FIBA Basketball
Team-first, back-to-basics foreigners changing NBA
Andrea Bargnani is next. Maybe this year. Definitely in 2007. The 7-foot Italian forward with a long-range shooting touch, an inside power game and this town's heart is projected as a top-five NBA draft pick. He will decide by April 29
From www.usatoday.com
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Andrea Bargnani is next. Maybe this year. Definitely in 2007. The 7-foot Italian forward with a long-range shooting touch, an inside power game and this town's heart is projected as a top-five NBA draft pick. He will decide by April 29 if he will enter June's draft at age 20 or wait until next year. "I want to be ready," he says.
Bargnani (Barg-NAH-nee) would be the latest in an unprecedented foreign invasion of the NBA. International talent comprises a league-record 18% of its players. That includes a league-high seven international players on the defending champion San Antonio Spurs, who open the playoffs this weekend looking for their third title in four years, and six on the Phoenix Suns, whose coach made his name in Italy and has used the team-oriented, run-pass-and-shoot game to build the league's fourth-best record this season.
Sixty percent of the NBA's foreign players come from Europe, where they — like Bargnani — are trained from their early teen years in fundamentals-driven basketball factories that produce pinpoint passers, surefire shooters and team-first players.
Perhaps the best: German forward Dirk Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks' 7-foot superstar who is an NBA MVP candidate again this season.
The European players are just what the coach ordered in an NBA game that has tilted in the past decade toward young talent lacking the fundamentals.
"NBA teams are realizing it's less risky to draft internationals because they're more coachable, more socialized, have no posses and have not been Americanized," says former college coach George Raveling, Nike's director of global basketball. Raveling's prediction: International players will comprise 50% of the NBA by 2010.
Bargnani plays for Benetton Treviso, a storied Italian professional club owned by the global fashion giant. It's based in this northwest city of 85,000; historic Venice is a 30-minute train ride away.
Basketball history-in-the-making is here: Bargnani is the best Italian player that country has produced and a young reminder of Nowitzki, 27.
Even at his tender age, Bargnani is the face of the franchise. A cardboard cutout likeness of him looms near every ramp in The Palaverde, the team's cozy, 6,000-seat arena. He is also one of the team's veterans, in the third year of a five-year contract he signed at 18.
That came two years after Benetton Treviso's general manager plucked him out of Rome, where he was playing in the developmental system of a club in the lowest tier of Italy's four-level pro system.
Bargnani was brought to Benetton Treviso's sprawling campus, called La Ghirada, where he lived in a dorm, attended public school and practiced, often twice a day — all under the club's supervision and at its expense.
This, Bargnani says, was his "dream since I was young — to become a player in Treviso." Now this is his reality: He's on the brink of playing in the NBA.
This is where they come from.
This is how they have stormed America's game.
What foreign players supply
Since the Michael Jordan-led Dream Team showcased U.S. basketball in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the number of foreign-born players in the NBA has increased from 21, representing 18 countries, in the 1992-93 season to a record 82, from 36 nations and territories, this season.
In the last four drafts, 76 non-American players were selected among the 240 spots available (32%), including 28 in the first round (23%). Six of the 24 players who played in February's NBA All-Star Game were foreign-born.
Those staggering figures, some say, celebrate the reinvention of the game internationally. Others argue they are an embarrassing indictment of the USA's pool of talent, which is deep but often lacking in the fundamental skills of passing, shooting and dribbling.
Toronto Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo says it's a combination: "It's players domestically just not focusing on the fundamentals and an indication of what focus has been put on the development of the game at the very purest level in Europe."
While it would be hard to argue that the brightest NBA stars — the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Dwyane Wade — are not fundamentally sound, it is apparent some of the lesser-skilled players have flaws.
"The Euros and foreign players and coaches," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich says, "are doing things in some ways we have forgotten about and used to do."
This is the bottom line for Dave Blatt, Benetton Treviso's American-born coach who has spent the last 20 years playing or coaching in Europe: "I still believe the best basketball players in the world are in the U.S. But the best-taught basketball players are no longer there."
The world is not only reteaching the USA the importance of the game's fundamentals, it is schooling NBA-stocked U.S. Olympic and world championship teams. U.S. teams, which finished third in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and sixth in the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis, are learning a concept that is, quite literally, foreign to them: Substance and five-on-five play usually beat slam-dunk style and one-on-one flair.
Those are the principles that have been ingrained in Bargnani from the day he first picked up a basketball. He is the product of a system that identifies top players locally as early as age 12 and immerses them in a professional environment as young as 16.
"Kids start playing with little Benetton Treviso jerseys on at 8 and 9," says Drew Nicholas, a Benetton Treviso guard from the University of Maryland. "They have their own little factory here."
Bargnani played youth basketball starting at 5 in Rome. At 12, he advanced to a junior program in Rome. At 16, he signed an "under control" agreement with Benetton Treviso — essentially an apprenticeship contract under which the club agrees to cover a player's living and training expenses and schooling in exchange for control of rights to the player — and moved to La Ghirada. At 18, he signed his five-year pro contract, which an NBA team will have to buy out when Bargnani is drafted.
Bargnani learned the game from the outside in, that is, from the perimeter facing the basket. In the USA, in contrast, coaches in school-sponsored programs, from junior high to college, teach big players the game from the inside out — with their backs to the basket.
Joe Crispin, a guard with Navigo.it Teramo in Italy who played for Penn State, marvels at team practices where big men are included in dribbling drills with the guards.
"I'd love to tell every coach in America you need to learn how to coach like this," he says. "It's not the same mentality, but college and high school coaches have to learn how to develop guys. Frankly, they're not."
That, Blatt says, is because the game is taught in gyms in Europe. In the USA, he says, it's largely learned at an early age in pickup games, where playing with the ball instead of without it and going one-on-one instead of five-on-five are more treasured.
Nicholas contends the European approach fosters copycat talent. That homogeneous aspect of their development is at odds with the most exciting aspect of the NBA — great individual plays made within the team concept. "They all play the same," he says. "Good shooters. Fundamentally sound, but you need some individualistic play."
'Move up or move out'
Bargnani has grown up fast in the European system. They all do — as adults and players. There is no alternative. "They move up or they move out," says Benetton Treviso general manager Maurizio Gherardini, who signed Bargnani.
Those who don't make it in Treviso usually sign with clubs in lower divisions, and, if they are enrolled in a university, continue studying at a slower pace because of the demands of pro basketball. In Europe, the path to pro team sports is more directly and overtly linked to a trade-school environment than it is in the USA, where big-time athletics' place in high schools and colleges is a constant source of debate.
Gherardini, Treviso's GM since 1992, is widely respected internationally because of his eye for high quality, even in young players. Under his watch, Benetton Treviso has won four Italian League titles and made four appearances in the Euroleague's final four — the climax of a season-long competition among Europe's top 24 clubs. "He knows talent," says Larry Bird, the Indiana Pacers general manager.
For Bargnani, Benetton Treviso's schedule, a maximum of 78 games in the Italian League and the Euroleague, including playoffs, has provided a steady dose of competition against older players. In contrast, U.S. players compete against peers in high school and college.
In the beginning, Bargnani says, he was "maybe" intimidated by the older players. Not now. He's 20, and "I've gotten tougher."
"They are trained to be what they want to be," Gherardini says. "They get used to the drama of winning and losing when they are 17. They grow up faster."
College can wait
Bargnani graduated from secondary school two years ago and hasn't pursued a university education, although he wants to eventually. There isn't time now. Few elite players in Europe move on after secondary school.
"The dream of all the youngsters in Europe is to sign your first pro contract," Gherardini says. "That's a bigger deal than planning a university career."
Bargnani's mother, Luisella Balducci, is OK with that. On a visit from Rome to watch her son play, she acknowledged the difficulty in managing a pro career and school. "He hasn't got the time to study at the moment," she says. "He must be happy with what he does. Anyway, you can't have everything."
On the court, Bargnani is an "A" student. He has received extended playing time — 21.1 minutes per 40-minute game — for the first time this season and responded with good, if not eye-catching, statistics: He averaged 10.9 points and 4.1 rebounds and shot 55.8% overall and 43.3% from three-point range in 18 Euroleague games. In 28 Italian League games, he is averaging 11.2 points and 5.3 rebounds.
"He's proven to be a guy who will fulfill his vast potential," Blatt says. "Benetton Treviso gave his life a new meaning and direction. Now he's on a clear path to where he's going."
It's where they all want to go — to the NBA.
Download source here
Andrea Bargnani is next. Maybe this year. Definitely in 2007. The 7-foot Italian forward with a long-range shooting touch, an inside power game and this town's heart is projected as a top-five NBA draft pick. He will decide by April 29 if he will enter June's draft at age 20 or wait until next year. "I want to be ready," he says.
Bargnani (Barg-NAH-nee) would be the latest in an unprecedented foreign invasion of the NBA. International talent comprises a league-record 18% of its players. That includes a league-high seven international players on the defending champion San Antonio Spurs, who open the playoffs this weekend looking for their third title in four years, and six on the Phoenix Suns, whose coach made his name in Italy and has used the team-oriented, run-pass-and-shoot game to build the league's fourth-best record this season.
Sixty percent of the NBA's foreign players come from Europe, where they — like Bargnani — are trained from their early teen years in fundamentals-driven basketball factories that produce pinpoint passers, surefire shooters and team-first players.
Perhaps the best: German forward Dirk Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks' 7-foot superstar who is an NBA MVP candidate again this season.
The European players are just what the coach ordered in an NBA game that has tilted in the past decade toward young talent lacking the fundamentals.
"NBA teams are realizing it's less risky to draft internationals because they're more coachable, more socialized, have no posses and have not been Americanized," says former college coach George Raveling, Nike's director of global basketball. Raveling's prediction: International players will comprise 50% of the NBA by 2010.
Bargnani plays for Benetton Treviso, a storied Italian professional club owned by the global fashion giant. It's based in this northwest city of 85,000; historic Venice is a 30-minute train ride away.
Basketball history-in-the-making is here: Bargnani is the best Italian player that country has produced and a young reminder of Nowitzki, 27.
Even at his tender age, Bargnani is the face of the franchise. A cardboard cutout likeness of him looms near every ramp in The Palaverde, the team's cozy, 6,000-seat arena. He is also one of the team's veterans, in the third year of a five-year contract he signed at 18.
That came two years after Benetton Treviso's general manager plucked him out of Rome, where he was playing in the developmental system of a club in the lowest tier of Italy's four-level pro system.
Bargnani was brought to Benetton Treviso's sprawling campus, called La Ghirada, where he lived in a dorm, attended public school and practiced, often twice a day — all under the club's supervision and at its expense.
This, Bargnani says, was his "dream since I was young — to become a player in Treviso." Now this is his reality: He's on the brink of playing in the NBA.
This is where they come from.
This is how they have stormed America's game.
What foreign players supply
Since the Michael Jordan-led Dream Team showcased U.S. basketball in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the number of foreign-born players in the NBA has increased from 21, representing 18 countries, in the 1992-93 season to a record 82, from 36 nations and territories, this season.
In the last four drafts, 76 non-American players were selected among the 240 spots available (32%), including 28 in the first round (23%). Six of the 24 players who played in February's NBA All-Star Game were foreign-born.
Those staggering figures, some say, celebrate the reinvention of the game internationally. Others argue they are an embarrassing indictment of the USA's pool of talent, which is deep but often lacking in the fundamental skills of passing, shooting and dribbling.
Toronto Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo says it's a combination: "It's players domestically just not focusing on the fundamentals and an indication of what focus has been put on the development of the game at the very purest level in Europe."
While it would be hard to argue that the brightest NBA stars — the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Dwyane Wade — are not fundamentally sound, it is apparent some of the lesser-skilled players have flaws.
"The Euros and foreign players and coaches," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich says, "are doing things in some ways we have forgotten about and used to do."
This is the bottom line for Dave Blatt, Benetton Treviso's American-born coach who has spent the last 20 years playing or coaching in Europe: "I still believe the best basketball players in the world are in the U.S. But the best-taught basketball players are no longer there."
The world is not only reteaching the USA the importance of the game's fundamentals, it is schooling NBA-stocked U.S. Olympic and world championship teams. U.S. teams, which finished third in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and sixth in the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis, are learning a concept that is, quite literally, foreign to them: Substance and five-on-five play usually beat slam-dunk style and one-on-one flair.
Those are the principles that have been ingrained in Bargnani from the day he first picked up a basketball. He is the product of a system that identifies top players locally as early as age 12 and immerses them in a professional environment as young as 16.
"Kids start playing with little Benetton Treviso jerseys on at 8 and 9," says Drew Nicholas, a Benetton Treviso guard from the University of Maryland. "They have their own little factory here."
Bargnani played youth basketball starting at 5 in Rome. At 12, he advanced to a junior program in Rome. At 16, he signed an "under control" agreement with Benetton Treviso — essentially an apprenticeship contract under which the club agrees to cover a player's living and training expenses and schooling in exchange for control of rights to the player — and moved to La Ghirada. At 18, he signed his five-year pro contract, which an NBA team will have to buy out when Bargnani is drafted.
Bargnani learned the game from the outside in, that is, from the perimeter facing the basket. In the USA, in contrast, coaches in school-sponsored programs, from junior high to college, teach big players the game from the inside out — with their backs to the basket.
Joe Crispin, a guard with Navigo.it Teramo in Italy who played for Penn State, marvels at team practices where big men are included in dribbling drills with the guards.
"I'd love to tell every coach in America you need to learn how to coach like this," he says. "It's not the same mentality, but college and high school coaches have to learn how to develop guys. Frankly, they're not."
That, Blatt says, is because the game is taught in gyms in Europe. In the USA, he says, it's largely learned at an early age in pickup games, where playing with the ball instead of without it and going one-on-one instead of five-on-five are more treasured.
Nicholas contends the European approach fosters copycat talent. That homogeneous aspect of their development is at odds with the most exciting aspect of the NBA — great individual plays made within the team concept. "They all play the same," he says. "Good shooters. Fundamentally sound, but you need some individualistic play."
'Move up or move out'
Bargnani has grown up fast in the European system. They all do — as adults and players. There is no alternative. "They move up or they move out," says Benetton Treviso general manager Maurizio Gherardini, who signed Bargnani.
Those who don't make it in Treviso usually sign with clubs in lower divisions, and, if they are enrolled in a university, continue studying at a slower pace because of the demands of pro basketball. In Europe, the path to pro team sports is more directly and overtly linked to a trade-school environment than it is in the USA, where big-time athletics' place in high schools and colleges is a constant source of debate.
Gherardini, Treviso's GM since 1992, is widely respected internationally because of his eye for high quality, even in young players. Under his watch, Benetton Treviso has won four Italian League titles and made four appearances in the Euroleague's final four — the climax of a season-long competition among Europe's top 24 clubs. "He knows talent," says Larry Bird, the Indiana Pacers general manager.
For Bargnani, Benetton Treviso's schedule, a maximum of 78 games in the Italian League and the Euroleague, including playoffs, has provided a steady dose of competition against older players. In contrast, U.S. players compete against peers in high school and college.
In the beginning, Bargnani says, he was "maybe" intimidated by the older players. Not now. He's 20, and "I've gotten tougher."
"They are trained to be what they want to be," Gherardini says. "They get used to the drama of winning and losing when they are 17. They grow up faster."
College can wait
Bargnani graduated from secondary school two years ago and hasn't pursued a university education, although he wants to eventually. There isn't time now. Few elite players in Europe move on after secondary school.
"The dream of all the youngsters in Europe is to sign your first pro contract," Gherardini says. "That's a bigger deal than planning a university career."
Bargnani's mother, Luisella Balducci, is OK with that. On a visit from Rome to watch her son play, she acknowledged the difficulty in managing a pro career and school. "He hasn't got the time to study at the moment," she says. "He must be happy with what he does. Anyway, you can't have everything."
On the court, Bargnani is an "A" student. He has received extended playing time — 21.1 minutes per 40-minute game — for the first time this season and responded with good, if not eye-catching, statistics: He averaged 10.9 points and 4.1 rebounds and shot 55.8% overall and 43.3% from three-point range in 18 Euroleague games. In 28 Italian League games, he is averaging 11.2 points and 5.3 rebounds.
"He's proven to be a guy who will fulfill his vast potential," Blatt says. "Benetton Treviso gave his life a new meaning and direction. Now he's on a clear path to where he's going."
It's where they all want to go — to the NBA.