SEA Games Preview: Indonesia Satu!

I truly wonder if I can take anything away from the Indonesian National Team that participated in the SEABA Championship and use it to project the team that will play in the SEA Games 2015 as both teams have completely different rosters.

สำหรับภาษาไทย อ่านต่อได้ที่นี่

Note: “Indonesia Satu!” is roughly translated to “Indonesia No.1!”

Indonesia’s National Basketball League (NBL) and the SEABA Championship had a clash of schedules during that late April period. The NBL was about to hold its Playoff Finals during that time which collided directly with the SEABA. To avoid the chaos that might have caused, the Indonesian Basketball Association (PERBASI) left their pros at home to duke it out in the NBL and sent another group of cadets to do the task.

The NBL Finals ended and now the SEA Games are coming up, so PERBASI will now be fielding a completely different team altogether for SEA Games 2015.

That’s why I’d take Indonesia’s 4th place standing in the SEABA Championships with a grain of salt. If any team is going to prepare their game plan based on what they have seen SEABA game tapes, prepare to be blown away.

Indonesia will not be a cake walk in SEA Games.

Disclaimer’s Note: For this preview, I will taking a less aggressive stats-driven approach because I don’t have much stats to drive on. It’s too late for me to do anything with the NBL stats and only some of the rostered players played in the ABL (for Laskar Dreya South Sumatra and Indonesia Warriors) so this might be a little different.

Known Commodities:

These are the players on the Roster that I have actually got to watch play in full games within the past year.

Arki Dikania Wisnu

Arki is one of my personal favorites in this squad. He played in only about half of the games in last year’s ABL season for the Indonesia Warriors (9 to be exact) because of what I understand is a series of injuries, although I suspect some sort of contractual agreements might be in play as well. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed Arki while I could in the ABL. A little background on Arki: He was born and raised in Queens, New York and has played ball since he was 12. Certainly, you can see that he also plays like someone who was born and raised in Queens, New York and has played ball since he was 12. In the ABL, he was second in scoring among locals with 9.22 points per game. He led the locals with 2.33 assists per game (and in AST% with 21.1%). He was third in rebounds with 3.89 rebounds per game (7.9 TRB%, top among Local guards) en route to being the only local player to be in top 5 of all three major basic stats category. He wasn’t otherworldly efficient but 45.6 eFG% isn’t that bad either. Arki gets his points by driving towards to the basket and using his craftiness to finish his shots. He’s not a good three-point shooter (26.7% from 3P) and a very poor free throw shooter (47.8% from FT) so it will be interesting to see if defense can figure out to fall back into the zone while defending him. If defenses fail to fall back on him, he will be able to slice up the defense and either finish or make the defense collapse onto him making it easier for a kick-out pass. To be fair, he’s been shooting a lot better in the NBL than in the ABL, so if that holds up into SEA Games…watch out.

Here’s a highlight of a game in the NBL earlier this year where he recorded a triple-double. Say what you want about the NBL, recording a triple-double is no easy feat in any level of competition.

Arki burst out onto the scene in 2011-2012 when he won the NBL’s Rookie Of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year and made the All-NBL First Team as well. He’s been a key piece for recent NBL champions, Satria Muda, as he will be for this Indonesian National Team as well.

Christian Ronaldo Sitepu

Sitepu gets an automatic favorite vote having the closest name resembling one of the current best football players, Christiano Ronaldo, while also have an awesome nickname, “Dodo”. I don’t think anyone in this tournament will top Dodo in this category. Dodo will be Indonesia’s tallest option in the front court and judging that they won’t have much options up front, he better be up to it. Dodo played large minutes in the ABL last season, mostly because of his height alone. He shot only 35 eFG% in the ABL, but I guess it will be easier for him to score in SEA Games when your opponents aren’t foreign imports. Dodo will have play a little bit stronger than what I saw in the ABL, which again, should be easier when playing against smaller players.

I just loved how I just typed “Dodo” 5 times without feeling stupid.

Rony Gunawan

This year’s NBL Sixth Man of the year is also one of the most seasoned veterans at the ripe old age of 34. He’ll be another big in the inside player rotation for Indonesia. He was a serviceable big guy for the Indonesia Warriors in the limited minutes of the 6 games that he played in, but like Attaporn Lertmalaiporn with the Thai National Team, his value will be relying heavily on his veteran leadership more than anything else.

Adhi Putra Pratama Prasetyo

Adhi Pratama played in only two games in the ABL for Laskar Dreya and he didn’t really leave a print in my memory for his play at the time. Anyways, Pratama is the 2nd tallest player in the squad (according to SEA Games official information) after 2-meter Dodo and he’s tied for being the second youngest player on the team at 22. Though he didn’t do much in the ABL, he seemed to have been a monster in the NBL. He ranked 3rd in points per game (12.47), 2nd in rebounds per game (8.53), and 5th in blocks per game (1.3). All of this was good enough for him to become NBL’s MVP for 2014-2015 which is no small feat for someone only 22 years of age. I’m still not completely sold because of the performance I saw from him in the ABL, but if his NBL stats hold true, him and Dodo should be a nice 1-2 combo inside for Indonesia.

He’s No.14 in the video below.

Andrie Ekayana

Ekayana scored 7.1 points in the ABL, good for 6th among locals in scoring on a healthy 44.5 eFG%. In the NBL, he scored 11.36 points per game which was good for 7th. He was an okay scorer for the miserable Laskar Dreya team in their debut season in the ABL, but seeing that he is 32 and 1.8 meters tall (as per SEA Games official info) it might be hard for him to crack a backcourt rotation that should already have Arki, Mario Wuysang, and Biboy Engiuo (more on the latter two later) playing heavy minutes already.

Big Names

These are players that I have yet to watch play a full game, but those who I am REALLY looking forward to see.

Mario Wuysang

Even for someone who was as oblivious to the ASEAN basketball scene before I started blogging as I had been should have at least heard about Mario Wuysang. Wuysang is Indonesia’s biggest superstar and even though he is 36, he is still able to play a high level of basketball. To much of my dismay, Wuysang wasn’t contracted to the Indonesia Warriors this past ABL season and I didn’t get to watch him do his stuff. He was still trotting his game in the NBL for the CLS Knights though, posting 9.36 points per game and a league-high 6.21 assists per game with a pretty ridiculous 3.1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

The baller who played his high school and college career (IPFW) at Indiana has surely lost a step or two along the way at 36, but he is still a threat anytime he takes court nonetheless.

Finally, I’ll get to watch him work his magic live for the first time in my life in this SEA Games…and I expect something spectacular. Entertain me, Mario.

“Biboy” Ebrahim Enguio Lopez

Based on player background alone, Indonesia could be one of the most interesting teams in this year’s SEA Games. They have a player who was born and raised in the United States, another player who played his youth in the States, and then you have Biboy Enguio. Enguio’s uniqueness doesn’t have anything to do with the United States, but it lies in the fact in his involvement with another basketball crazed nation: The Philippines.

Biboy Enguio is a Filipino-Indonesian who grew up and played basketball in the Philippines for a decent amount of time before crossing borders to play professionally for Aspac Jarkarta in the NBL. During Enguio’s career in the Philippines, he was most noted for playing at University of the East Red Warriors, where he played alongside Gilas Pilipinas Hero, Paul Lee, and also alongside a possible PBA star, Roi Sumang.

Enguio made an instant impact in the NBL and went away with the NBL’s Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year awards in 2013-2014. This NBL Season, Enguio has been averaging around 10 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists per game ensuring that Indonesia will have another all-around forward to work with and terrorize opponents with.

You want proof? Check this video out for some of his highlights:

Andakara Prastawa Dhyaksa

Dhyaksa has none of the international credential’s of the other aforementioned players but he seems like an interesting player to me and I look forward to watching him play. He’s only 22 years old, making him one of the youngest players on this team. If you recall, Akri Wisnu won the Rookie/Sixth Man of the Year award in 2011-2012 and Biboy Enguio won the Rookie/Sixth Man of the Year award in 2013-2014. Smushed in between, Dhyaksa won the Rookie/Sixth Man of the Year award in 2012-2013.

I don’t know what fetish the NBL has with putting talented rookies in the Sixth Man slot, but it has seemed to work. Dhyaksa averaged 11.79 points (5th in the NBL), 2.88 rebounds, and 3.88 assists (5th in the NBL) per game along side Biboy Enguio for Aspac Jakarta.

TONES & DEFINITION’S BOLD PREDICTION

Disclaimer’s Note: I wrote the Malaysia National Team preview before I got wind that Enguio would be playing for Indonesia and I pegged Malaysia to advance to the elimination round with a slight win over Indonesia at that time.

Enguio probably won’t change the entire face of the entire Indonesia National team, but he does change the level of talent that I had originally projected for them.

If I could get a do-over, I’d seriously have Indonesia edging past Malaysia and edging past Thailand to match up against Philippines for a second time in the Finals before taking a 10 point loss.

With that out of the way…I DID mention that it was a BOLD prediction, so I will stand with my previous statements and say that Indonesia will slightly lose to Malaysia and miss the Elimination Round.

I hate making bold predictions.

WORST CASE SCENARIO:

In their game against Malaysia in the group stage, Mario Wuysang can’t find the bottom of the net from long-range at all. Biboy and Arki continue their woes from long-range and the spacing is horrible for Indonesia. They eventually lose and gets blown away by the Philippines. A disappointing end for a very promising team.

BEST CASE SCENARIO:

Mario Wuysang channels his inner-youth. Arki displays a newly found outside shooting touch. Biboy plays with a form that has PBA teams contacting his agent for a possible move to the Philippines. The three-headed backcourt monster lead their team to a Finals Match-up with the Philippines and go toe-to-toe with Sinag Pilipinas.

Dodo plays out of his mind and leads the Philippines to a win causing the crowd to start chanting “DODO! DODO! DODO!” until Singaporean officials have to break the crowd.

That wraps it up for the Indonesian national basketball team preview.

You can read Tone’s & Definition’s other SEA Games related previews here:

Philippines
Thailand
Malaysia
Singapore

Pictures are taken from Tommy Julyanto’s Flickr account unless noted otherwise and edited here at Tones & definition.