ESPN’s Pat Forde wrote an interesting article about how Dirk Nowitzki is doing something no other international player has ever done – be the star player on a team playing in the Finals. Sure, Tim Duncan and Hakeem Olajuwon were born outside the U.S., but they played college ball in the U.S., while Nowitzki bypassed the American system completely.
While youth basketball rotted from the inside out in the States, it blossomed overseas. Unscarred by the American shoe wars, unpolluted by the travel-team circuit, unspoiled by the human barnacles who attach themselves to young stars, the kids in Europe and elsewhere actually learned how to play the game.
While players in the States obsessed from adolescence about getting paid, Europeans just played. Creatively. Fundamentally.
The results first came home to roost in international competition. The U.S. has been serially embarrassed, and not just in the Athens Olympics. The list includes a sixth-place finish in the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, where a fellow named Nowitzki was the MVP.
Rick Pitino, who was coaching the Boston Celtics the year that Nowitzki was drafted, worked him out in a tennis bubble outside of Rome.
“He put on a 45-minute display unlike anything I’d seen before,” Pitino said. “He was the most impressive workout I’ve had since I’ve been a coach. I said to myself, ‘I found the next Larry Bird.’ ”
Over lunch, Pitino convinced Nowitzki’s agent to play coy, telling teams that his client might do one more year in the German military instead of coming to the United States to play. In return, Pitino guaranteed that he’d take Nowitzki with the 10th pick in the draft.
Only problem is, Dallas got there first.
The success that Nowitzki’s versatile, fundamental game is having in the NBA is a reflection of how far the sport has fallen in the States. Sure, the league is bigger than ever, but it’s partly due to all the international players and how they excel at just about every aspect of the game. Look at Nowitzki, Manu Ginobili, Yao Ming, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker and Andrei Kirilenko – they do it all. Offense, defense, ball handling, free throws – you name it, these guys are at least decent at it.
It’s ironic that two American players – Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O’Neal – stand in the way of Nowitzki taking his foreign-bred game to the ultimate level, a NBA championship. Regardless of who wins, let’s hope that the success of Nowitzki, along with the other international players, has an effect on American youth, who should be working on their jumpers instead of their highlight-reel dunks.
