duncan228
01-17-2010, 12:28 AM
NBA's international top five for the ages (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/NBAs_international_top_five_for_the_ages.html)
Mike Monroe
When Dirk Nowitzki scored his 20,000th point on Wednesday, he became just the second foreign-born player to reach that significant milestone and the first straight-to-the-NBA international player to get there.
Hakeem Olajuwon was the first, but he played four years of college ball at Houston.
After 11-plus seasons, Nowitzki ranks as the best international player in league history to enter the NBA without benefit of first having played college basketball in the U.S.
It’s the no-U.S. college criteria that eliminates what would otherwise be a great debate about the relative merits of Olajuwon and Tim Duncan as the best-ever player born outside the U.S. Other foreign-born players eliminated from consideration here include Steve Nash, Dikembe Mutombo and Detlef Schrempf.
Here is our all-time, all-international NBA starting five, a lineup of significant players who came straight to the NBA from foreign locales:
Point guard: Tony Parker
Team: Spurs
NBA careeer: 2001-present
Country: France
Rundown: He’s a three-time All-Star who was third-team All-NBA last season, and he’s the only member of our starting five who was an NBA Finals MVP. With 10,793 points and 3,652 assists in eight-plus seasons with the Spurs, his numbers clearly stamp him as the best international point guard ever, but his greatest accomplishment may be his elimination of a widely held belief that foreign-born point guards could not adapt their games to the NBA style.
Shooting guard: Manu Ginobili
Team: Spurs
NBA career: 2002-present
Country: Argentina
Rundown: Ginobili was NBA-ready when he arrived after having played professionally in Argentina and Italy, but he became a key piece of three Spurs championship teams with intensity seldom seen anywhere. In seven-plus seasons, he has 7,460 points, 1,846 assists, 2,050 rebounds and a few hundred contusions from fearlessly throwing his body around the court. There is a reason the Spurs usually want the ball in his hands when they need a game-winning play.
Center: Vlade Divac
Teams: Lakers, Hornets, Kings
NBA career: 1989-2005
Country: Serbia
Rundown: Divac gets the nod over Lithuanian icon Arvydas Sabonis and China’s Yao Ming because he played 16 NBA seasons. Sabonis (31 when he finally became a Trail Blazer) played only seven NBA seasons, and injury-plagued Yao has logged only 481 games, to Divac’s 1,134. Divac was an important trail blazer in his own way, one of the first stars from the old Yugoslavia to make an impact in the NBA. His career totals — 13,398 points and 9,326 rebounds — speak for themselves, and his point total is No. 2 among internationals who never played U.S. college ball.
Small forward: Peja Stojakovic
Teams: Kings, Pacers, Hornets
NBA career: 1998-present
Country: Serbia
Rundown: One of the reasons European players got a reputation as more fundamentally sound shooters than American players was Stojakovic’s picture-pure jumper. A 40-percent shooter from 3-point range over 12-plus seasons, 4,959 of his 13,003 career points (38 percent) were scored from beyond the arc. He is a two-time winner of the All-Star Weekend 3-point shootout. No less an authority than Larry Bird called him the league’s best shooter. That’s good enough for us, and he should pass Divac as No. 2 international scorer before season’s end.
Power forward: Dirk Nowitzki
Team: Mavericks
NBA career: 1998-present
Country: Germany
Rundown: Nowitzki came to the NBA straight out of Germany, a 20-year-old who looked like a draft-night bust after a rookie season that produced only 385 points. But a 7-footer with the best perimeter touch ever displayed by a big man developed one of the most unstoppable shots in the history of the league, a step-back fadeaway that seems to get better in crunch time. An eight-time All-Star, he was the 2006 MVP, the only member of our starting five to have attained such an honor.
Mike Monroe
When Dirk Nowitzki scored his 20,000th point on Wednesday, he became just the second foreign-born player to reach that significant milestone and the first straight-to-the-NBA international player to get there.
Hakeem Olajuwon was the first, but he played four years of college ball at Houston.
After 11-plus seasons, Nowitzki ranks as the best international player in league history to enter the NBA without benefit of first having played college basketball in the U.S.
It’s the no-U.S. college criteria that eliminates what would otherwise be a great debate about the relative merits of Olajuwon and Tim Duncan as the best-ever player born outside the U.S. Other foreign-born players eliminated from consideration here include Steve Nash, Dikembe Mutombo and Detlef Schrempf.
Here is our all-time, all-international NBA starting five, a lineup of significant players who came straight to the NBA from foreign locales:
Point guard: Tony Parker
Team: Spurs
NBA careeer: 2001-present
Country: France
Rundown: He’s a three-time All-Star who was third-team All-NBA last season, and he’s the only member of our starting five who was an NBA Finals MVP. With 10,793 points and 3,652 assists in eight-plus seasons with the Spurs, his numbers clearly stamp him as the best international point guard ever, but his greatest accomplishment may be his elimination of a widely held belief that foreign-born point guards could not adapt their games to the NBA style.
Shooting guard: Manu Ginobili
Team: Spurs
NBA career: 2002-present
Country: Argentina
Rundown: Ginobili was NBA-ready when he arrived after having played professionally in Argentina and Italy, but he became a key piece of three Spurs championship teams with intensity seldom seen anywhere. In seven-plus seasons, he has 7,460 points, 1,846 assists, 2,050 rebounds and a few hundred contusions from fearlessly throwing his body around the court. There is a reason the Spurs usually want the ball in his hands when they need a game-winning play.
Center: Vlade Divac
Teams: Lakers, Hornets, Kings
NBA career: 1989-2005
Country: Serbia
Rundown: Divac gets the nod over Lithuanian icon Arvydas Sabonis and China’s Yao Ming because he played 16 NBA seasons. Sabonis (31 when he finally became a Trail Blazer) played only seven NBA seasons, and injury-plagued Yao has logged only 481 games, to Divac’s 1,134. Divac was an important trail blazer in his own way, one of the first stars from the old Yugoslavia to make an impact in the NBA. His career totals — 13,398 points and 9,326 rebounds — speak for themselves, and his point total is No. 2 among internationals who never played U.S. college ball.
Small forward: Peja Stojakovic
Teams: Kings, Pacers, Hornets
NBA career: 1998-present
Country: Serbia
Rundown: One of the reasons European players got a reputation as more fundamentally sound shooters than American players was Stojakovic’s picture-pure jumper. A 40-percent shooter from 3-point range over 12-plus seasons, 4,959 of his 13,003 career points (38 percent) were scored from beyond the arc. He is a two-time winner of the All-Star Weekend 3-point shootout. No less an authority than Larry Bird called him the league’s best shooter. That’s good enough for us, and he should pass Divac as No. 2 international scorer before season’s end.
Power forward: Dirk Nowitzki
Team: Mavericks
NBA career: 1998-present
Country: Germany
Rundown: Nowitzki came to the NBA straight out of Germany, a 20-year-old who looked like a draft-night bust after a rookie season that produced only 385 points. But a 7-footer with the best perimeter touch ever displayed by a big man developed one of the most unstoppable shots in the history of the league, a step-back fadeaway that seems to get better in crunch time. An eight-time All-Star, he was the 2006 MVP, the only member of our starting five to have attained such an honor.