Tuesday, August 31, 2004
By Chad Ford
ESPN Insider
On Monday, I advocated four steps NBA commissioner David Stern should take in response to yet another disappointing performance by Team USA in international competition.
I received hundreds of e-mails from readers in response to the piece over the past 24 hours. On average, about 70 percent of the Insider readers felt that some or all of the changes I talked about needed to happen. However, there were a number of people who sharply disagreed with the assessment that there was anything wrong with the NBA.
Because the topic seems to be a hot one and the league is very, very quiet at the moment, let's dip into the mailbag and hear what folks have to say.
Q: One main point I think people are missing: If each country sent its best 12 players or its best team, the USA is the best. You can't tell me that if the Pistons or the top players (Kobe, the O'Neals, T-Mac, Ray Allen, etc.) played year round preparing for the Olympics that they would lose. They would win easily. The real story is that Olympic basketball is not that important to most NBA superstars. It is much more important to the other teams and that is why the USA lost. The NBA is in bad shape, but our best is better than their best. -- Michael, Milwaukee, Wisc.
FORD: I don't think anyone is missing that point. I think we all know that the Olympics is more important to other countries and that several of our elite players didn't play. Just four players -- KG, Kobe, Ray Allen and Jason Kidd -- would've made the difference between the gold medal and the bronze. But the reality is that those top-tier players don't want to (or feel like they can't) play.
All of the players you mentioned were invited and opted out for various reasons. The NBA season takes a terrible toll physically on players and most of them prefer to rest. Several veteran NBA international players, including Peja Stojakovic, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Vlade Divac, also opted out this summer. Seeing how the American players were treated this year, it's going to become harder than ever for USA basketball to recruit our top talent.
What comes as a shock to most people is that a team filled with NBA All-Stars (and two former MVPs) can't beat or struggles to beat teams without any NBA players, period. Italy doesn't have anyone even close to being an NBA player and it routed us and won the silver. Lithuania doesn't have an NBA player. Argentina currently has one (Manu Ginobili) with two more on the way. (Andres Nocioni will play for the Bulls next season and Carlos Delfino will join the Pistons).
The more interesting point is that not only has the world gotten better, but it will continue to do so. It might not be at the point yet where it could beat an elite team of NBA stars. But in four more years? Eight more years? Sooner or later, the best player in the world is not going to be an American. Why wait around for that to happen before we start making changes?
Q: Yes, the U.S. did get their butts kicked in the Olympics, but to say that it's "laughable" that the Detroit Pistons are the world champions is wrong, bottom line. You think Argentina would beat the Pistons in a seven-game series? -- Brady Johnson., Aspen, Colo.
FORD: As far as the Pistons go, a number of you took offense at that statement. It wasn't meant as a disrespect to the Pistons. Had they played for Team USA, and played at full strength, I believe they would've been the overwhelming favorites to win the Gold. However, three things come to mind. One, they would've been without Rip Hamilton and Ben Wallace, who refused to play for Team USA. Two, they would've been without Rasheed Wallace, who disappears for three months each summer. And finally, while the Pistons have a number of players who are perfectly suited for international play … many NBA teams don't and would struggle in an Olympic tournament. I meant we should stop calling the NBA champions the world champions. It reeks of a certain arrogance that I think we can no longer afford to have.
Q: You wrote "… too many NBA bigs aren't capable of doing anything other than bullying their way to the basket. I don't know one fan who likes to watch the big guys do it." Well, you just met one fan who does like to watch the big guys do it. Shaq in the low post is like a Detroit muscle car; the beauty is in the sheer power and force, the beauty is American. The international game is not better. The game that FIBA promotes is a socialist game. Everyone gets a touch, all the players are more or less interchangeable in their skill sets.
And yes, I did see some nice passing and some short 3s, but in the NBA I can see artists create shots and moves that defy gravity, logic and perceived human ability. I didn't see one iota of that in the Olympics from anyone not wearing USA. Nothing the non-U.S. teams did took my breath away and made me find the closest person to me so that I could share the beauty of what I had seen. I could go on but that last line sums it up. There were no "Hey, did you see what that guy just did!" moments. What I would suggest, instead of putting down the American game, is see the international game for what it is, a perversion of our creation. -- Peter Williams, Brooklyn, N.Y.
FORD: While I don't agree with you Peter, I got a number of e-mails from readers who do. To me, seeing a fantastic behind-the-back pass, a lights-out shooting performance from the perimeter, or even a nice back-door play can take my breath away. It's players like Shaq who make me sleepy.
The NBA product would soar if talents like Amare Stoudemire had had better skill sets.
My bigger point, however, is that NBA fans can have their cake and eat it too. No one wants the NBA to become FIBA. But why can't the two worlds merge? The NBA has the best athletes in the world. If many of them had a stronger set of fundamentals, I think it would just add to the game. They're still going to dunk. But could you imagine Darius Miles with a jumper or Amare Stoudemire with some handles? The same holds true with international players. What if Peja Stojakovic was more athletic or what if Vlade Divac had the leaping ability to block more shots?
I'm not advocating abandoning what makes the NBA special. What I'd like to see is the NBA push its players to become more fundamentally sound offensively just as the international game is beginning to emphasize the value of athleticism and defense. Defenses dominates too much in the NBA. With a few more offensive tools, that doesn't have to be the case.
Q: Here's a thought, maybe the reason so many Europeans struggle when they arrive here is because the Americans cannot play the team ball they have become accustomed to? -- Lonnie Burstein, Los Angeles
FORD: There's no question that it's a major adjustment for most international players to play in the NBA. They do struggle to adapt to a game that relies more on power, athleticism and individualism over passing, shooting and team play. That's why many international stars would struggle to make a roster in the NBA.
The players NBA scouts look for are the ones who have strong fundamentals, great size for their position, above average athleticism and can play some individual defense.
Over the past two years, all of the international players drafted in the first round fit that criteria. Darko Milicic (size, athleticism), Mickael Pietrus (athleticism, defense), Zarko Cabarkapa (size), Sasha Pavlovic (athleticism, defense), Boris Diaw (size, athleticism), Zoran Planinic (size), Carlos Delfino (size, defense), Leandro Barbosa (athleticism defense), Andris Biedrins (size, defense), Pavel Podkolzine (size), Viktor Khrypa (size, defense), Sergei Monia (athleticism, defense), and Sasha Vujacic (size) all fit in the category.
After watching how Larry Brown handled Caremlo Anthony in the Olympics, it should buy Darko a little slack, shouldn't it? If our NBA all-stars are struggling with the transition, an 18-year-old from Serbia should be afforded a little room to grow.
Rightly or wrongly, international players aren't being drafted based solely on fundamentals or the ability to play in a team system. That's why guys like Sarunas Jasikevicius, Fabrico Oberto, Luis Scola, Gianluca Basile, Lazaros Papadopoulous, Arvydas Macijauskas, Matt Nielson and Pero Cameron aren't in the NBA. None of them has great size advantages, athleticism or defense prowess. Scouts just aren't sure if they can excel in the league the way the do internationally.
That really leads me to the next question …
Q: Isn't individualistic play what saved the NBA back in the 1980s? My family is littered with Knicks fans and they all told me about those fundamentally sound, well balanced teams of the early '70s, but the truth is that the league was floundering back then. Now I'm a big fan of motion/flex offenses (I could watch the Jazz and the Kings play each other all day), but the truth is that while the quality of the game would increase, I think ratings would go south if the league didn't try and showcase its stars … Welcome to popular American culture, I guess. -- Elias Lopez, New York
FORD: There's a lot of truth to what you're saying, Elias. In the early '80s, the NBA made a conscious decision to market certain players at the expense of marketing teams. With Magic Johnson and Larry Bird coming into the league, followed by Michael Jordan in 1984, the league had three stars who everyone in the world pretty much loved. You could argue that rules were changed, in part, to showcase their skills.
While the NBA saw a huge increase in popularity during that time, I'm not sure it was the best thing for the game. But let's not kid ourselves. The NBA is a business, and selling tickets, television rights and jerseys are more important to Stern and many of the owners in the league.
Yao
Stern has made it clear that his top priority this decade is expanding the reach of the NBA internationally. The easiest way to do it is to get a diverse set of international players in the game. Michael Jordan sold a lot of jerseys in China. But it was Yao Ming who created a huge windfall for the league in Asia. Dirk Nowitzki is the face of the NBA in Germany. Pau Gasol is the standard bearer for Spain. Manu Ginobili has increased the NBA's reach in Argentina.
The more Stern can make the game "international friendly" the more he succeeds in his ultimate goal. Making a few rules changes will increase the ability of players from other countries to make the jump to the league, thus giving the NBA a stronger foothold internationally.
The NBA, however, will always be dominated by Americans. While some of the changes will obviously rub some people the wrong way, as a business model, international expansion is pretty brilliant.
Q: Do you think there's a snowball's chance the union goes along with any of the proposed changes? Seems to me Gary Coleman would have a better chance one-on-one with KG than David Stern does of getting those changes pushed through. As necessary as they are, the NBPA is at least that myopic, and I don't see the union making any concessions until the financial crunch hits in earnest and shrinking wallets drive them to change.
It would be better for the game to change before that happens, but while Stern has the necessary vision to see that, I don't believe the union leadership does. As long as they can deny some of the problems, find excuses for others and blame the rest on someone else (the owners, preferably), that will be preferable to looking in the mirror and facing the hard truths. -- Rob Harrison, Grand Lake, Colo.
FORD: Stern's biggest challenges with the union are financial. Rule changes don't have to be approved by the players. A minor league does need to be collectively bargained, but the union doesn't have major objections to it as long as veterans can't be "demoted" to the minor league and rookies don't have to take pay cuts to play down there.
Of all the solutions I proposed, the coaching one will be the toughest. For the NBA to really get control of the problem, it has to strike at the heart of a provision that the union holds dear -- the long-term guaranteed contract. Owners and GMs are forced to fire coaches, in part, because it's almost impossible to fire the players. While it seems impossible that the league would ever do away with guaranteed contracts, having the number of guaranteed years reduced is a real possibility. The union will fight it, but from what I hear, it's one of the big things the league is going to fight for this year when collective bargaining talks resume.
By Chad Ford
ESPN Insider
On Monday, I advocated four steps NBA commissioner David Stern should take in response to yet another disappointing performance by Team USA in international competition.
I received hundreds of e-mails from readers in response to the piece over the past 24 hours. On average, about 70 percent of the Insider readers felt that some or all of the changes I talked about needed to happen. However, there were a number of people who sharply disagreed with the assessment that there was anything wrong with the NBA.
Because the topic seems to be a hot one and the league is very, very quiet at the moment, let's dip into the mailbag and hear what folks have to say.
Q: One main point I think people are missing: If each country sent its best 12 players or its best team, the USA is the best. You can't tell me that if the Pistons or the top players (Kobe, the O'Neals, T-Mac, Ray Allen, etc.) played year round preparing for the Olympics that they would lose. They would win easily. The real story is that Olympic basketball is not that important to most NBA superstars. It is much more important to the other teams and that is why the USA lost. The NBA is in bad shape, but our best is better than their best. -- Michael, Milwaukee, Wisc.
FORD: I don't think anyone is missing that point. I think we all know that the Olympics is more important to other countries and that several of our elite players didn't play. Just four players -- KG, Kobe, Ray Allen and Jason Kidd -- would've made the difference between the gold medal and the bronze. But the reality is that those top-tier players don't want to (or feel like they can't) play.
All of the players you mentioned were invited and opted out for various reasons. The NBA season takes a terrible toll physically on players and most of them prefer to rest. Several veteran NBA international players, including Peja Stojakovic, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Vlade Divac, also opted out this summer. Seeing how the American players were treated this year, it's going to become harder than ever for USA basketball to recruit our top talent.
What comes as a shock to most people is that a team filled with NBA All-Stars (and two former MVPs) can't beat or struggles to beat teams without any NBA players, period. Italy doesn't have anyone even close to being an NBA player and it routed us and won the silver. Lithuania doesn't have an NBA player. Argentina currently has one (Manu Ginobili) with two more on the way. (Andres Nocioni will play for the Bulls next season and Carlos Delfino will join the Pistons).
The more interesting point is that not only has the world gotten better, but it will continue to do so. It might not be at the point yet where it could beat an elite team of NBA stars. But in four more years? Eight more years? Sooner or later, the best player in the world is not going to be an American. Why wait around for that to happen before we start making changes?
Q: Yes, the U.S. did get their butts kicked in the Olympics, but to say that it's "laughable" that the Detroit Pistons are the world champions is wrong, bottom line. You think Argentina would beat the Pistons in a seven-game series? -- Brady Johnson., Aspen, Colo.
FORD: As far as the Pistons go, a number of you took offense at that statement. It wasn't meant as a disrespect to the Pistons. Had they played for Team USA, and played at full strength, I believe they would've been the overwhelming favorites to win the Gold. However, three things come to mind. One, they would've been without Rip Hamilton and Ben Wallace, who refused to play for Team USA. Two, they would've been without Rasheed Wallace, who disappears for three months each summer. And finally, while the Pistons have a number of players who are perfectly suited for international play … many NBA teams don't and would struggle in an Olympic tournament. I meant we should stop calling the NBA champions the world champions. It reeks of a certain arrogance that I think we can no longer afford to have.
Q: You wrote "… too many NBA bigs aren't capable of doing anything other than bullying their way to the basket. I don't know one fan who likes to watch the big guys do it." Well, you just met one fan who does like to watch the big guys do it. Shaq in the low post is like a Detroit muscle car; the beauty is in the sheer power and force, the beauty is American. The international game is not better. The game that FIBA promotes is a socialist game. Everyone gets a touch, all the players are more or less interchangeable in their skill sets.
And yes, I did see some nice passing and some short 3s, but in the NBA I can see artists create shots and moves that defy gravity, logic and perceived human ability. I didn't see one iota of that in the Olympics from anyone not wearing USA. Nothing the non-U.S. teams did took my breath away and made me find the closest person to me so that I could share the beauty of what I had seen. I could go on but that last line sums it up. There were no "Hey, did you see what that guy just did!" moments. What I would suggest, instead of putting down the American game, is see the international game for what it is, a perversion of our creation. -- Peter Williams, Brooklyn, N.Y.
FORD: While I don't agree with you Peter, I got a number of e-mails from readers who do. To me, seeing a fantastic behind-the-back pass, a lights-out shooting performance from the perimeter, or even a nice back-door play can take my breath away. It's players like Shaq who make me sleepy.
The NBA product would soar if talents like Amare Stoudemire had had better skill sets.
My bigger point, however, is that NBA fans can have their cake and eat it too. No one wants the NBA to become FIBA. But why can't the two worlds merge? The NBA has the best athletes in the world. If many of them had a stronger set of fundamentals, I think it would just add to the game. They're still going to dunk. But could you imagine Darius Miles with a jumper or Amare Stoudemire with some handles? The same holds true with international players. What if Peja Stojakovic was more athletic or what if Vlade Divac had the leaping ability to block more shots?
I'm not advocating abandoning what makes the NBA special. What I'd like to see is the NBA push its players to become more fundamentally sound offensively just as the international game is beginning to emphasize the value of athleticism and defense. Defenses dominates too much in the NBA. With a few more offensive tools, that doesn't have to be the case.
Q: Here's a thought, maybe the reason so many Europeans struggle when they arrive here is because the Americans cannot play the team ball they have become accustomed to? -- Lonnie Burstein, Los Angeles
FORD: There's no question that it's a major adjustment for most international players to play in the NBA. They do struggle to adapt to a game that relies more on power, athleticism and individualism over passing, shooting and team play. That's why many international stars would struggle to make a roster in the NBA.
The players NBA scouts look for are the ones who have strong fundamentals, great size for their position, above average athleticism and can play some individual defense.
Over the past two years, all of the international players drafted in the first round fit that criteria. Darko Milicic (size, athleticism), Mickael Pietrus (athleticism, defense), Zarko Cabarkapa (size), Sasha Pavlovic (athleticism, defense), Boris Diaw (size, athleticism), Zoran Planinic (size), Carlos Delfino (size, defense), Leandro Barbosa (athleticism defense), Andris Biedrins (size, defense), Pavel Podkolzine (size), Viktor Khrypa (size, defense), Sergei Monia (athleticism, defense), and Sasha Vujacic (size) all fit in the category.
After watching how Larry Brown handled Caremlo Anthony in the Olympics, it should buy Darko a little slack, shouldn't it? If our NBA all-stars are struggling with the transition, an 18-year-old from Serbia should be afforded a little room to grow.
Rightly or wrongly, international players aren't being drafted based solely on fundamentals or the ability to play in a team system. That's why guys like Sarunas Jasikevicius, Fabrico Oberto, Luis Scola, Gianluca Basile, Lazaros Papadopoulous, Arvydas Macijauskas, Matt Nielson and Pero Cameron aren't in the NBA. None of them has great size advantages, athleticism or defense prowess. Scouts just aren't sure if they can excel in the league the way the do internationally.
That really leads me to the next question …
Q: Isn't individualistic play what saved the NBA back in the 1980s? My family is littered with Knicks fans and they all told me about those fundamentally sound, well balanced teams of the early '70s, but the truth is that the league was floundering back then. Now I'm a big fan of motion/flex offenses (I could watch the Jazz and the Kings play each other all day), but the truth is that while the quality of the game would increase, I think ratings would go south if the league didn't try and showcase its stars … Welcome to popular American culture, I guess. -- Elias Lopez, New York
FORD: There's a lot of truth to what you're saying, Elias. In the early '80s, the NBA made a conscious decision to market certain players at the expense of marketing teams. With Magic Johnson and Larry Bird coming into the league, followed by Michael Jordan in 1984, the league had three stars who everyone in the world pretty much loved. You could argue that rules were changed, in part, to showcase their skills.
While the NBA saw a huge increase in popularity during that time, I'm not sure it was the best thing for the game. But let's not kid ourselves. The NBA is a business, and selling tickets, television rights and jerseys are more important to Stern and many of the owners in the league.
Yao
Stern has made it clear that his top priority this decade is expanding the reach of the NBA internationally. The easiest way to do it is to get a diverse set of international players in the game. Michael Jordan sold a lot of jerseys in China. But it was Yao Ming who created a huge windfall for the league in Asia. Dirk Nowitzki is the face of the NBA in Germany. Pau Gasol is the standard bearer for Spain. Manu Ginobili has increased the NBA's reach in Argentina.
The more Stern can make the game "international friendly" the more he succeeds in his ultimate goal. Making a few rules changes will increase the ability of players from other countries to make the jump to the league, thus giving the NBA a stronger foothold internationally.
The NBA, however, will always be dominated by Americans. While some of the changes will obviously rub some people the wrong way, as a business model, international expansion is pretty brilliant.
Q: Do you think there's a snowball's chance the union goes along with any of the proposed changes? Seems to me Gary Coleman would have a better chance one-on-one with KG than David Stern does of getting those changes pushed through. As necessary as they are, the NBPA is at least that myopic, and I don't see the union making any concessions until the financial crunch hits in earnest and shrinking wallets drive them to change.
It would be better for the game to change before that happens, but while Stern has the necessary vision to see that, I don't believe the union leadership does. As long as they can deny some of the problems, find excuses for others and blame the rest on someone else (the owners, preferably), that will be preferable to looking in the mirror and facing the hard truths. -- Rob Harrison, Grand Lake, Colo.
FORD: Stern's biggest challenges with the union are financial. Rule changes don't have to be approved by the players. A minor league does need to be collectively bargained, but the union doesn't have major objections to it as long as veterans can't be "demoted" to the minor league and rookies don't have to take pay cuts to play down there.
Of all the solutions I proposed, the coaching one will be the toughest. For the NBA to really get control of the problem, it has to strike at the heart of a provision that the union holds dear -- the long-term guaranteed contract. Owners and GMs are forced to fire coaches, in part, because it's almost impossible to fire the players. While it seems impossible that the league would ever do away with guaranteed contracts, having the number of guaranteed years reduced is a real possibility. The union will fight it, but from what I hear, it's one of the big things the league is going to fight for this year when collective bargaining talks resume.
