Basketball has become an increasingly global game, with 83 foreign-born players from 37 countries on NBA rosters at the start of the 2009-10 season. But the 2010 draft is shaping up to be a very slow one for international players. With 6-foot-11 Czech Republic star Jan Vesely opting to stay in Europe for another season, it's possible that no international players will be drafted in the lottery and only one or two will sneak into the first round.
Still, this is a good time to explain how the process of evaluating international players works, because there are major differences between the American model of drafting college players and picking young professionals from other countries. Here are three critical areas that the best NBA scouts keep in mind when evaluating international players:
1. Level of play
In order to figure out how quickly international players will adjust to the NBA, it's important to understand how good basketball around the world has become in the past 20 years. The days of the good American college player going to any country in Europe and dominating is long gone. The level of play has improved so dramatically that the best teams in Spain or Greece would likely beat top college teams -- national champion Duke, talented Kansas, whomever -- by 30 or more points on any given night.
Think of it this way: If the NBA is the equivalent of Major League Baseball, then the top level of European basketball would approximate a Triple-A league, and the NCAA would be Double-A. In fact, Euroleague powers like FC Barcelona or CSKA Moscow would not have been the worst teams in the NBA this season.
What does this all mean? A young player's success at the highest levels of European basketball is even more predictive of NBA success than playing well at the college level. Michigan's Manny Harris, Purdue's E'Twaun Moore and Louisville's Samardo Samuels are all outstanding college players, but none would crack the rotation of an elite European club. Ask former Florida star Nick Calathes, who has struggled to get meaningful minutes for Panathinaikos in Greece's top league this season.
On the flip side are players like the Memphis Grizzlies' Marc Gasol. Drafted No. 48 overall by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2007, Gasol averaged 13 points and six rebounds in his final season in Spain's ACB league, the second-best pro basketball league in the world behind the NBA, before joining the Grizzlies in 2008. Those numbers, while not gaudy, were a better approximation of his future NBA production (13.1 ppg, 8.2 rpg for his career) than had he put up similar numbers in a league like the ACC or Big East.
But international talent isn't limited to first-tier European leagues. The Oklahoma City Thunder drafted a rising young 6-10 player from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Serge Ibaka, despite the fact he was playing in Spain's second division, the LEB. Ibaka is now a vital piece in Oklahoma City's young core of talent and could have ended up as the No. 2 pick in this year's draft had he gone off to play at, say, Duke, UCLA or a top-level Euro club this past season. The Thunder's taking a chance on him is an excellent example of NBA teams beginning to understand and properly evaluate the improved level of European play.
2. Style of play
It pains me to say this, but more international players are taught to play the game the right way at an earlier age than high school and college players in the United States. I believe in part that it's because coaches engender more respect overseas. When a player is told to move the ball, he moves the ball with no questions asked. There is no hidden agenda and few "advisers" in the player's ear telling him he's got to get shots up.
Unlike NCAA basketball, in which players have 35 seconds to shoot the ball, FIBA's 24-second clock forces international players to make quicker decisions. It's why an emphasis on two key aspects of the NBA's style of play, the screen-and-roll game and the drive-and-kick game, also translate well to the international game. Think of how good Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker are as quick decision-makers on the offensive end of the floor. They are masters because it was ingrained in them as they learned the game.
International players also learn a level of toughness and competitiveness that serves them well when they get to the NBA. The notion that international players are soft is a phony argument. Anyone who has paid attention to Team USA in international play the last four years understands how physical FIBA basketball is. Few would accuse guys like Luis Scola, Andres Nocioni and the Gasol brothers of backing down from anyone.
3. Quality of information
I was blown away when I saw this quote from Miami Heat president Pat Riley: "I like the homegrown product. I just do. I feel comfortable with it. And maybe somewhere in free agency or via some trades, we have missed somewhere along the line, but I just felt I just liked the players here. That's where I've gone. I'm not saying that we're not going to ever draft a foreign player or sign one, but it hasn't been at the top of our priority list."
My reaction to Riley's quote was to think of how many quality international players the Heat had passed on though the years. Yes, there was a time a decade ago when teams thought that every 7-foot Georgian or Serbian was destined to be the next Dirk Nowitzki. But a lot of those draft mistakes were made almost solely because of bad scouting information. Had the Detroit Pistons done a little more digging, for example, they would have found Darko Milicic didn't even dominate a low-level European league that was equivalent to a very good, high-major NCAA conference.
So, how do you get good information when language is often a barrier and trust is crucial? Americans are not beloved around the basketball world. So, those NBA scouts who navigate the international landscape in search of good info on a player's work ethic and character, who have the knowledge to decipher contracts and buyouts and can evaluate talent with an educated eye, are few and far between. Like any other business, it's about relationships, and those talent evaluators who have developed impeccable relationships around the world are at an advantage.
Good players now come from every corner of the world. Smart draft selections are developing in places like Zagreb, Buenos Aires and Stockholm as well as Chicago, Raleigh and Birmingham. Just as potential draft busts reside in Moscow as well as New York. Figuring out who's who is not any more difficult than it ever was. It just may take a few more frequent flyer miles to get it done.