Wallace ignoring Europe? ESPN Insider info

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't know if any of you have seen it yet, but ESPN Insider's Chad Ford
did an interesting series on a trip he took to Europe to scout some of the
top NBA prospects over there. There are a lot of stories, and a lot of it is
useless dribble, but there is some good stuff in there. Check out this not
so flattering anecdote about Chris Wallace. And some of you wonder why we
doubt Wallace?

Mark

P.S. You can access all of the stories from ESPN.com's front page.


LONDON, England -- During the Chicago Pre-Draft Camp in June, Celtics GM
Chris Wallace and I talked about the growing infatuation teams were having
with international players. Wallace acknowledged the contributions of the
Nowitzkis and the Gasols of the world, but he wondered if we all weren't
going a little overboard. The U.S., he reasoned, was still the best
basketball country in the world. 
Breathless reports about 7-footers from faraway places left him skeptical.
Players with a sense of mystery attached to them, Wallace reasoned, are sexy
because they are a blank slate upon which any GM can sketch his deepest
desires. It's easy to fall in love with a kid you've never seen. He can be
anything and everything. 
Upside, by definition, is a forward-looking word. But it can also be
dangerous, Wallace warned. Wallace seemed to shore up that belief in July
when he invited several top European free agents to play for the Celtics'
summer league team. One of the invitees was a kid named Milan Gurovic. He
was a Yugoslavian small forward with a deadly outside shot who has been
lighting up Europe for the past few season. 
Gurovic, one of the stars on the Yugoslavian national team, didn't play a
minute for the Celtics in the summer league. He was livid that he couldn't
even get off the bench in Boston. He left the U.S. shortly thereafter with a
vow. In September, when Yugoslavia played Team USA at the World
Championships in Indianapolis, he would make the Americans pay. He would
prove his worth, not against summer league competition but against the NBA's
top stars. 
Gurovic got his chance in early September when Yugoslavia went head to head
with the USA in the elimination game in the World Championships. Gurovic's
clutch 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, ironically over the Celtics' Paul
Pierce <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3253> ,
radically changed the way America now views basketball in Europe. Gurovic
finished with 15 points on 4 of 6 shooting from 3-point land and almost
single-handedly kicked Team USA out of medal contention. Yugoslavia would go
on to win the gold medal while the U.S. stumbled to a miserable sixth-place
finish. 
That's the dangerous thing about upside. When you ignore it, it often comes
back to bite you in the butt. 
Warnings about the NBA's over-infatuation with international players not
only don't ring true, they reflect a sorely out-of-date view that's still
too prevalent in the NBA and NCAA. It's the uniquely American worldview that
assumes that all things revolve around us. Our isolationist history over the
past 200 or so years has produced a culture that refuses to define itself in
relation to others. 
It is amazing that so many American sportswriters and GMs without adequate
scouting staffs or vision can dismiss players simply because they've never
seen them play. You can believe all you want that if a kid isn't playing on
ESPN2 every night he doesn't exist. It's nonsense. Any scout worth a hill of
beans will tell you that the competition in Europe is better than it is in
college. 
How can anyone plausibly make the argument that a kid who excels in Europe
is a bigger risk than a kid who excels in college? Carmelo Anthony is
lighting it up at Syracuse, but he'd be waving towels from the bench in
Europe. How is Darko Milicic a bigger risk? He's played for two years and
excelled at every level. What's the risk? How is that infatuation? Why
aren't more teams over there checking him out? If LeBron James was playing
in France right now, would he be any less of a player than he is now? Of
course not. Chances are, he'd be better. 
America no longer holds a monopoly on the game. There are more than 2000
FIBA teams dotting the globe. Basketball in some parts of the world is now
eclipsing soccer as the most popular sport of young people. It runs a
distant third to football and baseball here in the states. The U.S.
population is close to 300 million people. The other 3 billion or so inthe
world are catching up. In many ways they have passed us by. 
Now that I've got that off my chest ... here are several observations that
won't stop bouncing inside my head.

European scouting: Some NBA teams need to wake up. Teams like the Pistons
and Mavs are getting a huge competitive advantage by deploying top-notch
scouts around the world. 
Take Pistons GM Joe Dumars for example. In just a few years Dumars, along
with vice president of basketball operations John Hammonds, has put together
a top-flight scouting staff including Tony Ronzone, 91-year-old Will
Robinson, George David and Scott Perry. The foresight Dumars had two years
ago to recognize the need to scout differently has made a major difference
for his club. The Pistons, despite being one of the top teams in the East,
are replenishing their talent pool without lottery picks. 
In his two years, Ronzone has led them to Zeljko Rebraca and Mehmet Okur
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3547> . Just to put
things in perspective, the Pistons got Rebraca cheaper than Calvin Booth
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3358>  and Evan
Eschmeyer <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3357> .
He's experienced and quickly developing into a legitimate low-post threat.
Had Ronzone not turned them onto Okur last season, he would have been a
lottery pick this year and well out of the Pistons' reach. 
Just because the NBA and the American media don't make the time to watch
these kids play, doesn't, by definition, mean they can't. 
Dallas and Sacramento also have been traditionally ahead of the curve. In
addition to stealing Dirk Nowitzki from under everyone's noses, the Mavs
were very close to signing free agent Ognjen Askrabic last summer for a
paltry $1.7 million a year. If Askrabic is in the draft and scouted
properly, he's a lottery pick. The Mavs have pursued the relationship with
Askrabic to the point that even though he's now on everyone else's radar
screen, Askrabic wants to play in Dallas. The Mavs got him through good
scouting. 
The Kings also have a stellar reputation overseas. Almost every kid I talked
to in Yugoslavia named them as the team they'd like to play for when they
finally hit the NBA. Thank Vlade Divac
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=84> , Peja Stojakovic
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3119>  and Hidayet
Turkoglu for that. 
Certainly, there are other teams that are also doing a top-notch job on the
international front. The Nuggets are close to ascending to the Mavs, Kings
and Pistons level. 
I'm not going to name names here (I do know who you are) but there are a
handful of NBA teams that don't have any international scouts. Zero. Teams
sometimes employ five, six, or seven scouts to watch college basketball
games, but they don't have anyone checking out the other three billion
people on the planet. Other teams have a guy here or there, but they're not
using their top scouting talent on Europe. 
As Ronzone proved this week, relationships matter over there. Dumars' sly
steal of Ronzone from Dallas put his club in a much better position to
compete. European teams and players know who he is, and they enjoy dealing
with him. How big of a perk will that be when the Pistons have to negotiate
a buyout with a club? It's huge. 
Now that the Pistons are sitting on a potential high lottery pick (they get
the Grizzlies' this year, as long as it's not the No. 1 overall pick), they
have the confidence to select someone like Milicic or Mickael Pietrus
because they've done their homework.