timvp
08-10-2005, 12:10 AM
Ginobili leads Argentine quality, quantity on global stage
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA081005.1C.BKNspurs.argentina.127d738a.html
Johnny Ludden
Express-News Staff Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Juan Pablo Figueroa is a 5-foot-11, sharp-shooting point guard on Argentina's junior national team. Like most young point guards these days, he calls the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash his favorite NBA player.
But as much as Figueroa, 19, hopes to model his game after that of the NBA's reigning MVP, he knows he will always be indebted to a pair of basketball pioneers from his own country: Spurs guard Manu Ginobili and Chicago Bulls forward Andres Nocioni.
"Because of those players," Figueroa said, "we think our dreams can come true."
They did for Fabricio Oberto last week. Oberto, 30, a power forward who has spent the past six years playing in Spain, became the sixth member of Argentina's gold-medal Olympic team to reach the NBA when he signed with the Spurs on Aug. 2.
Luis Scola, whose draft rights are owned by the Spurs, would have joined that group this summer had he been able to reach a buyout agreement with his Spanish team. Forward Walter Herrmann also has attracted interest from NBA scouts.
"Manu has opened big doors for Argentina players," Oberto said. "NBA teams trust Argentina players now."
The MVP of last summer's Olympics, Ginobili has helped lead the Spurs to two championships in his three NBA seasons. While Pepe Sanchez and Ruben Wolkowyski became the first Argentines to play in the NBA almost five years ago, Ginobili' success has allowed basketball to grow in a country once considered fertile only for soccer.
Nearly 79 percent of 18,671 Argentines polled by Clarin, the country's largest daily newspaper, said they are more interested in basketball because of Ginobili.
"The interest level is at an all-time high," said Horacio Moratore, president of Confederacíon Argentina de Basquet (CABB), the sport's governing body in Argentina. "There are so many young kids wanting to play basketball. What Manu has done for the sport in the entire country — there is no way to categorize it."
The NBA has noticed. The league held its Basketball Without Borders Americas camp here in July, attracting 54 top young Latin American and Caribbean players. Nearly a dozen NBA teams sent coaches or scouts, a result of the increasing number of Latino players on league rosters.
Carl Herrera (Venezuela) and Felipe Lopez (Dominican Republic) were the only two Latin Americans in the NBA during the 1998-99 season. By the start of last season, there were 16.
"We Latinos are in a growing stage in the NBA," Ginobili said. "It's all part of the international basketball boom."
Support system
Despite the dominance of soccer in Argentina — "the first ball you have as a child, you kick" said Detroit guard Carlos Delfino — basketball has long enjoyed grass-roots support. Ginobili's father served as president of a club in Bahia Blanca, one of a handful of cities where the sport has thrived.
The late Leon Najnudel, a coaching legend in Argentina, strengthened the level of competition in the country's professional leagues in the 1980s by allowing each team to import two American players. Though Argentine players typically displayed the type of passion and aggressiveness Ginobili and Nocioni have brought to the NBA, they had a frustrating habit of playing too tentatively in international competition.
That began to change in recent years as the current crop of players matured under the guidance of coaches that included Najnudel, Guillermo Vecchio, Julio Lamas, Ruben Magnano and Sergio Hernández. Many players, such as Ginobili, also broadened their games in Europe.
Nocioni's stunning dunk over Kevin Garnett in the 1999 Olympic qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico served further notice Argentina was on the rise.
"This was a special group of players who have grown together and had great coaching," Spurs general manager R.C. Buford said. "There were a couple of guys earlier, the role models for this group, but this group set the tone for Argentine basketball.
"It's their spirit as individuals that's carried them to this level."
The sport's popularity began to spike three years ago when Argentina upset Team USA at the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis. It was the first time a U.S. team of NBA players lost in international competition.
After Argentina won the gold medal last summer in Athens — beating the United States in the semifinals — the players returned home as heroes.
"It was like a revolution," Scola said. "Basketball was the second sport in the country, but always so far, far away from soccer. For one week, it changed. Basketball was what everybody was focused on. People in restaurants, bars, nightclubs was looking at us. It was unbelievable."
The attention hasn't lessened. About half the sports coverage in Argentina's newspapers in June was devoted to the Spurs playing Detroit in the NBA Finals. A reunion dinner last month for Argentina's Olympic team was televised live.
"Before the world (championships), before the Olympics, before Manu, nobody know us," Delfino said. "We would go out and people say, 'Who is the tall guy? Do you play volleyball? Do you swim?' They didn't know."
Moratore estimates Argentina has about 150,000 players competing on the club level. The country's 21-year-old professional league, Liga Nacional de Basquet, has 16 teams in its top division, which produced all 12 members of the Olympic team.
The government also has built a national sports academy in Buenos Aires called Centro Nacional de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo (Center for the High Performance of Sports). CeNARD's training facilities include a pair of basketball courts, as well as sports medicine and psychology offices.
Anicet Lavodrama, FIBA's international relations and development manager, called Argentina's basketball federation one of the best in the world.
"When a kid gets into the sport of basketball early on in Argentina," Lavodrama said, "he is taken care of all the way through."
Still developing
Given Argentina's recent success on the international stage, more than one NBA coach has joked that the league needs to start holding Basketball Without Borders camps in the United States — and import Argentine coaches to conduct them. Argentine officials, however, insist their basketball program is still growing.
"If you understand you must learn more than you know, you will be in a good way," said Daniel Jacubovich, a member of the board of facilitators for Argentina's ministry of sport. "That is our view. The gold was unforgettable, yes. But if we come away feeling we are better than the world, we are wrong. It was a step toward a dream."
To realize that dream, Argentina must improve its facilities. Ginobili has started to solicit corporate support to help build a new gym in Bahia Blanca. Even outdoor courts are hard to find in some major cities.
"We've got to promote basketball even more," Ginobili said.
Among Latin American countries, some NBA scouts think Brazil has the greatest upside for producing players. But they also agree Argentina has yet to tap all of its potential. The coaching is too strong, the national system is too organized, one Western Conference scout said, for the country not to turn out another talented crop.
At the BWB camp in July, scouts already were eying a trio of Argentine guards: Figueroa, who plays for Atenas Cordoba, one of the country's top professional teams; Nicholas De Los Santos, 17; and Matías Nocedal, 15. Carlos Matías Sandes, 21, a 6-7 forward who withdrew his name from this year's draft, also has attracted attention.
"Soccer is the No. 1 sport here, but Manu overcame that," Figueroa said. "I think a lot of young players now are playing because Manu did what he did."
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA081005.1C.BKNspurs.argentina.127d738a.html
Johnny Ludden
Express-News Staff Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Juan Pablo Figueroa is a 5-foot-11, sharp-shooting point guard on Argentina's junior national team. Like most young point guards these days, he calls the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash his favorite NBA player.
But as much as Figueroa, 19, hopes to model his game after that of the NBA's reigning MVP, he knows he will always be indebted to a pair of basketball pioneers from his own country: Spurs guard Manu Ginobili and Chicago Bulls forward Andres Nocioni.
"Because of those players," Figueroa said, "we think our dreams can come true."
They did for Fabricio Oberto last week. Oberto, 30, a power forward who has spent the past six years playing in Spain, became the sixth member of Argentina's gold-medal Olympic team to reach the NBA when he signed with the Spurs on Aug. 2.
Luis Scola, whose draft rights are owned by the Spurs, would have joined that group this summer had he been able to reach a buyout agreement with his Spanish team. Forward Walter Herrmann also has attracted interest from NBA scouts.
"Manu has opened big doors for Argentina players," Oberto said. "NBA teams trust Argentina players now."
The MVP of last summer's Olympics, Ginobili has helped lead the Spurs to two championships in his three NBA seasons. While Pepe Sanchez and Ruben Wolkowyski became the first Argentines to play in the NBA almost five years ago, Ginobili' success has allowed basketball to grow in a country once considered fertile only for soccer.
Nearly 79 percent of 18,671 Argentines polled by Clarin, the country's largest daily newspaper, said they are more interested in basketball because of Ginobili.
"The interest level is at an all-time high," said Horacio Moratore, president of Confederacíon Argentina de Basquet (CABB), the sport's governing body in Argentina. "There are so many young kids wanting to play basketball. What Manu has done for the sport in the entire country — there is no way to categorize it."
The NBA has noticed. The league held its Basketball Without Borders Americas camp here in July, attracting 54 top young Latin American and Caribbean players. Nearly a dozen NBA teams sent coaches or scouts, a result of the increasing number of Latino players on league rosters.
Carl Herrera (Venezuela) and Felipe Lopez (Dominican Republic) were the only two Latin Americans in the NBA during the 1998-99 season. By the start of last season, there were 16.
"We Latinos are in a growing stage in the NBA," Ginobili said. "It's all part of the international basketball boom."
Support system
Despite the dominance of soccer in Argentina — "the first ball you have as a child, you kick" said Detroit guard Carlos Delfino — basketball has long enjoyed grass-roots support. Ginobili's father served as president of a club in Bahia Blanca, one of a handful of cities where the sport has thrived.
The late Leon Najnudel, a coaching legend in Argentina, strengthened the level of competition in the country's professional leagues in the 1980s by allowing each team to import two American players. Though Argentine players typically displayed the type of passion and aggressiveness Ginobili and Nocioni have brought to the NBA, they had a frustrating habit of playing too tentatively in international competition.
That began to change in recent years as the current crop of players matured under the guidance of coaches that included Najnudel, Guillermo Vecchio, Julio Lamas, Ruben Magnano and Sergio Hernández. Many players, such as Ginobili, also broadened their games in Europe.
Nocioni's stunning dunk over Kevin Garnett in the 1999 Olympic qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico served further notice Argentina was on the rise.
"This was a special group of players who have grown together and had great coaching," Spurs general manager R.C. Buford said. "There were a couple of guys earlier, the role models for this group, but this group set the tone for Argentine basketball.
"It's their spirit as individuals that's carried them to this level."
The sport's popularity began to spike three years ago when Argentina upset Team USA at the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis. It was the first time a U.S. team of NBA players lost in international competition.
After Argentina won the gold medal last summer in Athens — beating the United States in the semifinals — the players returned home as heroes.
"It was like a revolution," Scola said. "Basketball was the second sport in the country, but always so far, far away from soccer. For one week, it changed. Basketball was what everybody was focused on. People in restaurants, bars, nightclubs was looking at us. It was unbelievable."
The attention hasn't lessened. About half the sports coverage in Argentina's newspapers in June was devoted to the Spurs playing Detroit in the NBA Finals. A reunion dinner last month for Argentina's Olympic team was televised live.
"Before the world (championships), before the Olympics, before Manu, nobody know us," Delfino said. "We would go out and people say, 'Who is the tall guy? Do you play volleyball? Do you swim?' They didn't know."
Moratore estimates Argentina has about 150,000 players competing on the club level. The country's 21-year-old professional league, Liga Nacional de Basquet, has 16 teams in its top division, which produced all 12 members of the Olympic team.
The government also has built a national sports academy in Buenos Aires called Centro Nacional de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo (Center for the High Performance of Sports). CeNARD's training facilities include a pair of basketball courts, as well as sports medicine and psychology offices.
Anicet Lavodrama, FIBA's international relations and development manager, called Argentina's basketball federation one of the best in the world.
"When a kid gets into the sport of basketball early on in Argentina," Lavodrama said, "he is taken care of all the way through."
Still developing
Given Argentina's recent success on the international stage, more than one NBA coach has joked that the league needs to start holding Basketball Without Borders camps in the United States — and import Argentine coaches to conduct them. Argentine officials, however, insist their basketball program is still growing.
"If you understand you must learn more than you know, you will be in a good way," said Daniel Jacubovich, a member of the board of facilitators for Argentina's ministry of sport. "That is our view. The gold was unforgettable, yes. But if we come away feeling we are better than the world, we are wrong. It was a step toward a dream."
To realize that dream, Argentina must improve its facilities. Ginobili has started to solicit corporate support to help build a new gym in Bahia Blanca. Even outdoor courts are hard to find in some major cities.
"We've got to promote basketball even more," Ginobili said.
Among Latin American countries, some NBA scouts think Brazil has the greatest upside for producing players. But they also agree Argentina has yet to tap all of its potential. The coaching is too strong, the national system is too organized, one Western Conference scout said, for the country not to turn out another talented crop.
At the BWB camp in July, scouts already were eying a trio of Argentine guards: Figueroa, who plays for Atenas Cordoba, one of the country's top professional teams; Nicholas De Los Santos, 17; and Matías Nocedal, 15. Carlos Matías Sandes, 21, a 6-7 forward who withdrew his name from this year's draft, also has attracted attention.
"Soccer is the No. 1 sport here, but Manu overcame that," Figueroa said. "I think a lot of young players now are playing because Manu did what he did."