Friday Insider

[Weez]

Are teams cooling on international teens?

By Chad Ford

ESPN Insider

Darko Milicic sits at the end of the bench in Detroit twiddling his thumbs, waiting for head coach Larry Brown to call his name. He may hear it tonight – if the Pistons are up by 20 points with two minutes to go in the game.

Otherwise, he's out of luck. He's also not alone.

The international revolution in the NBA draft began two summers ago, when a record eight foreign players were taken in the first round. This summer, the numbers slipped a little bit, but another six international players went in the first round.

What do those fourteen players all have in common? Lots of "DNP – coach's decisions." Of the international players taken in the 2003 draft, only three – Boris Diaw, Zoran Planinic and Carlos Delfino– are getting regular minutes. This year's class? Only Beno Udrih, who was the 28th player selected in the draft, is playing meaningful minutes.

That's 4-for-14, not what you'd call an impressive track record.

NBA GMs who were predicting an international explosion just two years ago are backing off now. A backlash appears to be brewing despite the claim by several top international scouts that this year's draft crop is the deepest they've ever seen.

Many GMs no longer want to hear it.

Says one top international scout: "They're still sending me overseas, but the interest isn't really there. I'm collecting reports, getting them information, but the feedback has dwindled to nothing. I think my bosses have lost interest until someone finds the next Nowitzki or Gasol."

Great fundamentals, killer outside shots and long legs haven't translated into big numbers for the last two crops of international players. No one knows this more than Milicic, who wears the burden of being drafted ahead of Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade like a millstone around his neck.

The Darko Side

Pistons coach Larry Brown still cannot take his eyes off Darko. In training camp this fall, Darko is still the focal point of much of Brown's attention in practice.

"I think he's much further along than he was last year, but I still don't know that he's going to break into this lineup," Brown said.

"I'm happy with his improvement. I think he's only going to get better because of his surroundings. He tries. He's in a situation now, though, where he's playing on a veteran team, and he's just 19 years old. He should be a sophomore in college this year."

Darko Milicic is doing what he can to reflect the Pistons' confidence in him.

The excuses are all reasonable. The Pistons are the champs – a veteran team that has little use for a 19-year-old unproven big man. They have one of, if not the deepest front lines in the league. Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess would start ahead of him, no matter what team he's on. Elden Campbell and Derrick Coleman are more questionable, but each player has experience that Darko can't touch.

But the perception that Milicic is a bust lingers. The praise for him was so high among scouts, executives and Insider before the draft that folks struggle to understand why his talent has not elevated him above the log jams in Detroit. LeBron James, Anthony and Wade likely would have done so in Detroit.

"Its a great luxury to be sitting here as the World Champions and have a young, talented player like Darko waiting in the wings," Pistons president Joe Dumars told Insider. "We've always viewed Darko being a big part of our future and nothing has changed.

"We've said from Day 1 that we're never going to rush Darko out on the floor, because we were lucky enough to be a title contender and get the number two pick in the '03 draft. We feel it's the best of both worlds."

The Pistons can afford to be patient. They don't need him and think that the daily beatings he takes at the hands of Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace every day are enough for right now. Both Wallaces had high praise for Darko when Insider talked to them in October, predicting that he would be a star in the league someday, in part, because of the education he was getting on the practice floor each day.

"Darko comes to practice everyday and has to battle and learn from Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace, Antonio McDyess and Elden Campbell; we see that as a tremendous plus for Darko and the Pistons," Dumars said.

That may not be exactly what Darko wants to hear. But it's the reality in Detroit. A reality his agent, Marc Cornstein, said he's dealing with.

"As his agent, my concern is for Darko, not the Pistons, so of course I'm not happy that he doesn't play," Cornstein told Insider. "However, I also recognize that he's in a great situation for the long term. The improvement has been remarkable. If Darko can remain patient, he's going to come out of this situation as a better player. I think he understands that."

Unfortunately for needier teams that take kids like this in the lottery – patience is a luxury they just no longer have.

The Darko Backlash

Darko isn't the first 19 year old to see most of his game action passing out towels. The NBA has been drafting teenagers for years. While there are success stories here and there (like LeBron James or Amare Stoudemire), in most cases it has taken the teenagers several years to develop.

"People want to see their team's rookies come in and perform right away, but that's not the norm," Dumars said. "Usually you have to wait and be patient with a lot of the young guys coming into the league now."

Even the Bobcats' Primo Brezec (left with ball) took a while to warrant playing time.

Dumars then rattles off some the names of players who did nothing in their first few years in the league. High school kids like Tracy McGrady and Jermaine O'Neal. College players like Zach Randolph, Corey Maggette and Chauncey Billups.

We're still waiting on some young Americans like Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry and Jonathan Bender.

International teenagers are proving to be not so different from their American counterparts. Players like Dirk Nowitzki and most recently, Primoz Brezec, took several years before they took off.

Still, a number of GMs Insider spoke with are concerned. For years, the conventional wisdom of drafting international players was that what they lacked in athleticism or flash, they made up for in fundamentals and experience.

Many of the top international players have been playing pro ball since they were 16 years old. A number of them played for the top teams in Europe. Compared to the Americans coming out of high school or leaving college early, they were veterans.

Now, that's not the case. Players like Nowitzki, Vladimir Radmanovic, Hedo Turkoglu, Andrei Kirilenko, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Nenad Krstic and Pavel Podkolzine were drafted sight unseen. They were young and unproven. Their virtues and flaws were no different that what the American high school kids brought to the table.

"It's our own fault," one NBA GM said. "We keep taking kids younger and younger and expect more and more for them. We strip-mined college basketball, and now we're doing it internationally. The fact that these kids aren't ready shouldn't be a surprise. At their age, and with their lack of experience, they shouldn't be ready."

Three years after drafting a teenaged Kwame Brown No. 1 overall, the Wizards are still waiting for payback.

They haven't been for the most part, and that's caused numerous GMs to balk at making the plunge. Last year a record 38 international underclassmen declared for the draft and a shocking 30 of them pulled out of it when they found out that teams no longer were hungry for unproven international teenagers with no playing experience.

Players like Peja Samardziski, Martynas Andriuskevicius, Kosta Perovic, Damir Omerhodzic and Johan Petro would have had great shots at the lottery in previous years but could no longer get teams to guarantee them that status in the 2004 draft.

Teams have to have the appetite to draft kids who aren't ready right away. Many teams no longer do. Not at least for the moment anyway.

Of the 15 GMs Insider talked to researching the piece, only six of them said that all things being equal, they'd take a talented international player over a talented American one.

"If there was a clear difference, maybe," one GM said. "But people thought there was a clear difference between Darko and everyone else not named LeBron. I'd hate to be the guy who, in a rebuilding situation, passed on a Wade or a Carmelo for a project, no matter what the long-term upside might be. It's just easier to get a better handle on what the American kids can be. The system is more familiar and we have an easier time putting together a track record."

That seems to be the dominant theme as teams gear up for this year's draft. But like most draft trends, things eventually will change.

"These things go in cycles," one veteran NBA scout told Insider. "Our bosses are smart guys, but they like to play the trends. They look at what worked last year and tell us to go find one, too. Two years ago they wanted us to find the next Nowitzki. Then it was the next LeBron. Now it's the next Dwyane Wade. If an international player has a breakout year, they'll be interested in those guys again."

The Top of the Mountain

The dilemma with Darko hasn't scared everyone away from top international players. However, the teams that are still interested happen to be teams like the Pistons, Spurs, Nets, Mavs and Jazz – teams that have had success picking off talented players later in the draft.

That doesn't bode well for this year's international class, despite the fact that a number of NBA scouts claim that it is the most talented and deepest international draft class ever.

There are currently 14 prospects projected by scouts as possible first-round picks next year. Nemanja Aleksandrov (18), Martynas Andruiskevicius (18), Peja Samardzski (18), Oleksiy Pecherov (18), Uros Tripkovic (18), Sergio Rodriguez (18), Rudy Fernandez (19), Tiago Splitter (19), Kosta Perovic (19), Johan Petro (19), Andrea Bargnani (19) and Damir Omerhodzic (19) are all under 20 years old. Only Roko Ukic (20), Fran Vasquez (21) and Mile Ilic (20) break the barrier.

The nature of the draft is continuing to evolve. Ten years ago, the lottery was meant to restock bad teams with good players who could come in and immediately turn around fortunes. Now, it's only a matter of time before KinderCare jumps aboard as the official sponsor of the 2010 NBA Draft.

Ironically, it's been the teams that often reach for the less proven prospect that end up reaping the greatest rewards. LeBron, despite the hype, didn't have the track record of Carmelo. Dwight Howard didn't have the pedigree of Emeka Okafor.

If you can put your team in a position where you can be patient, the reward could be very, very high this year. This is the thing with the cyclical thinking in the draft. Most teams are followers, trying to duplicate what the innovators have achieved. By the time they are on the bandwagon, it can get awfully crowded.

It's the teams that aren't afraid to set the curve – the Pistons, Spurs and Mavs of the world – who keep consistently scoring draft night coups.

There's an old Zen proverb that states: "You will find no reasonable men on the tops of great mountains."

Reason begs for the familiar, safest route. Greatness demands that you move past the charted waters into open sea.

Which path do you want your team on?

Chad Ford covers the NBA for ESPN Insider.