More foreign players coming???

[MFFL]

Here's the link

Foreign legion is making impact
By Don Wade

Each year the NBA looks a little less like a slice of American pie, a little more like a roundball meeting of the United Nations.
From Germany's Dirk Nowitzki, an All-Star this season for the Dallas Mavericks, to China's 6-11, 290-pound Mengke Bateer, a literally huge project for the Denver Nuggets, you can't tell the players without a global scorecard.

About two dozen foreign players populate NBA rosters, and while there are veterans such as Sacramento's Vlade Divac (Serbia), Atlanta's Toni Kukoc (Croatia), and Cleveland's Zydrunas Ilgauskas (Lithuania), the overseas wave is overwhelm ingly young.

Tonight when the Utah Jazz play the Grizzlies at The Pyramid, two of the more promising rookie imports will be in the starting lineups: Grizzlies forward Pau Gasol (Spain), who is the odds-on favorite to win NBA Rookie of the Year, and Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko (Russia).

"It's evolving," says Sam Schuler, vice president of basketball operations for the San Antonio Spurs, which has a rookie French point guard in Tony Parker. "With expansion in recent years, the league is a little watered down. It's allowed a different brand of player to play at this level."

Gasol, of course, was the third pick in the 2001 Draft and the Grizzlies acquired his rights in the trade that sent Shareef Abdur-Rahim to Atlanta. A lean 7-footer with length and multiple offensive skills, Gasol was attractive to a lot of teams. But always there is a fear about the European player.

Will he be strong enough? Tough enough? Athletic enough?

Gasol, who's listed at 227 pounds but says he weighs more, has answered that last question in the affirmative. And he has played tougher as the season has progressed.

Kirilenko, 6-9 and 210 and averaging 10 points and 4.8 rebounds, says, "The level of game in Europe has grown up. You see the last Olympics, and the Dream Team was not so dominating as in '92."

Toronto assistant general manager Bob Zuffelato, who's in charge of player personnel for the Raptors, says of the foreign influence: "It's amazing how it's exploded."

Amazing is a good word to describe Gasol's play as a rookie. His 17.3 points and 8.9 rebounds lead all rookies, and when Grizzlies coach Sidney Lowe says Gasol is "ahead of schedule," it sounds like an understatement.

It's generally accepted that the learning curve for foreign players is steeper than for Americans who have at least some collegiate experience - Schuler says the Spurs have had to pull back on how much they play Parker - but the imports also seem to have a different attitude than they once did.

Nowitzki, who struggled as a rookie, says, "I love to see guys like Pau Gasol doing well. For me, it was tough. Not only playing, but coming over and living on my own. I'd always lived with my parents.

"On the court, the rules are so much different. In my case it was even worse because I came over during the lockout year (1998-99) and we only had a week of training camp. I wasn't ready, to be honest."

The Jazz drafted Kirilenko in 1999 with the 24th overall pick. He played against European competition for two more seasons before coming to America, and he's made significant strides this season as he learns to play through fatigue and take on the best players on the planet.

Recently, when the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant came off his two-game suspension for his fight with Indiana's Reggie Miller, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan assigned Kirilenko to guard Bryant.

Kobe had his way in the first half, scoring 23 points. In the second half, Bryant scored three points from the free-throw line and was 0-for-9 from the field. Most of the time, Kirilenko was on him. Asked if the rookie had "shut down" Kobe, Utah's John Stock ton said: "Semantics are important. I don't know about 'shut down.' But he did a nice job and made (Bryant) work hard."

Kirilenko, even before this effort, had a theory for taking on these kinds of challenges: "Don't be scary (sic) about other guys," he says. "I know they're great players, but don't be scary."

What the Jazz did with Kirilenko - drafting him and stashing him until they believed he was ready - is one way for teams to cover themselves, yet not force-feed players who aren't ready for the NBA or can't be freed from overseas pro contracts.

"Portland drafted (Arvydas) Sabonis (Lithuania) in '86 and played him in '96," Zuffelato says.

The Spurs have retained rights to three foreign players and continue to watch their development abroad. The best is probably Argentina's Emanuel Ginobili, a 6-6 guard and "arguably the best player in Europe for a couple of years," Schuler says.

But the focus figures to remain on taller players with a range of skills, like 7-footer Nowitzki, who has a nice three-point shot. After all, the American college basketball factories aren't producing everything that the NBA needs.

"Every five to 10 years a Tim Duncan comes along," says a wistful Zuffelato.

"I guess it's something in the water," adds Schuler. "We don't grow tall Americans anymore."

Every team has an overseas presence, but Schuler warns against relying on Europe to build an NBA team.

"People think they're gonna find the next Gasol," says Schuler. "This year's class of Europeans is not nearly as good as last year's."

Meantime, the players who have crossed the big pond continue to make their own way. From Bateer, who says through an interpreter, "I must cherish this opportunity," to Gasol, who clearly has seized his opportunity, to Kirilenko, who believes so much of success here is a case of his mind over the other guy's muscle.

"I not feel like a rookie," Kirilenko says confidently. "Just play from your head, play smart."

And cut your own piece of American pie.

[Drbio]

"It's amazing how it's exploded."

I disagree...what is amazing is that the NBA didn't realize earlier that foreign players have been tearing up leagues in China, Italy, Spain, etc for years. Those of you who are older and remember when the olympics were played only by amatuers will probably remember that each team always had a player or two that were dominating. The Americans played well but always had great things to say about the foreign players.

Doc

[Epitome22]

European players in the NBA are nothing new. It's just that in the past, most of them didn't really pan out to what they were hyped up to be and were little more than role players. I've read a number of interviews wityh NBA players pre-Nowitzki/Stokakovic era where they make a reference to certain NBA players as "Euro Boys" those slow, unathletic, soft, defenseless guys who can hit you some jump shots off the bench but not much else.