If his name is called, Bargnani will be ready

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As milestones go, this one has come along quietly.

If the Toronto Raptors select Andrea Bargnani with the No. 1 pick in tonight's National Basketball Association draft, it will be the first time a team has used the top pick on a European.

Basketball loves firsts.

When Kwame Brown, lamentably, was the first high-school player taken first overall, by the Washington Wizards in 2001, it prompted much discussion. How would the drafting of high-school players affect the players and the sport?

When China's Yao Ming became the first non-American chosen, in 2002, it was said to herald a torrent of talent from the world's most populous nation.

But if NBA commissioner David Stern calls out Bargnani's name and hands him a Raptors hat at Madison Square Garden in New York tonight, the pick will likely be discussed on its merits, rather than its message:

Would Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo have been wiser taking LaMarcus Aldridge or Rudy Gay?

Would Bargnani have been available if the Raptors had traded down a few spots?

What's a more accurate gauge of NBA success: Bargnani's 81 games as a role player on a top European professional team last season, or how he would have responded to the pressure of being a star in U.S. college basketball?

One thing the Raptors won't have to worry about is having a full picture of Bargnani's NBA potential.

"A lot of [NBA] teams have come through Treviso this year, and Toronto was here more than anyone else," said David Blatt, head coach of Benetton Treviso, the club Bargnani helped to an Italian League Championship last week.

"They were as thorough as you can get. They checked him up close and personal. Counting their European scout, they probably saw him 30 times. Games, practices. He was sweating and breathing two feet away."

And if they get cold feet in the so-called war room as their turn to pick comes, the Raptors can always turn to Maurizio Gherardini, their new assistant GM and the person who discovered Bargnani as a 16-year-old playing for a lower-division club in Rome and recruited him to Treviso, a perennial European basketball power.

"I'm going to try and help the Raptors make the best possible decision," Gherardini said yesterday. "I'm not looking at passports or friendships. On the other hand, I have no doubt that Bargnani is a hell of a player."

Bargnani is thrilled to have a chance to continue his basketball development in the NBA.

He grew up on a steady diet of the Chicago Bulls and has been soaking in the predraft hype in New York since Friday, accompanied by his mother, father and younger brother.

"Ask me tomorrow what it means, if it happens," he said yesterday when reporters asked him about the significance of possibly being the first European taken first overall. "I'll know then how it feels. I'm just happy to be in the mix."

If Bargnani does become the first pick, it will be more proof of the ever-shrinking nature of the basketball universe.

"The international influence has clearly come to the forefront in the last decade," Colangelo said while extolling the virtues of Bargnani as a potential No. 1 selection the day after the Raptors won the draft lottery.

"Before, there was just an occasional, star-type player that would make their way from Europe or elsewhere over to play in the NBA," he said.

"Now, you're approaching almost 20 per cent of the league being foreign-born and it's something you just can't turn your back to."

It's wisdom that is so broadly accepted that it's easy to forget how quickly it's happened. Only 20 or so years ago the arrival of an Eastern Bloc star such as Arvydas Sabonis came as a result of cloak-and-dagger recruitment and geopolitical overtones.

Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki, to whom Bargnani is often compared, was drafted in 1998, but even then, using the No. 9 pick on a jump-shooting European teenager was considered a risk.

Eight years later, the idea that Bargnani might be the "next Nowitzki" is enough for him to earn serious consideration as the first overall pick in the draft.

And finding, evaluating and rating international talent has never been easier.

"Compared to Nowitzki, there is a lot more footage, a lot more live games that have been scouted, a lot of practice sessions etc. etc.," Colangelo said.

The success of Nowitzki and Spain's Pau Gasol, who was picked No. 3 in 2001, sparked the equivalent of a gold rush for European talent, one that peaked in 2002 when an unproven Nikoloz Tskitishvilli was made the fifth pick overall by the Denver Nuggets. Now with the Phoenix Suns, he's yet to make a dent anywhere in the NBA other than the bench.

Those close to Bargnani have no doubt that his career arc will be closer to the Gasol-Nowitzki end of the spectrum than Tskitishvilli's. And if he's not, they will have only their own evaluation process to blame.

Bargnani may be the first European drafted No. 1 tonight, but he will succeed or fail in that role regardless of what his passport says.

"The one thing unknown about any draft pick is what happens when they actually get to [the NBA]," Blatt said. "But whoever picks him will know what they're getting."