready to make any difference at this level of competition. Beyond his own flaws, it hasn’t helped him to have played last season mostly with the BC Kiev B squad in the second division of the Ukrainian League. He’s a 20-year old kid who needs to gain toughness in the paint and learn how to deal with stronger bigs, particularly on the defensive end. But we’re talking about a nice prospect here, even if his development lately might have been a bit disappointing.

Pecherov is a long and athletic power forward with the typical face-up offense approach that many Europeans share. He can nail the three pointer with ease as well as put the ball on the floor to take advantage of his nice combination of size and quickness, although in some preparation games he has looked less comfortable than expected with his slashing game. On the other hand, he seems to be working on his post-up game, even if it’s to release turnaround jumpers. In general, he’s a skilled player and rather fundamentally sound, but still has a long way to go in terms of development. Playing for the Ukrainian national team here in Serbia and Montenegro, he has the bad luck of sharing the power forward position with the two best players of the squad, Stanislav Medvedenko and Sergei Lishouk, although the lack of centers will make room for all of them, meaning that Pecherov should see some meaningful minutes every game.