F- That folks!!!
It's time for the Brothers to take it up another notch!!!
It's time to take these imports seriously, because we are starting to overrate them as well. The next thing you know they're taking jobs that rightfully belong to the Brothers.
This article is very appropiate for this discussion:
To NBA's European Stars, 'Big White Stiff' Doesn't Translate
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By Michael Wilbon
Sunday, May 5, 2002; Page D04
Nobody tells European players, as they obsess over basketball day and night in Spain and Yugoslavia, that they can't jump high enough, can't copy every nuance of Allen Iverson's sweet crossover dribble, can't throw it down like Kobe Bryant and then holler.
They don't regularly face parents and friends who say they won't ever feel comfortable in basketball's culture of hip-hop music, uniquely urban fashion and language. Rarely, if ever, are the Turkish and Russian kids confronted with the notion of being a "big white stiff," particularly the ones who are languid and lithe and diversely skilled. They aren't stigmatized, they aren't discouraged, they aren't bombarded with the notion of "You can't play that sport" and as a result, they can.
They keep coming to the NBA, a trickle having turned into a stream, young men from Europe, increasing numbers from Asia, even a couple now from Australia and New Zealand. The first wave felt an enormous sense of accomplishment just to make the league; the new generation wants championships and stardom.
So many athletically gifted white kids in America were talked out of playing basketball, more often by whites than blacks. If ever there was ample evidence that environment can trump genetics, this is it. The notion that "White Men Can't Jump" ought to be changed to "White American Kids Don't Jump Because They've Been Convinced They Shouldn't Try."
A smart piece in the current issue of Newsweek looks at the return of the white player to the NBA, 10 years after the retirement of Larry Bird. But for every American kid on the come, like Wally Szczerbiak and Mike Miller, there are five from Europe, players like Germany's Dirk Nowitzki and Yugoslavia's Peja Stojakovic, who are good enough to perhaps direct the course of these NBA playoffs.
The Newsweek piece doesn't draw the dramatic cultural distinction between white players from America and those from Europe. But in the basketball culture, it's critical to understand that a kid from Croatia has little in common with a white kid from suburban Texas. Why the difference?
The easy answer, but perhaps the most important one, is fear. The European players aren't made to feel they have no chance. It's no different, really, than black kids in American being told, usually by other blacks, that they shouldn't swim, shouldn't try to play hockey, shouldn't -- for that matter -- try to excel in science and technology. Kids try what they're led to believe they'll be comfortable doing. And many mainstream white kids have been made to feel alien in the best basketball laboratories, most of which are dominated by blacks.
Fifteen years ago when I was still playing pickup basketball, a white kid in upper Northwest was the best ballhandling guard in the neighborhood. He probably was one of the best in the city, and he was 13. Suddenly and inexplicably, he stopped showing up to play. I ran into his parents one evening at the grocery store and asked why he had stopped coming to the playground. And the father said, "He's just a skinny white kid. Why should he waste his time playing against all those talented black players?"
Does anybody doubt there are tens of thousands like him, presumed (falsely) to be inadequate? Chris Mullin, a white kid from Queens who developed into a Dream Teamer and ought to wind up in the Basketball Hall of Fame one day, has repeatedly told me over the years, "It's has nothing to do with race, everything to do with mind-set."
And the mind-set in Europe concerning pro basketball hasn't been polluted with so many stereotypes. Newsweek quotes Sacramento's Turkish forward, Hedo Turkoglu, as saying of his adopted culture, "I love Notorious B.I.G., rap music, and big, baggy clothes."
Turkoglu is one of 51 international players from 30 countries on NBA rosters this season. Of those, 26 are from Europe, seven are from Africa. Of the 16 teams that reached the playoffs, 15 have at least one international player. There are 18 in the Western Conference, and perhaps that's one reason -- besides the presence of Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant in Los Angeles -- that the rosters out west are so much more loaded.
The NBA's rookie of the year, Pau Gasol, is a Spaniard. Had he been black, my bet is that he would have been viewed more excitedly by more NBA executives, most of whom are white.
The renaissance of the Dallas Mavericks is directly linked to the scouting, drafting and development of Nowitzki, the 7-footer who can play every position on the floor except point guard. There is certainly nothing plodding or stiff about him. Kenny Smith, Turner's whip-smart NBA analyst, said the other night: "When you hear the marketing term 'crossover' you think music. Traditionally, it meant the ability of black artists to sell to white music buyers. Well, Nowitzki has crossed over now because you've got black kids everywhere wanting to wear a Nowitzki jersey."
Plenty of folks intimately involved in basketball could see this coming, particularly the old Atlanta Hawks tandem of general manager Stan Kasten and coach Mike Fratello. "There was a steady stream of high school, college and pro coaches going to Europe and coaching teams and running clinics," Fratello, now a Turner analyst, said last week of the cultural exchanges that come with increased international competition. "They left a wealth of knowledge there that people are still absorbing. There's a basketball library in Greece now. Basketball in Greece became so advanced, and Turkey is so competitive with Greece, that now Turkey is in the finals of the European championships."
Fratello and Kasten were just a little too far ahead of their time. As far back as 1985, they drafted Russian center Arvydas Sabonis in the fourth round. In 1986, they took three Europeans, Italian Augusto Binelli in the third round, Russian Alexander Volkov in the sixth round and Russian Valery Tikhonenko in the seventh round. In 1987, the Hawks selected players from China, Greece, Spain, Italy and Yugoslavia in one draft. Coincidentally, they also took Gasol in 2001 but traded him to the Grizzles for Shareef Abdur-Rahim.
"Once upon a time, the thing the European players couldn't match was our speed, quickness and toughness," Fratello said. "But that's no longer the case, as they continue to evolve. We knew it was coming. We could see it coming."
The Kasten-Fratello dream is now the Mavericks' reality. (Don Nelson's son, Donn, was the first to climb mountains of his own when it came to courting European players.) The Mavs have not only a German star, but the NBA's first Mexican player, first Chinese player and a Canadian point guard. In the Western Conference semifinals, they'll face a Sacramento team with a Yugoslav center, Yugoslav all-star shooting guard, and Turkish sixth man.
Probably all of them were introduced through NBA overseas telecasts too, and immediately fascinated by, a sport dominated and redefined by black Americans, and not just the game on the floor but all the sights, sounds and rhythms surrounding it. Their complete comfort and growing success in an American professional league may actually be convincing the dominant American culture to move beyond its fears and misconceptions, and take a closer and more open-minded look.
) Heck, I may go to Dallas (to see friends) and San Antonio (to see a cousin) to check out the playoffs at a sport's bar next weekend.
