With the transfer portal in absolute chaos right now; a very familiar name has been linked to Illinois – Andrej Stojakevic, son of former NBA player Peja who was on those great Kings teams of the early 00’s that got absolutely hosed out of at least one Western Conference ‘ship by the refs in that atrociously officiated series against the Lakers (I digress I could blog about that series alone – disgusting).
Andrej is a 6’7” wing that looks like his dad, sort of plays like his dad, and I want him on the Illini roster immediately. Insiders are running wild with this one and I want to believe because he enters the portal with a “no contact” tag which means he either already knows where he’s going or there’s a short list he’s choosing from. People are pointing to the fact that OA went pretty hard after him out of HS, so there’s also that connection which I feel good about plus Illinois should have a nice amount in the budget.
Scored 17ppg in the ACC last year as a sophomore, and this has become a very important add especially with the Dame Sarr saga – in, out, back in? Dame just said goodbye to FC Barcelona as I write this (Boz liked the post 👀)
This Illini team needs wing scorers and I know there’s a long way to go but it would just make me feel a lot better to get one now or at least very very soon like by Monday.
Now, Andrej wasn’t “elite” from 3 last year (32%) but with the pedigree I’m willing to bet the 3ball improves on a better team. Stroke looks great and he will get cleaner looks next year. ‘Rej (I hope we call him ‘Rej) doesn’t appear overly explosive off the bounce but can get to the hoop and has some bunnies when he gets there. Classic European style game even though he probably grew up in the United States. Brad continues to rack up the ‘ics’ and I hope Andrej is the next one.
My opinion, this move alone doesn’t catapult Illinois into the top 1/3rd of the BIG, but if they add another big-time scoring wing player like Sarr or player like that, to complement Andrej (I know I’m getting ahead of myself) then I’m going to call this team loaded and ready to compete with anybody. Basically, to me, Andrej is a perfect complimentary wing player and as long as he’s not the focal point of the offense is awesome and extremely lethal in that role if that makes sense. Get it done Brad.
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