NBA Draft: International backlash?
By Chad Ford
NBA Insider
Send an Email to Chad Ford Friday, December 5
NEW YORK -- The scene at Madison Square Garden was something out of a Kofi Annan or Tony Ronzone perfect dream -- the UN of NBA hoops.
Standing alone on the court taking jumpers an hour and a half before the Knicks-Pistons game on Monday was 18-year-old Darko Milicic, the youngest and highest drafted player ever from Europe.
Within minutes he was joined by fellow Serbian Slavko Vranes, a 19-year-old, 7-foot-6 center for the New York Knicks. Right behind him was 18-year-old Polish big Maciej Lampe, another rookie with the Knicks.
They stopped, hugged, laughed and asked each other the most important question of the evening.
"Hey, why aren't you playing Maciej?" Darko says with smile.
For rookies Milicic, Lampe and Vranes, earning playing time as been an uphill battle.
"What are you talking about?" Lampe replies. "You're the No. 2 pick, why aren't you playing?"
Vranes, who towers over both of them, just shrugs his shoulders and smiles. He wasn't playing even before he reached the NBA. For this 7-foot-6 giant, this is nothing new.
"I'm watching," Vranes tells Insider. "I'm watching, waiting and hoping. This is what I do."
This is what they all do. The international revolution may have taken place this summer when a record eight international players were taken in the first round. But, six weeks into the regular season, only three international studs -- the Suns' Zarko Cabarkapa, the Jazz's Aleksandar Pavlovic and the Hawks' Boris Diaw -- are actually getting any playing time on the court.
All of the big names -- Milicic (No. 2), Mickael Pietrus (No. 11), Zoran Planinic (No. 22), Leandro Barbosa (No. 28), Lampe (No. 30), Vranes (No. 39) and Zaur Pachulia (No. 42) -- are wasting away on the bench.
Much like the heralded super high school class of 2001, the international class of 2003 looks too young and too raw to make the type of impact experts thought they would this season.
"It's our own fault," one NBA GM said. "We keep taking kids younger and younger and expect more and more for them. We strip mined college basketball and now we're doing it internationally. The fact that these kids aren't ready shouldn't be a surprise. At their age, and with their lack of experience, they shouldn't be ready."
Great fundamentals, killer outside shots, and long legs haven't been enough to get these heralded prospects in the game. No one knows this more than Milicic, who wears the burden of being drafted ahead of Carmelo Anthony like a millstone around his neck.
Darko Days Ahead
Pistons coach Larry Brown still can not take his eyes off Darko. It's two hours before the Pistons take on the Knicks in Madison Square Garden. Numerous preparations still need to be made, but Brown has parked himself 10 feet from Milicic and is watching his every move.
"Use your pivot foot Darko," Brown yells as Milicic works on post drills with Zeljko Rebraca and Darvin Ham.
Darko Milicic
Forward-Center
Detroit Pistons
Profile
2003-2004 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
7 0.0 0.4 0.0 .000 .000
Darko fakes once to the left, then spins around and shoots a nice floating fade away over Ham's outstretched hand.
"No, Darko," Brown yells. "You have six inches on him. Take him to the basket, shoot over him."
Brown is now on the court, showing Darko the proper move.
"Do you understand?" Brown says as Darko begins to walk away. There's a subtle nod by Darko.
"Does he understand?" Brown says turning to assistant coach Dave Hanners. Hanners shrugs his shoulders. Darko keeps walking.
Next drill. Darko grabs the ball, pivots and takes Ham hard to the basket.
"That's it Darko," Brown says. Then he mumbles under his breath, "I guess he understood."
Despite all of the reports swirling around talk radio in Detroit, Brown likes Darko.
"He's a great kid," Brown tells Insider. "He works so hard and he's just so skilled."
Brown ticks off Darko's best attributes. Sweet shooting touch, great passing ability, high basketball IQ.
Teammate Ben Wallace gushes with praise for the kid he calls "the Russian Rocky."
"He's working his butt off," Wallace said. "That's how you earn respect with us," Wallace says as Darko sits on the locker room floor doing sit-ups and push ups.
Sounds like a No. 2 pick in the draft on paper. So why isn't Darko getting playing time?
"He wants to play out here," Brown says motioning to the 3-point line. "I want him playing in there," he says pointing to the paint.
For the next half hour, Darko plays exclusively in the paint. His moves look strong. He plays with confidence. And he has little difficulty scoring against the likes of Ham and Rebraca.
"He looks great," Brown admits. "He looks great here. The problem is the kid hasn't played. He just doesn't have the game experience to throw him out there. I want him to play the right way before we throw him to the wolves."
And here is Brown's dilemma. He's got a kid with a ton of talent and very little knowledge about how to use it in the pro game. He could throw him out there now and he'd learn. But the team would suffer. Or, he can keep him off the court and Darko can continue to learn by watching. At some point, however, Brown concedes that watching will only get him so far.
"It's a strange tight rope you have to walk."
Darko's Not Alone
Brown isn't the first to walk it. The NBA has been drafting teenagers for years. While there are success stories here and there (like LeBron James or Amare Stoudemire), in most cases it has taken the kids years to develop.
"This has nothing to do with what country a kid is from," Pistons president Joe Dumars told Insider. "The history of drafting kids at 18 is that these kids aren't ready. Kobe, KG and McGrady weren't ready. You could see the flashes here and there, but they weren't ready for the league. Period."
Tim Floyd coached Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry their rookie years. He was quick to tick off the attributes that 18-year-olds lack when they make the jump.
“ This has nothing to do with what country a kid is from. The history of drafting kids at 18 is that these kids aren't ready. Kobe, KG and McGrady weren't ready. You could see the flashes here and there, but they weren't ready for the league. Period. ”
— Joe Dumars
"Maturity, experience, physical strength, focus," Floyd told Insider. "There are huge expectations on these kids and most of them aren't equipped with the tools to live up to them right away. When you think about it, what 18 year old, in any job, really is?"
International teenagers are proving to be not so different from their American counterparts.
Last year, the Nuggets got the first taste of the phenomenon when they drafted 18-year-old Nikoloz Tskitishvili with the No. 5 pick. Skita wasn't even getting playing time overseas. The jump to the NBA was just too much for the 7-footer from the country of Georgia to handle.
Skita laid a major egg his rookie year, averaging just 3.9 ppg on 29 percent shooting from the field. The skinny, 19-year-old 7-footer spent all of his time hanging out on the perimeter launching 3s, struggled defensively and was the source of much derision after the Nuggets passed on rookies like Caron Butler and Amare Stoudemire to draft him.
"Last year, he was the equivalent of a high school senior coming into the league," Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe said. "He didn't play much in Europe and lacked the strength and the experience to really compete in the league. But he's a talented kid. When you see a kid work that hard in the summer and combine with his obvious physical gifts, I have no doubt he's going to be really good."
"Last season was hard for me," Skita told Insider. "Everyone wants to come into the NBA and play well. I was disappointed with my performance. I sometimes wondered what was wrong with me."
That's why Dumars isn't sweating the heat. He claims that he knew what he was getting into when he drafted Darko No. 2.
"You have to have the appetite to draft kids who aren't ready right away," Dumars told Insider. "I'm trying to balance what I give to the coach. We've given Larry a team that he can win with even without Darko. So you look long term and try put a roster in place that will help you win now and down the road."
While Dumars admits that drafting Darko over Carmelo would have been a more difficult decision had the Pistons not had such a talented roster, he still claims that he would probably have made the same decision.
"Carmelo's a talented player and was worthy of a No. 2 pick," Dumars said. "But you win with size in this league and we think that in a few years, Darko will be just as good, only he'll be doing it at 7-foot-2."
How Milicic handles the pressure will go a long way in determining what type of career he has.
"I'm having fun," Milicic told Insider. "I just do what the coach asks me to do. That's my job. I can not control what everyone else thinks. I'm just glad to be a Piston."
He does and doesn't mean it. Darko is competitive and is dying to get into the game. But he's also mature enough to know that unlike in Europe, he's not better than the guys he practices against every day. Not yet anyway.
"I have a lot to prove," Darko says. "A lot to learn. I'm just playing hard and trying not to keep making the same mistakes."
Brown goes out of his way to praise Milicic's worth ethic and dedication. He tells the story of Milicic hiring his own driver on an off-day to take him to the gym so he could practice alone. He defends the 18-year-old with passion.
"He doesn't speak our language, he doesn't understand our culture, he doesn't know the NBA, he doesn't even shave or drive, and we expect him to be something I don't think he can be right now," Brown said. "He's still learning how to live. The basketball will come."
"He's worked as hard as any guy on the team," Dumars said. "He's light years ahead of where he was. It's only a matter of time now."
They keep getting younger
Darko and Skita's dilemma has raised eyebrows among some NBA GMs. The last few years, the prospect of finding the next Dirk Nowitzki probably caused a few teams to reach too far for a young prospect who just wasn't ready.
So forgive them if they are a little leery this year when they see the age of some of the top international prospects being bandied around.
Players like Predrag Samardzski (17), Manuchar Markoishvili (17), Andris Biedrins (17), Damir Omerhodzic (18), Pavel Podkolzine (18), Tiago Splitter (18) and Kosta Perovic (18) are all projected as possible top-15 picks in next year's draft. With the exception of Perovic and, to a lesser extent, Splitter, none of them are even playing with their European teams.
"There are no bigs in this years draft, so guys start gazing overseas," one scout said. "But what they are finding is kids who should be seniors in high school. These kids aren't ready. They aren't even getting the playing time that Darko was in Serbia. But they have so much talent and are so tall that teams push right on past that. Guys like Biedrins and Omerhodzic have no business being even mentioned as possible draft prospects. They have a talent, but still haven't had a chance to use it. You think they'll get playing experience in the NBA? Look around, it's not happening."
The same could be said of America's top draft prospects. The early consensus No. 1 is Dwight Howard, a skinny 18-year-old high school kid who scouts concede is closer to Kwame Brown than Stoudemire. Right behind him is Josh Smith, a skinny 6-foot-9 high school swingman who also happens to be 18. On the college side, scouts are raving about Luol Deng, who at 18 has played just five games of college basketball. UConn's Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon are the only college athletes mentioned in the lottery right now who are older than 19.
Now you know why David Stern is pushing so hard for an age limit in the NBA.
The nature of the draft is continuing to evolve. Ten years ago, the lottery was meant to restock bad teams with good players who could come in and immediately turn around fortunes. Now, it's only a matter of time now before KinderCare jumps aboard as the official sponsor of the 2010 NBA Draft.
"Again, it's about having the appetite to draft 18-year-olds," Dumars says. "Some teams are comfortable, some aren't. Americans. Europeans. Chinese. Doesn't matter. If you can put your team in a position where you can be patient and don't need the pick right away, the reward can be very, very high. If you need the kid now? Good luck."
By Chad Ford
NBA Insider
Send an Email to Chad Ford Friday, December 5
NEW YORK -- The scene at Madison Square Garden was something out of a Kofi Annan or Tony Ronzone perfect dream -- the UN of NBA hoops.
Standing alone on the court taking jumpers an hour and a half before the Knicks-Pistons game on Monday was 18-year-old Darko Milicic, the youngest and highest drafted player ever from Europe.
Within minutes he was joined by fellow Serbian Slavko Vranes, a 19-year-old, 7-foot-6 center for the New York Knicks. Right behind him was 18-year-old Polish big Maciej Lampe, another rookie with the Knicks.
They stopped, hugged, laughed and asked each other the most important question of the evening.
"Hey, why aren't you playing Maciej?" Darko says with smile.
For rookies Milicic, Lampe and Vranes, earning playing time as been an uphill battle.
"What are you talking about?" Lampe replies. "You're the No. 2 pick, why aren't you playing?"
Vranes, who towers over both of them, just shrugs his shoulders and smiles. He wasn't playing even before he reached the NBA. For this 7-foot-6 giant, this is nothing new.
"I'm watching," Vranes tells Insider. "I'm watching, waiting and hoping. This is what I do."
This is what they all do. The international revolution may have taken place this summer when a record eight international players were taken in the first round. But, six weeks into the regular season, only three international studs -- the Suns' Zarko Cabarkapa, the Jazz's Aleksandar Pavlovic and the Hawks' Boris Diaw -- are actually getting any playing time on the court.
All of the big names -- Milicic (No. 2), Mickael Pietrus (No. 11), Zoran Planinic (No. 22), Leandro Barbosa (No. 28), Lampe (No. 30), Vranes (No. 39) and Zaur Pachulia (No. 42) -- are wasting away on the bench.
Much like the heralded super high school class of 2001, the international class of 2003 looks too young and too raw to make the type of impact experts thought they would this season.
"It's our own fault," one NBA GM said. "We keep taking kids younger and younger and expect more and more for them. We strip mined college basketball and now we're doing it internationally. The fact that these kids aren't ready shouldn't be a surprise. At their age, and with their lack of experience, they shouldn't be ready."
Great fundamentals, killer outside shots, and long legs haven't been enough to get these heralded prospects in the game. No one knows this more than Milicic, who wears the burden of being drafted ahead of Carmelo Anthony like a millstone around his neck.
Darko Days Ahead
Pistons coach Larry Brown still can not take his eyes off Darko. It's two hours before the Pistons take on the Knicks in Madison Square Garden. Numerous preparations still need to be made, but Brown has parked himself 10 feet from Milicic and is watching his every move.
"Use your pivot foot Darko," Brown yells as Milicic works on post drills with Zeljko Rebraca and Darvin Ham.
Darko Milicic
Forward-Center
Detroit Pistons
Profile
2003-2004 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
7 0.0 0.4 0.0 .000 .000
Darko fakes once to the left, then spins around and shoots a nice floating fade away over Ham's outstretched hand.
"No, Darko," Brown yells. "You have six inches on him. Take him to the basket, shoot over him."
Brown is now on the court, showing Darko the proper move.
"Do you understand?" Brown says as Darko begins to walk away. There's a subtle nod by Darko.
"Does he understand?" Brown says turning to assistant coach Dave Hanners. Hanners shrugs his shoulders. Darko keeps walking.
Next drill. Darko grabs the ball, pivots and takes Ham hard to the basket.
"That's it Darko," Brown says. Then he mumbles under his breath, "I guess he understood."
Despite all of the reports swirling around talk radio in Detroit, Brown likes Darko.
"He's a great kid," Brown tells Insider. "He works so hard and he's just so skilled."
Brown ticks off Darko's best attributes. Sweet shooting touch, great passing ability, high basketball IQ.
Teammate Ben Wallace gushes with praise for the kid he calls "the Russian Rocky."
"He's working his butt off," Wallace said. "That's how you earn respect with us," Wallace says as Darko sits on the locker room floor doing sit-ups and push ups.
Sounds like a No. 2 pick in the draft on paper. So why isn't Darko getting playing time?
"He wants to play out here," Brown says motioning to the 3-point line. "I want him playing in there," he says pointing to the paint.
For the next half hour, Darko plays exclusively in the paint. His moves look strong. He plays with confidence. And he has little difficulty scoring against the likes of Ham and Rebraca.
"He looks great," Brown admits. "He looks great here. The problem is the kid hasn't played. He just doesn't have the game experience to throw him out there. I want him to play the right way before we throw him to the wolves."
And here is Brown's dilemma. He's got a kid with a ton of talent and very little knowledge about how to use it in the pro game. He could throw him out there now and he'd learn. But the team would suffer. Or, he can keep him off the court and Darko can continue to learn by watching. At some point, however, Brown concedes that watching will only get him so far.
"It's a strange tight rope you have to walk."
Darko's Not Alone
Brown isn't the first to walk it. The NBA has been drafting teenagers for years. While there are success stories here and there (like LeBron James or Amare Stoudemire), in most cases it has taken the kids years to develop.
"This has nothing to do with what country a kid is from," Pistons president Joe Dumars told Insider. "The history of drafting kids at 18 is that these kids aren't ready. Kobe, KG and McGrady weren't ready. You could see the flashes here and there, but they weren't ready for the league. Period."
Tim Floyd coached Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry their rookie years. He was quick to tick off the attributes that 18-year-olds lack when they make the jump.
“ This has nothing to do with what country a kid is from. The history of drafting kids at 18 is that these kids aren't ready. Kobe, KG and McGrady weren't ready. You could see the flashes here and there, but they weren't ready for the league. Period. ”
— Joe Dumars
"Maturity, experience, physical strength, focus," Floyd told Insider. "There are huge expectations on these kids and most of them aren't equipped with the tools to live up to them right away. When you think about it, what 18 year old, in any job, really is?"
International teenagers are proving to be not so different from their American counterparts.
Last year, the Nuggets got the first taste of the phenomenon when they drafted 18-year-old Nikoloz Tskitishvili with the No. 5 pick. Skita wasn't even getting playing time overseas. The jump to the NBA was just too much for the 7-footer from the country of Georgia to handle.
Skita laid a major egg his rookie year, averaging just 3.9 ppg on 29 percent shooting from the field. The skinny, 19-year-old 7-footer spent all of his time hanging out on the perimeter launching 3s, struggled defensively and was the source of much derision after the Nuggets passed on rookies like Caron Butler and Amare Stoudemire to draft him.
"Last year, he was the equivalent of a high school senior coming into the league," Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe said. "He didn't play much in Europe and lacked the strength and the experience to really compete in the league. But he's a talented kid. When you see a kid work that hard in the summer and combine with his obvious physical gifts, I have no doubt he's going to be really good."
"Last season was hard for me," Skita told Insider. "Everyone wants to come into the NBA and play well. I was disappointed with my performance. I sometimes wondered what was wrong with me."
That's why Dumars isn't sweating the heat. He claims that he knew what he was getting into when he drafted Darko No. 2.
"You have to have the appetite to draft kids who aren't ready right away," Dumars told Insider. "I'm trying to balance what I give to the coach. We've given Larry a team that he can win with even without Darko. So you look long term and try put a roster in place that will help you win now and down the road."
While Dumars admits that drafting Darko over Carmelo would have been a more difficult decision had the Pistons not had such a talented roster, he still claims that he would probably have made the same decision.
"Carmelo's a talented player and was worthy of a No. 2 pick," Dumars said. "But you win with size in this league and we think that in a few years, Darko will be just as good, only he'll be doing it at 7-foot-2."
How Milicic handles the pressure will go a long way in determining what type of career he has.
"I'm having fun," Milicic told Insider. "I just do what the coach asks me to do. That's my job. I can not control what everyone else thinks. I'm just glad to be a Piston."
He does and doesn't mean it. Darko is competitive and is dying to get into the game. But he's also mature enough to know that unlike in Europe, he's not better than the guys he practices against every day. Not yet anyway.
"I have a lot to prove," Darko says. "A lot to learn. I'm just playing hard and trying not to keep making the same mistakes."
Brown goes out of his way to praise Milicic's worth ethic and dedication. He tells the story of Milicic hiring his own driver on an off-day to take him to the gym so he could practice alone. He defends the 18-year-old with passion.
"He doesn't speak our language, he doesn't understand our culture, he doesn't know the NBA, he doesn't even shave or drive, and we expect him to be something I don't think he can be right now," Brown said. "He's still learning how to live. The basketball will come."
"He's worked as hard as any guy on the team," Dumars said. "He's light years ahead of where he was. It's only a matter of time now."
They keep getting younger
Darko and Skita's dilemma has raised eyebrows among some NBA GMs. The last few years, the prospect of finding the next Dirk Nowitzki probably caused a few teams to reach too far for a young prospect who just wasn't ready.
So forgive them if they are a little leery this year when they see the age of some of the top international prospects being bandied around.
Players like Predrag Samardzski (17), Manuchar Markoishvili (17), Andris Biedrins (17), Damir Omerhodzic (18), Pavel Podkolzine (18), Tiago Splitter (18) and Kosta Perovic (18) are all projected as possible top-15 picks in next year's draft. With the exception of Perovic and, to a lesser extent, Splitter, none of them are even playing with their European teams.
"There are no bigs in this years draft, so guys start gazing overseas," one scout said. "But what they are finding is kids who should be seniors in high school. These kids aren't ready. They aren't even getting the playing time that Darko was in Serbia. But they have so much talent and are so tall that teams push right on past that. Guys like Biedrins and Omerhodzic have no business being even mentioned as possible draft prospects. They have a talent, but still haven't had a chance to use it. You think they'll get playing experience in the NBA? Look around, it's not happening."
The same could be said of America's top draft prospects. The early consensus No. 1 is Dwight Howard, a skinny 18-year-old high school kid who scouts concede is closer to Kwame Brown than Stoudemire. Right behind him is Josh Smith, a skinny 6-foot-9 high school swingman who also happens to be 18. On the college side, scouts are raving about Luol Deng, who at 18 has played just five games of college basketball. UConn's Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon are the only college athletes mentioned in the lottery right now who are older than 19.
Now you know why David Stern is pushing so hard for an age limit in the NBA.
The nature of the draft is continuing to evolve. Ten years ago, the lottery was meant to restock bad teams with good players who could come in and immediately turn around fortunes. Now, it's only a matter of time now before KinderCare jumps aboard as the official sponsor of the 2010 NBA Draft.
"Again, it's about having the appetite to draft 18-year-olds," Dumars says. "Some teams are comfortable, some aren't. Americans. Europeans. Chinese. Doesn't matter. If you can put your team in a position where you can be patient and don't need the pick right away, the reward can be very, very high. If you need the kid now? Good luck."
