Puttering along

State of American hoops leads NBA teams to look overseas

When I think of the forthcoming NBA Draft, I think of Detroit.

Not the University of Detroit, though that school has turned out its share of pros. And not Detroit's Southwestern, Pershing or Cooley high schools, either, though they've done the same, as has Detroit Country Day, the alma mater of Shane Battier and Chris Webber. No, I think rather of the American auto industry of the 1970s, and how its troubles then are a good analogy for what's ailing stateside hoops now.

In case you've spent the past basketball season under a protectionist rock, you may not have noticed: The NBA's rookie of the year, Grizzlies forward Pau Gasol, swanned into the league straight from Spain and immediately made his mark. Half the NBA's 10-man All-Rookie team featured non-Americans who hadn't played so much as a minute of U.S. high school or college ball. And if you surf over to the mock draft from my SI colleague Ian Thomsen, you'll see that he envisions no fewer than nine foreign players to be chosen in the first round. They include projected top pick Yao Ming, the 7-foot-5 center from China; Nikoloz Tskitishvili, the 7-foot erstwhile ballet student from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia; three players from western Europe; another from the Czech Republic; two from the ex-Yugoslavia; and 6-11 Maybyner Hilario, an Olajuwonesque power forward from Brazil.

Everyone back home knows Hilario as "Nene," and Americans will soon learn to call him that, too. With the NBA having signed its first Brazilian mononym, à la Pelé, "National" Basketball Association is becoming more and more of a misnomer.

As they say on the Rue de Rivoli, the via Veneto, and the Plaka: "Wassup widdat?" (Nowadays, kids really speak like this, all over Europe.)

What's up is quite simple. The league's trendhounds are chasing the latest mechanical rabbit. By quickly becoming All-Stars and leading their teams to the NBA's upper echelon, Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki and Kings forward Peja Stojakovic have ratcheted up interest in non-Americans across the board.

In addition, there's a new patience among NBA general managers. They understand that draft picks of any provenance will take time to mature and realize that it's worth drafting based on potential -- which means they're willing to put up with the adjustment period that many non-Americans still must go through.

But more than anything, teams with demands are simply going where the supply is. Talk to any NBA scout and he'll air two complaints about U.S. college ball. One is the dearth of big men on campus. With Western Kentucky's Chris Marcus having withdrawn his name from the draft, that shortage is all the more acute this year. The other bellyache you'll hear is about the sorry fundamental skills of American prospects, who tend to come to the NBA straight from high school or after a year or two of college.

Foreign prospects satisfy on both counts. They're universally skilled passers and shooters, whether they stand 7 feet or not, and big guys from overseas know the rudiments of post play. What's more, they're the product of a club system that provides thorough coaching, as well as competition under controlled conditions -- not the undisciplined travel-team ball that passes for the learning process in the States. In other words, they are better prepared than their domestic counterparts and are sounder investments.

NBA teams that look abroad are like those American consumers of the '70s who, unsatisfied with the showroom stock of Ford and Chrysler, bought Datsuns and Toyotas instead. And that's why, on Wednesday night, several NBA teams will be driving Yugos off the Madison Square Garden showroom floor.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff is author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, available online and in bookstores everywhere. He can be reached at http://www.biggamesmallworld.com.

 

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