Helios Domzale is slovenian team with good tradition. After spending few seasons in Adriatic league and being champion and cup winner of Slovenia, last year the team was the last in Adriatic league and lost the place in it. Because of that they turned to new young players and they built pretty good team for Slovenian league. At the moment Helios is 3-2 after five games and coach Trifunovic is giving decent minutes to four young players on perimeter positions: Marko Vranjkovic ('90), Andreas Person ('91), Klemen Prepelic ('92) and Aljaz Korosec ('89). During last games they all showed that they deserved a chance and, with lot of work and luck, they can become Helios' poker for the future.

 

The oldest from Helios' poker is Marko Vranjkovic, 20-year-old small forward (202 cm), who came in to new team this summer, after spending all his youth career in Primorac-Branik from Maribor. He started his senior career as very young player (16 years) in 2nd Slovenian division and then played two seasons in 1b division. Last season he was go-to guy for Primorac-Branik, averaging 19.2 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 1.4 apg in almost 34 minutes on the court. Meanwhile he won Slovenian junior championship in 2008-09 and was regular member of youth Slovenian national teams. At last EC u-20 in Croatia, Vranjkovic averaged 10.6 ppg and 4 rpg, despite being injured. Right after 2009-10 season he decided to move on and he signed an agreement with Helios Domzale. In first five games of new season, he is averaging 11.2 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 1.0 apg and 14.2 rkg in almost 24 minutes on the court, mostly on small forward position. If it is necessary he can play also PF. Vranjkovic has perfect height and wingspan for his position. His physical condition is good and he can develop his coordination and running. He is very coachable and he knows what it takes to become successful. His offensive attributes are good fastbreak game as wing player, his penetration from the dribble and very good offensive rebound. His shot selection is not perfect but he is decent shooter. He can find a good spacing and execute good passes with his spot-up three pointers. He can also shoot from the dribble. In offense he has to work on pick'n'roll game, on decision making and technique of passing and the most-using his height and skills to play back to the basket when he is guarded by lower opponents. He is solid defensive player who can control rebound, who can play full court press and can guard 1:1 from point guards to power forwards. Because of his height he can switches pick'n'roll and other screens and can easily guard power forwards in the paint.

 

Next prospect of Helios is Swedish Andreas Person, who surprisingly (for many people) came to Domzale this season. Person is 19-year-old combo guard (190 cm) who came to Slovenia from Uppsala, one of the best Swedish teams. Person was and still is one of the most important players of Swedish youth national teams (alongside with Czerapowicz) and it is just a matter of time when he'll join senior national team. He was the leader of Swedish u-18 team at EC u-18 division B 2009 in Bosnia, where he averaged 14.6 ppg, 4.4 rpg and 2.1 apg in 31 minutes on the floor, and won the championship and promotion to division A for 2010 championship. The same thing happened this summer with u-20 national team at EC u-20 division B 2010 in Austria, where Sweden clinched second position and was promoted to division A for the next summer. Person was go-to guy again, averaging 14.9 ppg, 3.4 rpg and 3 apg in 31 and a half minutes on the floor. So next year he will play in division A for the first time. He is regular member of starting 5 in Helios this season, playing partly on point guard position and partly on shooting guard position. His current statistics is 7.0 ppg, 2 rpg, 0.6 apg and 6.0 rkg in 18 minutes on the floor. The numbers are different than his numbers in Swedish national teams, but also his role here is different so almost everything make sense. He is physicaly very good, he is quick and well coordinated, but I think that he is not using this attributes perfectly at the moment. He is very focused and he is playing very wise like he has tons of experience. He looks a little bit "shy" and he is not making initiative enough. I'm sure this things will change when he'll adapt to new team. In offense he can bring the ball to offensive end very quick and he can use change of pace very good to finish fastbreaks or transitions. He uses his quick first step for beating opponents and penetrating. He is very successful in finishing penetration by himself and he is good in traffic. He needs to use his shot more often since he has nice and quick release. His 3-points percentage is very good. On the other hand he barely shoot from dribbling and 2-pointers. At the moment he is like shoot a three or penetrate. He had some problems with his free throws and for his position he must develop this element. He needs to be more aggressive and dangerous when it comes to pick'n'roll game. Maybe he is not patient enough and he plays pick to early and his decision making must be better. He understands basketball and he can find good spacing. Number of his assists is very low even he is good passer from technical point of view. On defensive end he can play good aggressive one-on-one all over the court and he can guard perimeter players on all occasions. He is also good pick'n'roll defender when he uses his quick feet. Nevertheless, I think that with his physical abilities and quickness he needs to be even more aggressive and number of steals needs to be higher. Even more he has great sense for steal the ball and he can read offense of opponent very good. All in all-I have great expectation for him and think that he can become very good European guard, but only if he will be more aggressive and will take initiative more often. In that case I can compare him with Tony Parker of San Antonio Spurs-not literally.

 

Then there are two 18-year-old guards who are still juniors (and are first two options when it comes to junior games): Klemen Prepelic and Aljaz Korosec. Prepelic is pure shooting guard (189 cm), "killer", who is not affraid to take responsibility to take the ball in his hands in clutch moments of the game. His fightin' character and brave heart are things which can bring him good career. He started to play bball in his native Slovenska Bistrica (also the home town of Slovenian super-star Sani Becirovic), later moved to Zlatorog Lasko and finally played for Primorac-Branik from where he moved to Helios last summer. He has really busy and successful last season. He was go-to guy in his junior team (he was junior champion of Slovenija 2008-09, alongside with Marko Vranjkovic), he played more than 20 minutes for Primorac-Branik in 1b division, averaging 10.1 ppg, he played for junior team of Union Olimpija at qualifying NIJT in London and at F8 NIJT in Paris and finally he was member of u-18 national team at EC u-18 2010 in Lithuania, averaging 8.8 ppg, 2.8 rpg and 2 apg in 25 minutes on the court. He is natural born shooter, with quick hands and fast feet but he has some physical limitations considering explosivness and muscles. In fastbreak or transition game he can bring the ball to offensive end very fast as ballhandler and he is also very successful as wing man where he can finish fastbreak with open three-point shot or nice drive. He can penetrate, but he is not using penetration as his main weapon. When he drives right he will go to the end, on the other hand, he will use dribble-stop jump shot when he is going left. He is very good when it comes to playing 1:1, where he has lots of space and he can use his good change of pace. He needs to use it more if he wants to become complete player. Three-point shot is his main weapon. He can shoot from spot-up or from pick'n'roll situation. As I said he can shoot also from the dribble when he is going left. He understands spacing but he has to work on it in the future. Beside that he is excellent free-throw shooter. He uses pick'n'roll game but he has some limitation considering dribbling when he is playing versus aggressive defensive players. He will finish his pick'n'rolls mostly with three-point shot or pass to other perimeter players. He can surprise with good pass and unbelievable assist from time to time because he has the feeling to pass but his timing is not always perfect. The same goes for passing in fastbreak. He barely goes to offensive rebound and has troubles in miss-match situations under the basket against taller opponents who play back-to-the-basket. In defence he is improving. He tries to attack ballhandlers very aggressive and use his quick hands, but he struggles from time to time. He also has some problems with chasing good shooters and defending pick situations where he often stays at screens. He is definitely trying to improve his defence but it will take time to do it. Currently Klemen Prepelic is averaging 8.2 ppg, 1.8 rpg and 1 apg in 16 minutes on the court in first Slovenian Telemach league with great shot percentage. I could compare his style of play to GialLuca Basile's of FC Regal Barcelona.

 

The last one from this poker is Aljaz Korosec, left handed point guard (187 cm), who is big surprise for me. He started his career in small team Lastovka and moved to Helios Domzale few years ago. He was member of youth Slovenian national teams sporadicly, but was never one of the very important pieces. He is smart, hard working player who built his career step by step. Coach Trifunovic gives him plenty of minutes and he is using them very good. Step by step he is becoming important part of Helios' rotation. He spends almost 18 minutes on the floor, averaging 5.2 ppg, 2.0 rpg and 1.8 apg. He is physicaly very good but he has a lot of space to improve his quickness and explosivness. He is good in transition where he is very patient and pass the ball at right time to right place. He can use his perfect change of pace also and is dangerous in transition situations by himself. He has some problems against very aggressive defensive players (even his ballhandling is ok) bringing ball to offensive end due to lack of experience. Korosec uses his penetration and pick'n'roll game as his main weapon in offense. He is very inventive in finishes where he can finish by himself in traffic, he can pass to perimeter players or he can find big man under the basket. He can go left or right and finish with both hands. He can shoot from the dribble around high-post position and he can shoot three pointers very good (even he didn' shoot at all this season in senior team, but he is regular or even good 3-point shooter). In defence he can put pressure on ballhandlers and push them to turnovers, he is aggressive enough in defending pick'n'rolls and he can fight under the basket in miss-match situations. His transition to defence is good and he can box-out correctly. He needs to be more aggressive and needs to use his three-point shot more often. In this case he can develop to a player with similar style of play as Jaka Lakovic.

 

Other than that Helios Domzale has three more young players in its roster but they are not in rotation at the moment: guard Dino Ajkic ('91), power forward Jure Besedic ('92) and injured power forward Urban Gorjanc ('92). So far Helios is doing great job giving chance to young players and staying on the top of Slovenian league also. Now, it is up to players to work even harder and be focused only on basketball, and use every minute on the floor to improve and become more experienced.

 

Photo: FIBA Europe / Harry Zampetoulas