On the NBA | The right face for the NBA
Tony Parker could be exactly what a league in transition desperately needs.
By David Aldridge
Inquirer Columnist
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/spo...l/13910173.htm
HOUSTON - Let us settle this right now.
No man on Earth has had a better 12 months than Tony Parker, the San Antonio Spurs' point guard.
During that period, he's won a second NBA championship with the Spurs - which is two more than Karl Malone or Charles Barkley or Patrick Ewing ever won. He is making his first All-Star Game appearance this weekend. When he gets back to San Antonio, he will continue running the Spurs' offense with complete freedom afforded him by coach Gregg Popovich.
He's been on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Oh, and Parker's dating Eva Longoria.
"He's having a decent year," teammate Tim Duncan deadpanned Friday.
Telegenic, talented, well-spoken, Parker easily switches back and forth between English and French during media sessions here - he is the son of a Dutch woman and an African American, Tony Parker Sr., who met his wife while playing basketball professionally in France. He is comfortable in both worlds.
"I speak French every day with my family," Parker said Friday. "My dad always is speaking English, and I answer him in French. I don't think I'll ever lose my French."
Did we mention he's dating Eva Longoria?
Parker deflects most questions about his relationship with the Desperate Housewives star. "I've talked about it a million times," he said, not-quite-so-good naturedly Friday when asked about it by a local hairdo with a stick mike.
But that kind of interest in an NBA player is manna for a league that, as it completes its showcase weekend with tonight's All-Star Game, is trying to complete a complicated, hairpin turn into a new era.
If Allen Iverson, to many, is the face of the current NBA - with its uneasy marriage between the hip-hop world craved by advertisers and young consumers, and the corporate world of Madison Avenue that fronts the money for said hip-hop artists - Parker may well be the next.
He's got game, but no visible tattoos. He's confident, but not arrogant. It's true that he's about to release a rap CD, but based on eyewitness accounts of Parker's skills at his release party Friday, it's more likely that his album will go wood than platinum.
Yet Parker is still just 23. And his presence here is more evidence of the significant hold on the NBA by international players who watched as children when the Dream Team dominated the Olympics in 1992, and used that as fuel to improve their own nascent games.
There's no longer any debate when Germany's Dirk Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks forward, gets props as one of the league's best players, or when Spain's Pau Gasol breaks through as an all-star for the Memphis Grizzlies. The rumor persists that the league would like to have an all-star weekend in Paris. (We support this notion, strongly.)
Now, other countries are just as likely to beat NBA-dominated U.S. teams in international basketball compe ion as they are to lose.
And it runs the other way, too: Yao Ming's jersey is third in sales in China, behind Tracy McGrady's and Iverson's.
And even though Parker still believes a U.S. team composed of the NBA's top stars would still beat most international squads, he knows that the gap between the United States - and the NBA - and the rest of the world is gone, and he's part of the reason why.
"I don't know if we're the new face, but we're the young guys," Parker said. "We're just right behind Kobe [Bryant] and T-Mac [McGrady] and all those guys. I think we're a great representation of the European basketball, international basketball, and we're going to keep working hard to try to represent the NBA very well and try to show how to play.
"Because I think our team" - San Antonio's roster includes Argentines Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto, and Slovenians Rasho Nesterovic and Beno Udrih - "is playing very well."
But the league needs more from its international players than on-court ability. Players like Parker have to also move the needle by dint of their personalities, as Julius Erving, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan did. Competence is not enough; people at home have to care about the people on the court if the league is to stem the tide of falling television ratings.
Which is where Longoria comes in.
Her white-hot celebrity has given Parker an education in what it's like to be really famous.
"There's a lot of stuff you don't know, from the outside," he said. "On the inside, it's totally different. It's a little bit like basketball. It's a lot of stuff - you don't know what's the truth. In entertainment, it's a big world of he said that, she said that. So, basically, you just don't pay attention, stay on what you think is right, and you have a good career."
But a good career is no longer enough.
Whatever you think of Iverson, you do think of him. He demands a response, one way or the other.
And as his career begins its fade into the sunset, the league desperately needs to keep fan interest from doing the same.
he is the son of a Dutch woman and an African American, Tony Parker Sr., who met his wife while playing basketball professionally in France. He is comfortable in both worlds.that could be a good way to save face if you get caught cursing. Something like, "the Spurs lost?? SON OF A... DUTCH mother... and African father... Tony Parker.. is. hmm..."
I thought Tony's mom was Belgian.
@ "local hairdo with a mike"
I believe she is Dutch, but Tony was born in Belgium, then raised in France.
Ouch.based on eyewitness accounts of Parker's skills at his release party Friday, it's more likely that his album will go wood than platinum.
Did we mention he's dating Eva Longoria?
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