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Another great article by Fran Blinebury.
Building blocks are there below the equator
On the strength of a gold medal at the Athens Olympics, Argentina has grown into an international power in basketball, and the foundation is in place for future success
By FRAN BLINEBURY
Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3270183
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - It's still more of a sensed vibration in the air than anything tangible. The sports pages of the daily newspapers and the sports segments on the nightly TV news reports still lead with scores and updates on soccer, which has long been called the national passion.
But of late, there has been a grass-roots rumbling running up and down the grand boulevards and along the crisscrossing backstreets of this diverse, cosmopolitan capital city.
"It's basquet now," Andres Nocioni said. "Our time has come."
Indeed, Nocioni, who recently finished his rookie season with the Chicago Bulls and returned to his native land as part of the NBA's Basketball Without Borders outreach program, arrived in a country in the throes of a sports transformation.
In the past 11 months, Argentina has won the gold medal in men's basketball at the Olympic Games in Athens, and native son Manu Ginobili claimed his second NBA le while playing a leading role with the San Antonio Spurs. And now it seems everyone here wants to learn how to dribble a ball with their hands instead of their feet.
"Manumania" has been the focal point of so much of the talk and Ginobili has been elevated to rock star/icon status, but perhaps the broader — and more impressive — story is how a nation of 36 million people well south of the equator has grown into a hotbed of basketball interest, not to mention a world power in the game.
"Here people are now experienced and knowledgeable about basketball," said Nocioni, a 6-7 forward who stunned the Washington Wizards with a 25-point, 18-rebound performance in one first-round NBA playoff game. "The gold medal was huge for Argentina. Now it is crazy for Manu, for me, for everybody.
"This is all new. Remember the World (Championships) in Indianapolis in 2002? Nobody knows me then in Argentina. Nobody knows Ginobili. Now it is all changed. Now you go to a restaurant, and everybody talks about you. Everybody asks about the NBA, about the people in America. How life is in America. It is unbelievable."
Especially in a country that has long drawn its athletic iden y from soccer and where Diego Maradona, leader of the 1986 World Cup championship team, is still the No. 1 sports celebrity. But these days in the shops along Florida Street and in the trendy malls, even Maradona's replica shirt — 79.99 pesos — is being crowded by Ginobili's Spurs jersey.
Argentina's rise to achieve its hoop dreams is all the more improbable because of how fast it happened. Before Athens last summer, Argentina's highest finish in Olympic basketball was fourth place in 1952.
Before Ginobili, Nocioni, Carlos Delfino, Luis Scola, Fabricio Oberto and all the rest returned home as Greek gods after defeating Team USA in the semifinals and Italy in the le game, basketball was a game whose appeal did not extend far outside of Bahia Blanca, the port town about 400 miles southwest of Buenos Aires.
"It was just very traditional to play basketball there," said Horacio Muratore, head of the Argentine basketball federation. "The men and boys there always played. It was their game."
Catching on in '80s
The game began to spread in 1984 with the establishment of the Liga Nacional de Basquet, whose 16 teams in its top two divisions usually play in the equivalent of U.S. high school gyms that can hold no more than 3,000 to 4,000 fans but are often packed in cities such as Bahia, Mar del Plata, Corrientes and Cordoba. Today the LNB is considered, along with the National Superior Basketball League of Puerto Rico, as the best league in Latin America, and it produced all 12 members of Argentina's gold-medal team.
There are roughly 1,300 club teams in Argentina, according to journalist/facilitator Daniel Jacubowich. In addition, the national government has established the Centro Nacional de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo (Center for the High Performance of Sports) in an upscale section of Buenos Aires. CeNARD is a development center for a range of sports across the Olympic spectrum.
There are training facilities for athletes, along with departments that specialize in sports medicine and biomechanics and a lab that advanced tests for illegal doping.
"This place is a symbol of our new reality," Jacubowich said. "It shows a new commitment by the government to the role of sports. The politicians are beginning to see the significance sports can have to the country."
It is basketball that is leading the way. There are more than 100 Argentine players in professional leagues in Europe, with Ginobili, Nocioni and Delfino in the NBA. The Spurs have just reached an agreement to sign Oberto for next season. The 6-10 center started for the gold-medal team and is one of Ginobili's best friends.
Guards are driving force
Guillermo Vecchio, a former head coach of the national team and now a scout for the Detroit Pistons, says the keys to Argentina's dramatic rise and success are the quickness of its guards and an inner spark.
"The spirit of the guards in all Latin American people I believe is the most important point in winning the gold medals," Vecchio said. "I have watched the NCAA programs in the U.S., and they teach great power skills and footwork. But it is the guards and their spirit in Argentina that has won the day. They are so creative. You see Manu. You don't know what he will do next, because many times even he does not know."
The Argentines take considerable pride in having been the first international squad to beat a team consisting entirely of NBA players when they defeated Team USA at the 2002 World Championships. They repeated that feat last summer on the way to the gold medal in Athens. Yet it was just another step up the ladder, according to Jacubowich.
"You must always find a way to learn more than you know," he said. "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 for growing, a step toward a dream. But it is not the goal."
Vecchio nods.
"The Americans have the 12 biggest stars, but they are not a team," he said. "In Argentina, we are teaching to be the best team."
Juan Pablo Figueroa is a 19-year-old guard who has been playing professionally for two years for a club team in Cordoba. Basketball has been his game since he was 6 years old, and he has followed Ginobili's exploits as he went from Argentina to four years in Italy and then to the Spurs.
His favorite player now?
"Steve Nash," Figueroa said. "I watch his moves and his passes and try to copy the best of them."
Figueroa would like to make the jump to Europe in another year or two and has one eye on the NBA.
"Manu is the sports star in Argentina, even more than soccer players," he said. "It is Manu who gives us inspiration, and I think a lot of young athletes are now playing basketball because of what he has done."
A solid organization and the best coaching in Latin America provide a basis for the Argentine success.
"In the Americas, the one country that is very, very advanced is Argentina," said Anicet Lavodrama, the Houston Baptist product who is Manager of International Relations and Development for FIBA, the world governing body of basketball. "They work very well with the younger categories.
"The kid, when he gets into basketball early on, he is taken care of all the way through. The major problem is always finances.
"We all know about Argentina's problems that are political and economical."
More courts needed
For all of the excitement that has come from the Olympics and the Manumania that has swept from the swank neighborhoods of Recoleta and Palermo to the earthy quarters of La Boca and San Telmo, what are missing are facilities and outdoor public courts where the next generation of Argentine stars can develop.
"Soccer is still the first sport," Delfino said. "Basketball is definitely second and continues to grow.
"But the first ball you have is a soccer ball. The first ball you have, you learn to kick it. You don't shoot it like on a playground in America."
Said Ginobili: "In the whole country, a lot of cities need venues to play basketball. Even a big city like Buenos Aires needs a lot of courts to play on.
"With my foundation, and maybe with some help from the government, we've got to help to promote basketball even more. My foundation will try to work with companies to put money into basketball. This is so important as we go forward."
In Argentina, few things are going forward so fast as the basquet.
Another great article by Fran Blinebury.
houston chronicle has the best basketball columnist
Nice story by Fran. It's interesting that he's actually travelling to Argentina from Houston to do this reporting. He has written some smack about the Spurs (that of Houston/San Antonio rivalry stuff) over the years. Maybe he was able to score a Patagonian vacation/business trip combo.
Argentina isn't the only place in the Southern Hemisphere providing basketball talent to the NBA.
Andrew Gaze (AUS) and Sean Marks (NZ) have both won rings while waving towels.
Nice to see that nobody from the Express News made the trip (sacrasm). I haven't read hardly a peep on the Spurs in the Express News online version as of late. Sure, there was a very brief report on the Oberto signing, but my goodness. Try being more resourceful and aggressive.
Or did I miss something? :shrug
This is typically vacation time for NBA beat writers.
"This is typically vacation time for NBA beat writers."
They get more than the 2-week annual holiday than the average wage-slave gets?
Last edited by boutons; 07-18-2005 at 11:41 AM.
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