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Every year more than 100 players travel across continents to play in the NBA. What did that experience look like 30 years ago? Who helps players navigate the adjustment? How has it changed over the years? And how has it changed the NBA?

By Andrew Sharp

On opening night, NBA rosters featured 108 international players from 42 different countries and territories. Every team in the league featured at least one player born outside the United States, and new international players arrive each year, ready to begin a career thousands of miles from home. It’s become routine around the sport. But what does that routine entail? Who helps international players navigate the adjustment? How has the transition changed over the years? And how has it changed the NBA?

Almost every night there’s a new testament to the league's globalized reality. Latvia's Kristaps Porzingis has inherited the Knicks kingdom and given fans renewed hope in New York City, while Finland’s Lauri Markkanen is looking to do the same thing in Chicago. Giannis Antetokounmpo, of Greek and Nigerian descent, has emerged as an MVP candidate and a leader in All-Star voting. Joel Embiid is a Philadelphia cult hero by way of Cameroon. Australia's Ben Simmons is one of the most dominant rookies the league has seen in a decade. All of them have injected new life into the league through the first half of the 2017-2018 regular season.

“So many players are coming over here and playing at a high level, in the best league in the world,” Porzingis says. “It’s good to see. It means we're doing something right as a basketball system.”

“It’s because of guys like Dirk Nowitzki,” Antetokounmpo says. “Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and those guys. Even older, Drazen Petrovic. They set the path for us.”

The NBA has spent almost 30 years working with international players and building toward the era fans have today. It's a story that began in earnest with the Soviet Union at the 1988 Olympics and continued with several chapters from there. To appreciate what the players and the league have built, and how it changed the sport we have today, The Crossover spoke to the people who lived this journey along the way.

Vlade Divac during his rookie season with the Lakers in 1989.
Mike Powell/Getty Images

I. Challenges and Solutions

“This is agent, league office, team office, outside counsel, great relationships with our government.”

In 1985, Jerry Colangelo and the Suns drafted Georgi Glouchkov, a massive big man from Bulgaria. He was nicknamed “the Balkan Banger” and was heavily promoted by the team’s marketing department, but he never lived up to the hype on the floor. He struggled with NBA training regimens, language difficulties, and lifestyle adjustments. As one person remembered, “There were a lot of nights when he was out with Stolichnaya elbow.” Glouchkov left after one season in Phoenix.

 There have been two critical developments since 1985. First, thanks to the Soviet Union's Gold medal at the Seoul Olympics and the Atlanta Hawks’ tour through Russia, the Soviet Union began allowing the truly elite European players to matriculate to the NBA. “That was a game-changer,” the NBA’s Kim Bohuny says. “A lot of the other countries in Eastern Europe could not take that step until the Soviet Union took that step.”

The second development was the emergence of employees like Bohuny. When the NBA welcomed Vlade Divac, Sarunas Marciulionis, Drazen Petrovic and other European pros in 1989, the league was looking to avoid a repeat of the Glouchkov disappointment. Bohuny had been working for the league’s partners at Turner Sports, and between helping to plan the Goodwill Games in Moscow and working on the Hawks’ Soviet Tour, she was well-acquainted with international players and well-positioned to assist in the transitions of those who arrived in America. “Just everyday life,” she says, “Drivers licenses. Learning English. Helping on and off the court.”

What began as part-time work for Bohuny in 1989 has become the NBA’s International Basketball Operations today—a department that builds infrastructure around the world, and works hand-in-hand with all 30 teams to put today’s international players in a position to succeed.

Kim Bohuny

Senior Vice President, International Basketball Operations, NBA

I've been doing this for 26 years now, and it’s changed a little bit over time. Take Manute Bol—I remember Wes Unseld telling me a story. They put him up in a house, and the next day he doesn't come to practice. So they go the house and say, “Are you OK?” He'd never been in cold weather before, and he had a runny nose. And he thought he was, like, gravely ill. So the difference between then, and Giannis and Kristaps now, is they know America. When the pioneers came over, they had never seen NBA games on TV. There were no computers then. The language barrier was huge.

Vlade Divac

Kings General Manager; Lakers Center (1989-1996) | Serbia

Right now, it's great. But back then, it was a culture shock. Off the court, obviously, but even basketball style. It was like two different sports.

Alexander Wolff

Former Sports Illustrated Senior Writer, Author of Big Game, Small World

The standard of training and the expectations that the NBA had took a few of the early Europeans by surprise. I remember Zarko Paspalj, he was on the Spurs for a while, and he would smoke cigarettes in the locker room. That might go over in Split or Dubrovnik [two cities in Croatia], but it's not gonna go over in an NBA locker room. And it was an easy stereotype, but for a while I think there was some truth to the idea that they weren't hard-nosed defenders.

Sarunas Marciulionis

Naismith Hall of Famer; Warriors Shooting Guard (1989-1993) | Lithuania

It was [different] intensity. And different drills. Now, kids in the U.S. or Europe, it's the same drills. That's the impact of U.S. coaches and college coaches coming over. The whole training system is pretty much the same. But at that time, it was: Whew. We never had a clue. Rotations, footwork, when to push the ball. It was tough. It took a while.

Alexander Wolff

You look at a guy like Petrovic, his entire game was the Balkan Pete Maravich. Creativity is what drew him to the game. That's what he loved. It was only after Rich Dalatri, the trainer with the Nets, put him on this incredible workout regimen, where he became this physical monster and he showed you he could be as competitive on defense as he was creative on offense. So I think that switch went off for a lot of these guys, where they knew that was going to be expected of them.

Drazen Petrovic (center) during the 1993 NBA playoffs.
Dick Raphael/Getty Images

Donnie Nelson

Mavericks General Manager; Warriors Assistant Coach (1986–94)

The early years, Petrovic and Divac and Sarunas, that first wave of guys, there was more than just the average rookie hazing. There was a misconception within the general public with some of these guys. Even though they played for the Soviet Union, they had no choice. You know? So there were some, let's call them “residual cold war effects.”

Vlade Divac

It was tough. I had to go through it to get respect not just from teammates, but also the coaches, the referees, other players. I was one of the first Europeans coming here to make it happen, trying to prove that we play basketball all over the world.

“That first wave of guys, there was more than just the average rookie hazing. There were some, let’s call them ‘residual cold war effects.’ ”

— Donnie Nelson

Donnie Nelson

I think there was a really cool backstory that happened within our locker room [in Golden State with Marciulionis], and then other locker rooms as well. Magic [Johnson] embraced Vlade as only Magic can. In the early days it was human beings like Magic, and Chris [Mullin], and Mitch [Richmond], and I'm sure there were a lot of other guys in a lot of other locker rooms who did the same thing.

Vlade Divac

I was lucky in terms of getting the right organization. The people—from the business side, to the basketball operations, teammates, coaches—everybody helped in some way. Like a teammate named Mark McNamara. He didn't play a lot, but he was a guy who was actually my first English teacher. He would teach me English, I would teach him Serbian. Later on, A.C. Green was also somebody who taught me about the NBA lifestyle. How to be on time, how to do our job. And on the court, it was Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Byron Scott.

Magic Johnson (right) and Vlade Divac (left) at the Boston Garden in 1992.
Dick Raphael/Getty Images

Donnie Nelson

When guys like Mitch Richmond, Chris Mullin, and certainly a guy like Magic, are all in the forefront—recognizing that these guys can help your team win, putting arms around them, making them feel part of things—that's where sports really cut through all this political, racial, religious dogma. It brings people closer together.

Vlade Divac

Mychal Thompson had a big part of it too, just making me feel good. His wife helped my wife a ton, just adjusting socially. Klay was small back then, but it was his kids playing with my kids, you know? Everybody in the Forum Club together. And when somebody embraces you like that, you feel comfortable.

Donnie Nelson

Those things were all critical to those early, let's call them the “Jackie Robinson International Years”. That really set the stage.

Vlade Divac

It's totally different now. Back then when I grew up, I had a chance to watch two, maybe three games a year. It wasn't live either. It was more like on tapes. VHS.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Milwaukee Bucks | Greece

My welcome to the NBA moment... I saw Kyrie Irving, it was the first preseason game. I saw Kyrie coming out to warm up, and that was a guy I was playing with on NBA 2K. So I saw him, and I was like, “Oh, there’s Kyrie.”

Kyrie Irving (left) and Giannis Antetokounmpo go head-to-head during Antetokounmpo's second year in the NBA.
Jason Miller/Getty Images

Aylton Tesch

Agent to Several International Players

Most of the players coming here have done the research on the internet. Like 20 years ago, a guy from Europe would come here, that would be a different thing. But now, no way. Any city you're going to, they have seen pictures, they know what to expect.

Brooks Meek

NBA Vice President, International Basketball Operations & Head of Elite Basketball

But at the end of the day, they're still going through stuff. Their families are somewhere else, or they've got visa issues. There are common struggles that bond them together.

Kim Bohuny

What happens is, Brooks and myself and other members of our [NBA International Operations] department, we go and visit each team. It's a collaborative effort. So when an [international] player comes [to the NBA], we'll be with the players through the draft, and the minute they go to their team, we work with the teams.

“It’s because of guys like Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and those guys. Even older, Drazen Petrovic. They set the path for us.”

— Giannis Antetokounmpo

Brooks Meek

The minute they're drafted and sign a contract, the team, with our help, they'll file for an employment visa. It's a P1-visa, which allows them to play. And if they're married, their spouse gets to be part of that. If they have a girlfriend, the girlfriend doesn't get to be part of that [P1-visa]. We then have to work with the team on what to do for the girlfriend. Like with [one NBA player], his girlfriend, he's not engaged yet. But she's in pharmaceutical school, so we'll look at a student visa for her to maybe finish in [NBA city] next year. So everything's a little different.

Aylton Tesch

Sometimes family has to understand, it doesn't matter how much money your brother makes. If you're not a citizen or you don't have a visa, you have to go home. If you overstay, they'll never let you back. So those issues are what we try to avoid.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

It was difficult [in year one]. I felt lonely at times. Thank God, I had people around me that helped me on a daily basis. But it was definitely hard living without my family here.

Brooks Meek

Giannis is a great example. His situation was unique. Giannis is Nigerian, his family is all Nigerian, and they were refugees in Greece. So you have that situation before he even gets to the NBA. Then when he gets to the NBA, his family are still Nigerians, not even Greek passport holders at the time. And that entire family wants to be with Giannis. So you have to look at the immigration laws, and figure out: what's the right way to get his family with him?

Giannis Antetokounmpo holding the Greek flag after being selected 15th overall in the 2013 NBA draft.
Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Giannis Antetokounmpo

That was the only time I've felt lonely in my entire life.

Brooks Meek

We worked with the Bucks and [decided] his dad was a support mechanism for him. There's a P1-visa, which is the athlete, and then there's a P1-S visa, which is supporting [for family members]. A good way to look at [the P1-S visa]: if you're a lead singer in a band, there's also a drummer. So that's the way we got around it [with Giannis]. But it's complicated, and it takes time, and it has to be done the right way.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

They helped a lot. [The team and the league] have the best people with everything. Even the little things, just setting up a bank account. Everything, you know? They did a great job making me feel comfortable. They knew my family wasn't here, and they took care of the visas. Every little thing, they helped.

Brooks Meek

This is not a one- or two-person operation. This is agent, league office, team office, outside counsel, great relationships with our government. Everybody wants these players to succeed, it's just a matter of doing it the right way.

Arturas Karnisovas

General Manager, Denver Nuggets

I worked with Kim and Brooks for five years [at the NBA]. They take pride in working with international players, their families, and making them comfortable. They work very closely with teams.

“It was difficult in year one in Milwaukee. That was the only time I’ve felt lonely in my entire life.”

— Giannis Antetokounmpo

Kim Bohuny

What we do each year, it changes. Like at lunch with the Nuggets [last year]. With [Juancho] Hernangomez, we talk about how he's getting settled. Just making sure he's OK. With Jusuf [Nurkic], he wanted to work on a green card. So we started that process with him, getting letters of support, so his aunt and uncle could come visit him. And he did his first camp [in Bosnia], so this year we're planning on how to support him, and next summer he'll do a three-day camp in Sarajevo. And with Gallo [(]Danilo Gallinari], he’s in year nine.

Brooks Meek

With Gallinari, he becomes basically a member of the family. All the international guys—you go through good times, bad times, injuries, language difficulties.

Kim Bohuny

We met with [an NBA rookie] and you could tell, his English is good, but he misses the little things. So we spoke with the team, and we're working with them to get an English tutor right away. We're all collectively talking. Even if the game is more global now, it’s still… You’re not in your country. Your family and friends are far away.

Marcin Gortat

Washington Wizards | Poland

One thing I'll just say is: you gotta learn English. You gotta pick it up as fast as possible. And then, you just gotta understand that you're gonna make mistakes saying certain words, or using different terms, and there will be times you don't understand what they're talking about. So, you gotta toughen up with that part. They’re gonna make fun of you, they're gonna crack jokes, that's what's gonna happen. You're in their country, not the other way around, that's the way it is. You gotta learn with Americans.

Ricky Rubio

Utah Jazz | Spain

It's not the same speaking it, to really living in it. Like Spain, people speak English, but we don't speak it that well. So I come over here, and to process all that, it's hard. In the beginning there's just a wall that you have between you and your teammates, between you and the coaches.

Timofey Mozgov

Brooklyn Nets | Russia

The first year, I didn't speak great English. So sometimes when they try to give me rookie duties, I'd act like I didn't speak English. I understood what they wanted to me to do, like, “Hey hey, bring those towels out.” But then I go “What? What? What?”

Goran Dragic

Miami Heat | Slovenia

It's a different language, but it's a lot of different stuff. It's different food. When I came here, everything was so sweet, you know? Too sweet. I had some trouble with that in the beginning. You’re working hard, you're practicing hard, and after practice you need to eat well. If the food is not… If you're not familiar with this kind of food, it gets a little bit tough.

“The first year, I didn’t speak great English. So sometimes when they try to give me rookie duties, I’d act like I didn’t speak English. I understood what they wanted to me to do, like, ‘Hey hey, bring those towels out.’ But then I go ‘What? What? What?’ ”

— Timofey Mozgov

Dario Saric

Philadelphia 76ers | Croatia

The food… the oil. There's more oil than what I ate in Croatia. I get a little bit fat because of that.

Timofey Mozgov

It takes you some time. You don't get a lot of the soups or other food you find in Russia.

Danilo Gallinari (left) and Timofey Mozgov enjoying a meal on a Nuggets' team flight in 2014.
Garrett W. Ellwood/Getty Images

Ricky Rubio

Minneapolis impressed me. At that time, I was a little afraid of the cold. Everybody was telling me it was super cold over there. But actually, people were super nice. Great restaurants. It's one of the most underrated cities in the league for sure.

Dario Saric

That commercial, that show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I think that's not true. The last couple months, I didn't see the sun. Except for L.A., maybe San Francisco. I like Philly, but I'm from a very sunny part of Croatia, so the weather, it could be better.

Ricky Rubio

When I was young, I remember watching Iverson. Friday and Saturday nights were the nights I could stay up late. Games were at like 2, 3 in the morning. I was 10 years old. I'd sneak out of the bedroom and get back to the living room to try and watch. Watching all those players in the NBA, I never thought about playing. But then once the ball was on the court, I forgot about who they were, and just played basketball.

James Harden (left) driving against Dario Saric (center) in 2017.
Darren Carroll/Getty Images

Dario Saric

[James] Harden, he always scored on me. It was unbelievable. Five, six times, he always scored on me. I think, “What can I do?” I was so close to him, I tried to contest every shot, but he scored, scored, scored. It was a really unbelievable night. All the players, you know? Like Russell [Westbrook], he's hungry for every possession. LeBron, his IQ is bigger than anyone. At the game against Bradley Beal, he scored on me, some stepback three. And he called me, like, “come here, come here.” And I talked to him like, “You are a very good player, you are almost All-Star, why you talk to me? For you it's easy to score three points.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo

[Carmelo Anthony], I don't remember what he said [during Antetokoumpo’s first start]. Probably it just bother him that a guy like me come from overseas, just trying to play hard, and did not care about the NBA stats that he had. I was just trying to be competitive.

Dario Saric

It’s some kind of adjustment. It's hard to pick one special thing that changes. On the court, everything is one level up. Off the court, there's more travel, there's not too much time for team practices. It’s more individual.

Ricky Rubio

On the road, the hotels. We play so many games, sometimes I didn't know what room I was in. You get in a hotel at 3 in the morning, then you have meetings the next day because you're playing a back-to-back. Then you go back to your room, and the key doesn't work? It's not because the key doesn't work, it's because it's not your room.

Kim Bohuny

Another thing they have to deal with: they go back to their national teams during the summer and they’re the man. Like, Gorgui Dieng goes home to Senegal and he's the face of Senegalese basketball. Or Tomas Satoransky, his minutes are up and down for the Wizards, but Czech Republic? He's the face of the Czech Republic basketball.

Brooks Meek

You have an entire country following you. So when they're not playing, what do they say that ends up on the front page of those papers? What's said about them in the media impacts their families at home.

Kim Bohuny

If they aren't playing, the papers are like, “Well why isn't he playing? Why isn't he playing?”

Brooks Meek

It becomes, “Shouldn't have gone to the NBA, he should've stayed at home...”

“That show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I think that's not true. The last couple months, I didn't see the sun. Except for L.A., maybe San Francisco. I like Philly, but I'm from a very sunny part of Croatia, so the weather, it could be better.”

— Dario Saric

Dario Saric

When you start playing good basketball, everything’s easier. Because OK, a lot of players earn so much in this league, but everybody wants to play, everybody wants to win.

Brooks Meek

It's about minutes, it's about scoring, it's about feeling like you're playing at a high level. At the end of the day, these guys are elite athletes. They want to play, and they want to win, they want to play well.

Marcin Gortat

The biggest thing is expectations. If you're coming from a team where you're a big superstar—Real Madrid, Barcelona, Maccabi Tel Aviv, CSKA Mocsow—the expectations are huge. You're coming in as a superstar from a village, and then you're coming into the city, where you're pretty much just one of the lost guys in the city. So you gotta wait for your time.

Timofey Mozgov

I'm so much more comfortable. I can speak English, I can finally understand the menu and understand what I'm ordering. All this stuff, it gets better.

Arturas Karnisovas

This is an unbelievable life. I know there are a lot of games, but the way we’re able to do it is a blessing. I worked with Houston and was with Luis Scola. The basketball was easy for him. But the lifestyle: you drive your car, you park basically next to the private plane, you don't need to take your bag, all the luxury. He just told me, “I am never going back to Europe.”

Dirk Nowitzki at his introductory press conference in 1998.
Carolyn Herter/Getty Images

II. The Teenager Who Changed Everything

“Dirk was one of the first to ever do it.”

In the middle of October, Karnisovas was chuckling about the progress international players have made. He was named general manager of the Denver Nuggets this past summer, but before his life as an NBA executive, he was a Lithuanian power forward for Seton Hall. He came to America to play college basketball the same year his Olympic teammate Marciulionis came to play for the Warriors. “Sarunas helped change that perception for the league in terms of softness,” he said. “What a beast he was. And then obviously, the Dirk era came. Then all the NBA teams were going after any international.”

Mavs GM Donnie Nelson couldn’t help but laugh himself about the years following Nowitzki’s rise. “You had a period of time where we were just bringing over everybody and their brother.”

What Dirk became is very different than what he was in the beginning. When Nowitzki was 14 years old, he was discovered by Holger Geschwindner. The coach told Nowitzki’s parents, “You don't have the slightest idea what you have here, do you?” For a while, the same question applied to the NBA.

Marc Stein

Journalist, New York Times

I was covering the Lakers for the L.A. Daily News. And Chick Hearn, I love that man more than I could ever tell you, but I was so afraid to tell him I was leaving the Lakers beat to go cover the Mavericks. He just wouldn’t understand. My last year in L.A. was the first year of Shaq and Kobe. Of course, I wasn't leaving the Lakers for the Mavs. I was leaving the L.A. Daily News for the Dallas Morning News [in 1997], which was a no-brainer journalistically. But the Mavs were not even thought of—they just weren't a factor whatsoever.

Donnie Nelson

I was hired midway through the [1997-98] season, in January. I'd been part of the Hoop Summit for three years prior, when I was with the Suns. The training camps had always been in Oregon, because it was connected to Nike. That [year] was the first time they'd had the Hoop Summit attached to the Final Four, which just happened to be in San Antonio. I think they chose Dallas [for the training camp] because it was logistically much easier to fly everyone in, gather in Dallas, and then take the short flight to San Antonio to play the actual game. It's kind of serendipitous that it all came together.

Marc Stein

It’s funny, because I knew the Hoop Summit practices were happening in Dallas, but the legend of it all, I didn't get that until later. I didn't even see the broadcast. My main memory of that game was that Dirk went nuts, and then [Larry] Bird said, “If you went by that tape alone, you'd think he was the best ever.”

Don Nelson

Dallas Mavericks Coach (1997-2005)

I'd never seen a high school player with the talent that Dirk Nowitzki had at seven feet.

Dirk Nowitzki

Dallas Mavericks | Germany

Donnie was the assistant coach of the Hoop Summit team, so I got to know him. But I put my name in the draft thinking that if nothing happens, I can just stay in Europe. I visited FC Barcelona, I'd visited a couple colleges. I wasn't sure what to do.

Don Nelson

The things he was able to do… dribble, pass, run, rebound, play outside. We did a whole bunch of things that we probably shouldn't have done to keep him from going to other teams and having interviews. We tried to hide him the best we could.

Donnie Nelson

Oh, I think that's my Dad, just... There's no way we could do that. At that time everyone was more focused on going down to San Antonio to watch the Final Four, but the reality is, you just can't [hide a player].

Don Nelson (left) and son Donnie Nelson (center) on the bench together in 1995.
Sam Forencich/Getty Images

Marc Stein

I remember writing something about Dirk in the days leading up to the draft, and then Nellie at that point started trying to throw me off the scent. He told me that Dan Gadzuric kicked Dirk's ass in a workout.

Don Nelson

I loved two players in that draft. Paul Pierce, he was my favorite American player. [Then] when the draft happened, we traded from No. 6 to No. 9, and I think we got an extra million dollars to do that. But I told [Milwaukee], you can't draft one player if he's there, and that was Dirk. So we did all that, and Dirk was still there. But so was Pierce!

Donnie Nelson

You can imagine how excruciating that was. By that time, we had gone so far down the road with our discussions with Dirk... We all loved him. And we also thought Paul [Pierce] would go no later than five.

Don Nelson

We go to a private area of our draft room, and there are about five of our top scouts, Donnie, and myself. I said, “Donnie, that's my favorite player. Pierce, I love this guy. He's gonna be an All-Star, no question. I love Dirk, but boy…”

Donnie Nelson

My Dad was looking at Pierce and saw this can't-miss, walk-into-the-league, ready-to-go rookie. He would've made our first two years a lot less painful. I think what flashed in front of his eyes was, man, one guy's gonna step in and be a Rookie of the Year and perennial All-Star, and the other guy is gonna take more time. We felt the Dirk was going to be the better player, but we just didn't know if we were going to survive the two years it would take to get us to that point. So he looked at me, tongue in cheek, and said, “Well son, what are you gonna do?”

Don Nelson

Donnie goes, “Come on Dad. We made a deal. We're taking him.”

“You had a period of time where we were just bringing over everybody and their brother.”

— Donnie Nelson

Michael Finley

Dallas Mavericks (1996-2005)

I hadn't read or heard anything about him. But then draft night I was with some friends, and I had questions. Like “Who is this kid? Can he play?”

Marc Stein

After they drafted him I said to Nellie, “I thought you said Gadzuric kicked Dirk's ass!” He said, “You know you should never believe anything I say before the draft.”

Don Nelson

And Dirk was a natural, man. He walked into training camp and everybody knew it—coaches, everybody on the team, they all just went, “Holy smokes.”

Dirk Nowitzki driving during a German League game in 1998 in Wurzburg, Germany.
Holger Sauer/Getty Images

Michael Finley

He had unbelievable skills for a guy his size. Guard-like skills. It was pretty impressive. He could shoot with both hands, pretty athletic off the dribble. He had the total package. It's just that he was still raw. The American culture, the American game. He still had to learn.

Dirk Nowitzki

It was tough. You know, it was a lockout year, so I was playing in Germany because I hadn't signed my contract yet. So I get a call from frickin’ Donnie, in the middle of January, like “Come over, the season starts in two weeks.” Like, what?

Marc Stein

He’d been kind of hoping that the lockout wasn't going to end so he could spend that whole season in Germany. He'd never played at a high level. Like Porzingis played a season in Spain's top division. He played a really high level of basketball before the Knicks got him. Dirk didn't.

Dirk Nowitzki

It would've been a transition anyways. But to basically have to grasp everything in 10-day training camp, I was lost. I'd never lived without my parents. Being away from them, 11 flight hours, it was rough. My language wasn't great. I could understand well, but I was really shy. I wasn't speaking much. And the game was different.

Donnie Nelson

The club system they’re used to, it's a lot more incubated. Whereas here, we're dog eat dog. You come to practice, you better get your gladiator gear on. People are fighting for jobs, for their families. And a guy like Dirk comes in as a 7-foot-tall drink of water, trying to play power forward against guys like Karl Malone, getting thrown around like a rag doll.

Karl Malone (back) going at Dirk Nowitzki in 2002.
Glenn James/Getty Images

Dirk Nowitzki

On every team there was one guy [who made life difficult]. Anthony Mason… Charles Oakley was still in the league. All the old school guys from the ‘90s were still there. Big, physical, strong—they were tough.

Marc Stein

Before that season even started, Don Nelson did something that was great for me, but not exactly awesome for Dirk. He told me that Dirk was going to win Rookie of the Year. So that gave me a great little story, but that kind of put a bullseye on Dirk.

Michael Finley

That made the X on his back even larger. Everyone was going to challenge him, going against him on the defensive end, or challenging him to make plays on the offensive end.

Marc Stein

At the Morning News, our NBA columnist at the time was Bart Hubbuch, and every Sunday in his column he'd compare Dirk's numbers to Paul Pierce. You know, Pierce who's NBA-ready right off the bat, playing great. And as much as people would talk about Dirk vs. Pierce, there was a game at home where Steve Nash got booed every time he touched it. So, it was rough for both of them. If you were around that team, you never would've thought, “two future MVPs are in this locker room.”

From left to right: Dirk Nowitzki, Don Nelson and Steve Nash in 1998.
Carolyn Herter/Getty Images

Michael Finley

Off the court it was just as challenging. He was a young kid coming over to America for the first time, and not having immediate success on the court, which is the whole reason he came. So he began questioning himself as a player. You know, “Did I make the right decision to enter the draft?” and things like that.

Dirk Nowitzki

You see young guys walking in here now and they just think, like the league owes them, you know? I was not like that. I was worried.

Don Nelson

We did the best we could. I knew he was gonna get homesick and all the rest of it. Sure enough, three quarters of the way through, he asked to go home. He was struggling, and our team was struggling. He goes, “Ohhhhh I vant to go home, I vant to go home.”

Michael Finley

We just tried to take that pressure away from him. We worked out together before and after practice, we hung out whether it was at his house, Steve's house, or my house, and we just got to know each other as people. The basketball part came later. And Steve, even more than me, had a big, big impact on Dirk's early development, and not wanting to go back to Germany.

“We did the best we could. I knew Nowitzki was gonna get homesick and all the rest of it. Sure enough, three quarters of the way through, he asked to go home. He was struggling, and our team was struggling. He goes, 'Ohhhhh I vant to go home, I vant to go home.' ”

— Donnie Nelson

Dirk Nowitzki

We'd just get out of the hotel, not think about home all the time. Meeting [Nash’s] friends, because Steve went to college in the states. So he had people all over the U.S. Just getting out for dinners, movies, and getting to know people—[it helped] not just being at home, homesick all the time.

Don Nelson

Steve Nash was his best friend. They hung out every day. He and Steve and Finley were always together. They were my three best players, too.

Steve Nash (left) and Dirk Nowitzki in 1999.
Chris Covatta/Getty Images

Dirk Nowitzki

Fin showed me how to be a pro. How to deal with media, appearances, on and off the floor. How to prepare. He was my guy, and both of them are still great friends to this day. They helped me get [through] a lot of stuff off the floor, and helped me get comfortable.

Marc Stein

Fin was the star of the team. But as those guys grew, he was more than willing to share it with them. It wasn't like, "No, I'm the guy..." He just wasn't like that. The three of them just meshed really, really well.

Michael Finley

We took our lumps early, but we grew together. We hung out, went to the movies, just got to know each other as people. And because of that, our transition to becoming a real, good team happened quicker than some thought it would.

Donnie Nelson

It was two years in, before Steve Nash could make a jumpshot, and while Dirk was getting thrown around, that's when Mark Cuban came in and bought the team. We all thought we were history. My dad's fear on draft night probably should’ve come true.

Marc Stein

Cuban came in Jan. 4, 2000. Everyone was convinced Nellie was gone.

From left to right: Steve Nash, Mark Cuban and Dirk Nowitzki in 2001.
Glenn James/Getty Images

Donnie Nelson

We we were getting heavily criticized both locally and nationally -- you know, Canadian point guard, Dirk getting compared to Uwe Blab and all these other Mavericks [draft busts]—Mark had every right to come in and fire us. Honestly, that was the popular sentiment at the time. But Mark went with his gut and embraced us.

Marc Stein

They really finished the season strong. You could probably make the case that the [Dennis] Rodman signing derailed them. They might have sneaked into the playoffs. I think Rodman was there for 12 games, it felt like 120 games. But they were definitely over-.500 from the time Cuban took over, and by then, Dirk was playing pretty well. They were suddenly this young, on-the-rise team.

Donnie Nelson

For me personally, that second year—Dirk started coming into his own, he and Steve were really starting to click—I think it was as much relief as satisfaction.

Michael Finley

When Dirk finally realized that he could be one of the best players in the league and got that chip on his shoulder, that superstar's ego, that’s when I knew we had a chance to be good. The year we went to Utah and beat [Stockton and Malone] three out of five, he was getting the attention from opposing teams and players, and he wasn't backing down. He was still putting up his numbers. I knew right there, this is it, this guy's about to take off.

Kim Bohuny

When he came into the league, I called Holger [Geschwindner] and said, “I'm gonna fly down to see how everything's going, and check on Dirk.”

Marc Stein

He’d lived with his parents until the minute he came to Dallas. There's a lady in the Dallas organization, her name is Lisa Tyner, and she basically had to teach Dirk about paying bills, and how to look after himself. He was just thrown into this man's world with no prep whatsoever.

Kim Bohuny

I sat with Dirk and Holger, and said, “So, have you decided who’s going to be your American agent?” And he said, “Ehhhh.... No. I'm going to have Holger do it.” So I said, “OK, well, if everything goes well you're going to make a lot of money in your life. Should we think about a financial manager?” And he said, “No, my mother has a degree in accounting, she's gonna handle it.” Everything I said, it was someone in the family. “No, [Dirk’s sister] Silke's going to run everything if I get a foundation.” And by the way, nothing has changed. Look at the board of his foundation now. It's his mom, his sister, Holger, now his wife, Lisa Tyner from the Mavs, and myself. That's it. That's what's so great about him.

From left to right: Jessica Nowitzki (Dirk Nowitzki's wife), Dirk, Helga Nowitzki (Dirk's mother), Hoelger Geschwindner (Dirk's trainer and agent), Silke Nowitzki (Dirk's sister) and Joerg-Werner Nowitzki (Dirk's father).
Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Dirk Nowitzki

To be standing here 19 years later, it's been bizarre. It's been surreal. It’s been a crazy ride. I've been fortunate. Fortunate to have a great owner, a great coach at the beginning with Nellie, who gave me a lot of confidence. Great teammates, starting with Steve and Mike, J-Kidd helping me get the ring. It's been a crazy ride, and I've enjoyed every year.

Michael Finley

People would hate for me to say this, but I think the best thing for Dirk was not going to college. If he'd have gone to college, they would've put him right on the box and tried to make him an inside player. But with Coach Nelson he got to shoot the three, put the ball on the deck, do a lot of the things guards do. Dirk was one of the first to ever do it.

Marc Stein

It's just so funny—back in those days, Dirk was greeted by nothing but skepticism. It was, “Oh, he's gonna be soft like all these other foreign guys.” And then all of the sudden it became, “We gotta go find the next Nowitzki.”

Kristaps Porzingis rising up for a dunk in 2017.
Nathaniel S. Butler/Getty Images

III. It’s LAT-VIA, not LA-TIVIA

“They are your family, they are your friends.”

The race to find the next Dirk included a number of missteps. Names like Darko Milicic, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, and Andrea Bargnani became cautionary tales for teams looking to unearth the next international Hall of Famer. While each story was complicated in its own specific ways—language difficulties, lack of experience, unreasonable expectations—there have been some general changes that make the transition less treacherous today.

“I mean I was in the ACB League,” Kristaps Porzingis says, “and I was playing against grown men at 17 years old. That helped me a lot with the transition. Obviously there are lifestyle differences, basketball differences. The NBA is even more athletic. It's faster, everybody's even stronger, but playing ACB kinda prepared me for that next level.”

So some of the dynamics have evolved since Nowitzki was playing second-division pro basketball in Germany. But there’s one lesson from Nowitzki’s story that holds true across generations. Just as Dirk needed Nash and Finley, talk to almost any international player in the league, and they will mention teammates or coaches who made the adjustment easier.

Kristaps Porzingis

New York Knicks | Latvia

The transition was actually kind of easy for me, compared to what I had to go through when I was 15 years old. I moved from Latvia to Spain, I didn't speak a word of Spanish. That was the hard part. This was easy for me. Obviously there are some things that are different just living-wise and basketball, but the last year in Seville helped me a lot. Being with an American coach, it helped my English, it helped me learn the basketball terminology.

Jordi Fernandez

Assistant Coach, Denver Nuggets | Spain

English is the No. 1 language in basketball all over the world. Even in Spain, even though the whole practice may not be in English, the main terms are in English. That makes it easier [when players get to the NBA].

Kristaps Porzingis

I connected quickly with the guys on my team. I had good veterans like Carmelo and Sasha Vujacic. They helped me get comfortable. So it was smooth for me. The worst part of coming in here, you have to do all the rookie stuff again. You play for I don't know how many years professionally, and then you have come in and wear these pink backpacks.

Willy Hernangomez

New York Knicks | Spain

I come from a big city too, in Madrid, so it's not that tough to deal with New York. More people, more noise, but it's not tough. But to go from ACB in Barcelona to the NBA, that was tough.

Kristaps Porzingis

A guy like Willy, he needed a little bit of help in the beginning. It was important for him to have Europeans on the team.

“The worst part of coming in here is that you have to do all the rookie stuff again. You play for I don’t know how many years professionally, and then you have come in and wear these pink backpacks.”

— Kristaps Porzingis

Willy Hernangomez

Everybody knows KP, for me, is a brother. [Porzingis] tried to make things easy. He gave me advice, he helped me on the court, off the court. And I’ve tried to give him great advice too. This [season] is a big moment for him, and we’re going to take care of each other.

Brooks Meek

It’s a different, deeper connection [with international players]. Even if it's a guy from Slovenia and a guy from France, or a guy from Brazil with a guy from Russia. Whatever it is, they're going through the same experience. They're in a different culture.

Juancho Hernangomez

Denver Nuggets | Spain

I got lucky because I'd played summer league. I could get my body and mind ready. But my brother, he had to come straight to the NBA, so I tried to help him.

Willy Hernangomez

We do FaceTime every day. We are brothers, so we talk about how does it go. From the beginning, it was all really new for us. We were talking every day, like, “Oh, I did the running test.” And then: “Ah! I have that tomorrow, how was it?”

Juancho Hernangomez

In my situation I came here alone. My mom helped me when we started the season, but then I tried to do everything on my own. Jordi Fernandez, a Spanish coach [who left the Cavaliers to join the Nuggets in 2016], he helped me a lot.

Jordi Fernandez

I was 26 years old, so fairly young, when I got here. And you have to go through getting your social security number. How do you build credit, how do you get a credit card? How do you get a phone? Or health insurance. I had to do it on my own, and I would put myself in [Juancho’s] situation. Being 20 years old, trying to buy a car, but then you need to register, get the plates...

Juancho Hernangomez

Jordi helped me with everything. The car, the apartment, how to pay taxes, even how to get internet in my apartment. These are easy things, but when you're from Spain and living in Denver, it seems really hard.

Jordi Fernandez

I actually coached his brother Willy, on the Spanish U-19 team for the World Championships, so I've known his family and known his parents. They know that [Juancho] has somebody here. He also has a good relationship with my wife, so he can practice English with somebody else that's not a player.

Willy Hernangomez

For Juancho, [Jordi] is his coach, he works out with him. But he's also a friend. They go to dinner at his house. And Jordi's been in the league, so for my brother it was great to have a person who can help him every day. The same as me. I have KP, he has Jordi.

From left to right: Willy Hernangomez, Kristaps Porzingis and Juancho Hernangomez, Willy's brother.
Bart Young/Getty Images

Jordi Fernandez

Denver was new for me and my wife, too. Sometimes we'd bring [Juancho] on hikes, and go to dinner. There's always a line, because I'm one of his coaches. But personal relationships always help build stronger work relationships. And my wife and I enjoyed it, because we didn't know many people around here, either. 

Kristaps Porzingis

For us Euros, it’s always fun for us to be around each other. We understand each other better. Me and Willy, we speak Spanish, so we have a pretty good connection.

Willy Hernangomez

Actually, we speak less Spanish than last year. With new players, we're speaking English. But if we don't want nobody to understand us, we're speaking Spanish.

Brooks Meek

So you have the team helping the players, us helping the players, and then the international players taking care of each other. They all go to dinner together, they go to lunch together, they have their own way they joke around with each other.

Serge Ibaka

Toronto Raptors | Republic of the Congo

On the court, off the court, everything was new. The first time I went to Oklahoma City I didn't have a driver’s license. I remember thinking, "It's so spread out, you have to drive everywhere here.” I wasn't used to that. But Thabo [Sefolosha] was great for me. He helped me a lot. Because he spoke French, too, so he would translate everything from players and coaches.

Goran Dragic

When I came in with the Suns, I had Boris Diaw from Europe, and then Steve Nash, Grant Hill. They take care of me. Where to eat, what to do. Like restaurants, Boris took me to some European restaurants, you know—European, French. Just those small things.

Timofey Mozgov

[Danilo] Gallinari would tell me how everything works. And the way he speaks English, I can understand. I don't know, maybe because he's European. I just understand him better.

Goran Dragic

I was lucky. I had all the veteran guys to show me which way I should go. I just had to open my eyes and listen. Everyone’s situation is different. You can be in a young team that is trying to find an identity, or you can land in San Antonio... That's kind of a unique situation.

Patty Mills

San Antonio Spurs | Australia

We've formed such a tight bond in San Antonio. It doesn't just start and end with the players. It's in the front office. It's in the staff. The whole organization is different cultures. Physios, trainers, weights coaches, they're all from all over the world. You catch yourself just sitting for an hour, two hours, just talking to everyone. Everyone has a different story and a different background.

Jordi Fernandez

[American players] are key, too. Especially guys with experience. For instance, Jameer and now Paul Millsap, Wilson Chandler, those are the guys with more experience in the league, they've done a great job staying involved with our young guys' development. Not just being on the court with them and doing drills, but also talking to them and giving them advice.

Nikola Jokic

Denver Nuggets | Serbia

I had Jameer [Nelson], I had Wilson [Chandler], I had Mike [Miller]. They kinda make it easier for me to come here. They kinda make me like one of their own. I was their buddy. I still talk to Jameer and Mike, and they made my way easier.

Marcin Gortat

I had Dwight Howard, who was obviously a little clown around the [Orlando Magic]. He was making jokes, and making fun, but he definitely took me under the wing, and I'll never forget that. It was a blessing from him.

Dwight Howard (left) and Marcin Gortat in 2009
Fernando Medina/Getty Images

Giannis Antetokounmpo

The hope for international players is that they have teammates who make that adjustment easier. O.J. Mayo, Zaza Pachulia, Caron Butler—Jared Dudley helped me a lot. When there were times I didn't know what was happening, they'd be there. Even now, you know? Even now, I'm just trying to figure everything out.

Kristaps Porzingis

I remember playing one-on-one against Carmelo before my first season started. And then afterward just asking him questions about some of the moves he made on me, just listening. It was a great experience. Coming in as a rookie and not having played one game, it helped me be confident. If I can play against 'Melo, I can play against other guys in the league.

Marcin Gortat

It's about your character, I think. If you're a guy who likes to be alone and spend time on his own, that's not a good sign. Because if there's a team bonding party, you go to a restaurant, you go to a club, or one of the players organizes a party at his house to watch the boxing, the football game… You just gotta go. You're gonna get to know the guys, and they're gonna get to know you. You get to share your culture with your teammates.

Kristaps Porzingis

The first thing I had to do was teach them how to pronounce "Latvia." I'd get "LAT-IVIA" and "LA-TIVA" and all kinds of names. So that was first, but eventually they learned a lot about my country. A couple of the guys, including Kyle O'Quinn, Sasha Vujacic and Kevin Seraphin even came over there.

“It doesn’t just start and end with the players. It’s in the front office. It’s in the staff in San Antonio. The whole organization is different cultures. Physios, trainers, weights coaches, they’re all from all over the world. Everyone has a different story and a different background.”

— Patty Mills

Marcin Gortat

And then, it sounds crazy, but you gotta learn to drink brown drinks. Unfortunately. You gotta learn to drink whiskey, Hennessey, cognac—most of the brothers in the league drink brown drinks. I'm not saying you gotta give up [beers and vodka], but you gotta learn. If there's a brother that wants to share a drink with you and have a conversation, you can't just tell them "Hey, I don't drink that." That's just how it is, people gotta understand.

Dirk Nowitzki

I'm not a big brown liquor guy. I’m not a big drinker at all actually. But the beer was a little different here than it was in Germany. I've managed to survive.

Dirk Nowitzki celebrating in his hometown of Wurzburg, Germany after the Mavs won the 2011 NBA championship.
Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

Marcin Gortat

One thing Hedo [Turkoglu] gave me: shut your mouth, and open your ears and eyes. When you're in the practice, games, trips, clubs, restaurants—just shut your mouth. Keep listening, keep watching. That was the best advice. Obviously I'm a very, very loud person. I talk a lot of shit, I do a lot of clowning. But that's the advice I'd give to a young player.

Goran Dragic

Ask a lot of questions. Don't be afraid. You don't know the city, you don't have a lot of friends, but the people on your team—the players, the coaching staff—they are your family, they are your friends. If you need something and you don't where to go or what to do, ask someone on your team. They'll be more than happy. If somebody asks me, I'm happy to help.

Toronto Raptors GM Masai Ujiri (center) at a Basketball Without Borders camp in Johannesburg in 2013.
Nathaniel S. Butler/Getty Images

IV. The NBA’s Investment in the Future

“It’s building, building, building.”

When Kim Bohuny was traveling back and forth from Atlanta to the Soviet Union for Turner Sports, there were laws in place that prevented Westerners from meeting with Soviets at hotels or Soviet homes. In other words, there wasn’t much to do for fun. So at night, Bohuny would go to basketball games at the Central Army stadium in Moscow. That’s where she met Sarunas Marciulionis, Alexander Volkov, Arvydas Sabonis, and other stars from the Soviet team. And 30 years later, as senior VP of the NBA’s International Basketball Operations, her relationships continue to blur geopolitical boundaries on behalf of her employer.

“I feel so lucky,” Bohuny says of today’s landscape. “We work with so many great guys. Even when they retire—so many of our ex-players are running federations. Kirilenko in Russia, Sabonis in Lithuania, [Rasho] Nesterovic in Slovenia, [Jorge] Garbajosa just took over in Spain. Yao Ming's doing a lot of things in China to give back. We have this relationship, and it continues, and they come back to us to work to grow the game in their country. We're doing it together. That to me is something I didn't anticipate, but I really am just thrilled that it's happening.”

The NBA’s investment in international basketball has been a story of social responsibility that doubles as excellent business strategy, and that’s a good way to describe the Basketball Without Borders program—a series of development camps around the world that reward elite young players with tutelage from NBA stars and coaches, and an audience in front of scouts.

Vlade Divac

I look at Basketball Without Borders as something that makes a difference not just in the sport, but it's a life difference for some kids. I feel like it's my little baby.

Kim Bohuny

How it started was, in 2001, Vlade was in the league office on a Sunday. We were shooting a commercial for the United Nations about drugs in the Balkans. So we finish the shoot, and the UN representative said, “Can we talk to you about something? It's something we're having an issue with—we’ve tried everything to bring the youth together from the six countries in the Balkans. We've tried music, we've tried soccer. Nothing works. The animosities just run too deep.” And he said, “Basketball may be the one thing... Do you think it's something we can do?”

Alexander Wolff

There was an awkward period in the ‘90s when the war in Yugoslavia broke out. You had Divac, Radja, [Toni] Kukoc, Petrovic... The Yugoslav basketball family had produced them. And they were afraid that if TV images were being beamed back to Belgrade or Zagreb or wherever, that they would be judged for smiling with someone who was now an enemy. So there was that soap opera going on [in the ‘90s], which was really heartbreaking.

Vlade Divac

Yugoslavia was a big country, but within that country you had different cultures, different religions, and that's why the war happened. But at the same time, we had players from all those different ethnic groups in the NBA. And we were friends.

Kim Bohuny

Vlade said to me, “Call Toni Kukoc, and get Toni involved.” Because you know, Vlade being the Serb, Toni being the Croat. So I called Toni and before I even finished, he says, “I'm in. We gotta do this.”

Vlade Divac (left) and Toni Kukoc in 1997
Dick Raphael/Getty Images

Vlade Divac

My idea [in 2001] was, “Let's send a message to those people. This is so stupid. Why are we fighting?” They took some Serb kids, some Croatian kids, some Bosnian kids, some Macedonians, some Slovenians. They brought 'em into Treviso [Italy].

Kim Bohuny

What we did was just say, “We're going to mix all of you up. You're just a Chicago Bull, or you're just a New York Knick.” So in a room you had a Croatian, a Serb, a Macedonian… and we had great prizes. We'd made sweatsuits for the winning team, so the kids saw these sweatsuits, and it took like two hours, but the kids forgot where they were from. They just wanted to win.

Vlade Divac

It was me, Peja, Toni Kukoc. We were all coaching, talking… It was really fun.

Kim Bohuny

It was really wonderful. You had players exchanging contact info at the end, and it was very emotional. I'm certainly not saying we solved the world's problems, but again, it was a step in the right direction.

Vlade Divac

It showed the NBA, “Well, why can't do we do this all over the world?”

A UN representative said, “We’ve tried everything to bring the youth together from the six countries in the Balkans. We’ve tried music, we’ve tried soccer. Nothing works. The animosities just run too deep.” And Vlade said, “Basketball may be the one thing.”

— Kim Bohuny

Kim Bohuny

We realized we had something special. And we were talking, Commissioner [David] Stern and at that point Deputy Commissioner [Russ] Granik were really supportive. I told them, “You know, I think we got something here. If we look pan-continental to invest in the game, it's the right thing for us to do.”

Alexander Wolff

It was a particular cosmopolitanism that Stern had, that led him to realize that this was just a great opportunity. And recently [Adam] Silver's proven himself to be just as open-minded as Stern. They realized this was a product that could travel. Nobody had to teach people what a baseball bat was or all that—that was the genius that the NBA had.

Kim Bohuny

David realized through some of his travels, even before I'd started with the league, the incredible potential of the league globally. What he saw was that by starting to take the NBA global, it was a way that we could help develop the sport, expand our audience—obviously, we're also a business and we can build revenue with that.

Alexander Wolff

And they could've been cautious about it, or culturally insensitive, but they weren't. And Kim deserves a lot of credit for that, because she, more than anybody at the league office, took the time to understand who each of these guys were. Draft day, she'd be back in the green room with them and their parents, she'd make sure their transition would be as smooth as it possibly could be. That stuff can't be underestimated, particularly in the early days when these guys were pioneers, and a lot of them weren't enjoying immediate, smash success.

“David Stern realized through some of his travels the incredible potential of the league globally. What he saw was that by starting to take the NBA global, it was a way that we could help develop the sport, expand our audience—obviously, we’re also a business and we can build revenue with that.”

— Kim Bohuny

Kim Bohuny

The next year we did [Basketball Without Borders] in Greece and Turkey. From there, it evolved into what's now really a basketball development program, with community relations events. And it would not have made it, I have to say, without the support of FIBA.

Brooks Meek

All the scouting reports, all the resources we have, FIBA's critical. And what FIBA also does is encourage the federations to let the guys participate. Basketball Without Borders is really a reward—a mechanism to recognize your performance on the court. You’ve played for your national team, you're a good kid. It's a recognition of accomplishment.

Kim Bohuny

FIBA loved the idea, they supported it, and they dealt with the federations to make sure we got the players we wanted. And it's grown from there.

Today, the NBA has hosted Basketball Without Borders events in 28 countries, on six continents. One of the most ambitious projects has been establishing infrastructure in Africa. In the summer of 2017 the league held its second-ever NBA Africa Game in Johannesburg, where there is now a permanent NBA office. But in the beginning, organizing the first camps in Africa fell largely on the shoulders of current-NBA Africa VP Amadou Fall, and a young scout named Masai Ujiri.

Masai Ujiri

Raptors General Manager | Nigeria

It was called Africa 100 when I started. Amadou and I traveled all over Africa selecting these kids.

Kim Bohuny

We brought 100 kids, and we realized we were the only continental camp in Africa. Think about a continent as large as Africa, but they never had camps where they were bringing the best from the whole continent.

Masai Ujiri

And we wanted to impress all the scouts, right? So we brought all these giant 7-foot kids. And nobody could f------ shoot! Nobody could dribble. You know? It was all blocked shots, and no made shots. You'd put the ball near the rim and you'd see like eight hands. So we started learning we have to develop the game with guards, too.

Gorgui Dieng

Minnesota Timberwolves | Senegal

I played soccer my whole life. But then I got taller, and I couldn't find cleats that fit, and it was time to be a basketball player. I'd known about the NBA since I was young, but I first met NBA players when I was 17. I met Dirk Nowitzki, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh. I said, “This is the environment I want to put myself in.”

Brooks Meek

I remember Gorgui from Basketball Without Borders in Johannesburg. He didn't speak a word of English, and he just came up to me and said, “I'm gonna play in the NBA one day.” In very broken English. But talent and body-wise, you knew he had it.

Gorgui Dieng (left) and Dikembe Mutombo (center) at a Basketball Without Borders event in Johannesburg in 2017.
Ron Turenne/Getty Images

Dirk Nowitzki

[Gorgui] was one of the best players there. I think he even won MVP. He was already built. He was a lot tougher than some of the younger, skinnier kids.

Gorgui Dieng

To this day, when I play Dwight he'll go at me and laugh and talk a lot of trash. People think we're mad, but it's fun, and he's known me since I was very young. And Dirk’s a very nice guy. I got to work with his shooting coach, Holger, in Germany.

Dikembe Mutombo

Naismith Hall of Famer | Democratic Republic of the Congo

[The camps] are a chance for the youth to grow. Even, not always to make it to the NBA. But a chance to accomplish college, with a free tuition. That's the door that we're trying to break down.

Kim Bohuny

One thing we do is a welcome session. We do a Q&A, and one of the things we emphasize is to say, “We know agents are going to come at you at a very early age. But if you want to go to college, you cannot sign.” And we go through the rules and talk, because the NCAA is something so far away, they can't even really understand it.

Dikembe Mutombo (left) and Masai Ujiri in 2016.
Ron Turenne/Getty Images

Brooks Meek

[Gorgui] was always going to make his own decisions, but what you do is provide information. So you say, “Gorgui, where are you thinking about going to college?” And he says, “Well, I've got these options.” And you just give the best information possible. Here's how many kids went to the NBA from this school, from that school, etc. The most important thing is just providing them with safe, accurate information and allowing them to make decisions based on facts. Everyone else has money to be made off these decisions. Our agenda is only for them to be successful in life and in basketball.

Gorgui Dieng

I stayed in touch with Brooks. Even when I was making my decision for college, he was helping me. He'd say, “This is a decision you gotta make for yourself, not anyone else. This is for you.” Brooks, Kim, Amadou [Fall]—they'd stay in touch on a daily, weekly basis just making sure I take care of myself and don't make any decisions that put me in a bad situation.

Brooks Meek

And then you see him play in the Final Four. Win a national championship. Have a baby and get married. And all of these things that get him where he's at. My wife works in the NBA, too, and we'd watch all his college games, and then my wife became invested in Gorgui, too.

Masai Ujiri

I almost get emotional talking about Basketball Without Borders. It made me. And then it made me realize, “OK, you should do more.”

Gorgui Dieng

I'm doing a lot of stuff back home. School and health are the two biggest things I want to focus on. Like this year, we're going to build a new dialysis center. People in Senegal, when they want to get treated? They go to France. And the people who can't afford it, they die. But this year we're going to build a new center that can help more of those people.

Dikembe Mutombo

Our heart is still in the continent. We want to do whatever it takes to make sure that the game of basketball continues to grow on the continent, and that we give them the resources and the materials that they need.

Kim Bohuny (left center), Dikembe Mutombo (back center) and Bob Lanier (right center) at a Basketball Without Borders camp in 2005.
Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Images

Adam Silver

NBA Commissioner

I think players feel the responsibility to give back. There's a long tradition of it, and it's a tradition that started way before me, and before Michele [Roberts]. We both inherited. And when we go to a place like Africa and talk about the values of our game, talk about fitness and healthy living, and discipline, leadership, teamwork—all those things are what build great communities.

Masai Ujiri

Out of 100 kids [in a Basketball Without Borders camp], there's only like three or four, maybe five who'll be NBA players. What happens to the rest? They take it back home, they develop more minds, more knowledge about the game, and it all grows.

Adam Silver

Last time we were in Johannesburg, we knew it would be a big story in South Africa. I didn't realize what a big story it would be throughout Africa. I think we met at least 20 ministers of sport from different countries. They would all come and were attending that game, and they all wanted to meet with us to see if we would schedule a game in their country.

Serge Ibaka

I go back almost every summer. What the NBA is doing over there… I wish I had the opportunities that those kids have now. Like we have all these camps, like NBA Jr., in Africa now. Back in the day when we used to play, we had none of those. I didn't know nothing about camps or academies.

Adam Silver

I think there's a realization that training is critically important. Just like players in the United States, they come up through a system. And ultimately, where we really benefit is once you expand that pool of great players in this league. Creating great players is what makes this league. Then those great players bring that popularity throughout the world.

Masai Ujiri

Think about how many local coaches from all these countries have come to Basketball Without Borders. Me and Amadou started running the camps [in 2003] and look at my position [now]. And when they see that you can do it, or players see that a person like Luc Mbah Moute can become something, now it inspires them to become something.

Kim Bohuny

It’s building, building, building. Like one of our rising stars right now is Joel Embiid. Well Luc Mbah Moute, he learned about Basketball Without Borders in 2003. He wasn't even sure basketball was going to be his sport, but he comes, he excels, he gets [into] a prep school and college. Then we go and talk to Luc, we say, “Luc, this is really growing. Can you do a camp to make sure we're finding the best young talent?” And then he finds Joel Embiid.

NBA players and coaches during the NBA Africa Game in 2015.
Nathaniel S. Butler/Getty Images

V. How the Game Changed

“‘Freedom of movement’ is what the league called it.”

Over the 30 years of international basketball in the NBA, there have been hundreds of great stories embedded along the way. There have been shrewd business decisions, inspiring individual triumphs, lifelong bonds that defied cultural boundaries. But the coolest, most enduring legacy of the international era might be what the world has done for the game itself.

There was a period in the mid-2000s where the ratings were suffering, playoff games were played in the low 80s, and the NBA's future didn't look particularly bright. Think back to the Malice at the Palace, or worse, the Spurs-Pistons Finals later that season. But then the league came back to life. Dirk Nowitzki emerged as a perennial MVP candidate in Dallas. Mike D’Antoni, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Steve Nash took the West by storm in Phoenix. The rules were changed to encourage more freedom on the perimeter. The Spurs graduated from grindfests in 2007 to offensive nirvana in the 2014 Finals. Skill became more valuable than power. Kobe and Iverson’s scoring gave way to LeBron’s passing and Curry’s shooting.

There have been a dozen factors that have helped forge the modern NBA, but look closely, and the influence of the international game is a thread that runs through many of the greatest modern success stories. And today, as the NBA enters the most prosperous era the league has ever known, the games themselves look a lot like the sport that Sarunas Marciulionis, Arvydas Sabonis, Drazen Petrovic, and Vlade Divac were playing in Eastern Europe 30 years ago.

Alexander Wolff

I was in Seoul in 1988. I watched that [Soviet upset of Team USA] with Ed Swift, our hockey writer. John Thompson's whole mentality was, "Oh, I'll just play the pressure defense I used at Georgetown. We can hound them over 94 feet, we'll force turnovers, and we'll be all set." Well, the U.S.S.R. guys were poised. They were rangy enough to look over the press and break the pressure, and then they'd get these wide-open spot-up jumpers before the U.S. could get back. And Swifty said, "This is exactly the mentality that Europeans brought to hockey." And his point was, it was great for hockey in the United States. It opened up the game.

Donnie Nelson

What I heard when I was just getting in the business was, "Well those guys can't do this, they can't do that." All I know is that when I got back from [playing in Lithuania], locking horns with Marciulionis and Sabonis, I'm like, "Holy crap, there's no way these guys aren't gonna be significant contributors, if not stars." And then you had that group that came through—Volkov, Marciulionis, Kukoc, Petrovic, Sabonis came later—those guys built the bridge of success.

Dario Saric

Thirty years ago you had Drazen Petrovic, who's from my country, who was an unbelievable scorer. He'd get like 30, 40 points every game. And he come in the NBA, and he sit for his whole first year. I think the NBA, the coaches, and probably the general managers have started to be more open.

Sarunas Marciulionis

I was very happy to play against [Petrovic]. We had good little rivalries when we played. Vlade, too, when he was in L.A. We'd always be checking in. And Dino Radja, we'd go to dinner in Boston. We’d always be encouraging each other. It was a tough job, you know? Especially, we were complaining about the referee all the time. The referee was a common theme at those dinners.

Dirk Nowitzki

When they changed the rules—no more hand-checking, the five-second backdown rule, they allowed zone defense—all that played into Europeans' hands. We know how to move, how to play, how to shoot, how to move without the ball. More “freedom of movement” is what the league called it in the beginning. That played right into our hands.

Giannis Antetokounmpo driving to the basket against Dallas in 2017.
David E. Klutho

Alexander Wolff

It just seemed like it gave the NBA this shot of oxygen at a time it really needed it. The game was just kind of collapsing around the basket. The more you got the international flavor, the more the game just kind of extended out. It became more fluid, and skills were the order of the day again.

Kim Bohuny

You see our games everywhere, all the time now. That's also a big thing. There are so many international players, it doesn't matter if you're from Senegal or Spain, you know that you can make the NBA. There's no longer, “Oh, I have to come from Yugoslavia to make it.” That mindset is gone.

Alexander Wolff

And now, I would defy anybody to walk into an NBA arena today and try to know who's American and who isn't. You see these bleedings of nationalities and styles. It’s almost indistinguishable. The college game has gotten so high pick-and-roll oriented, and college coaches will tell you that's a result of the NBA getting that way, and NBA people will tell you that's because of the international influence.

“When they changed the rules, all that played into Europeans’ hands. We know how to move, how to play, how to shoot, how to move without the ball. More ‘freedom of movement’ is what the league called it in the beginning. That played right into our hands.”

— Dirk Nowitzki

Goran Dragic

The big guys [in today’s NBA], they're not those classic fives, just shooting inside, getting rebounds, setting screens. You need to have the whole package. A lot of guys they're now flaring out for the threes, like [DeMarcus] Cousins, Anthony Davis, Brook Lopez. It's funny to say [they look like European big men], but it's true. They can still play under the hoop, and probably they're more athletic than some guys in Europe, but they develop that outside game, too. So they get really hard to defend. It's really tough.

Alexander Wolff

It's all kind of trickled on down. Basketball at all levels, it's all the same code, or operating system, or whatever Silicon Valley phrase you want to use.

Masai Ujiri

One of the main factors is social media. The way the game spreads now, everybody knows about everybody. They have videos, they have all those things. You see kids that know so much about the game. I see it in Africa, I see it in South America, I see that growth.

Brooks Meek

There’s not going to be an undiscovered talent. Even Giannis, I remember him at Eurocamp. Every single scout went and saw him play, an hour away from Treviso. He was not below the radar by any means. It just takes a GM or a scout to take a risk on someone with that much upside. But if a kid can play basketball, he's going to be on the radar.

Marc Stein

Once Dirk started having success, it was, “Oh, we gotta find the next Dirk.” There is no next Dirk. And all these guys are unique. Porzingis, Embiid, Giannis. I think if you ask Dirk, he'd say they do stuff that make him jealous. They all do stuff that's so unique.

Dirk Nowitzki (left) guarding Kristaps Porzingis in 2015.
Elsa/Getty Images

Goran Dragic

They're just freaks of the nature. Porzingis is what—7'3”? And then you have Jokic, same size, but he is like a guard. Then you have Giannis, who is … basically, he plays all the positions in the NBA. So yeah, the game is evolving.

Dirk Nowitzki

Amazing. They got the length with it, and they got the athleticism, which I never had. The touch, the moves to the basket, they play both ends. It's just incredibly fun to watch. And I'm proud that a lot of guys come over now and they're not only players, but franchise players. Game-changers.

Goran Dragic

And, you know, Luka Doncic, he's a new prospect, and he's really good. He's playing with professional players in Spain for the last three years. It’s crazy. Even in the European championships, he was dominating. It's not only, how you say, “a one-day thing” or one game. It's every game for him.

Kristaps Porzingis

What [Doncic] is doing at his age, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. He’s one of the leaders on Real Madrid. He’s amazing. He's going to have to make adjustments in the beginning [when he arrives to the NBA]. Learn some new things, and so on. But as far as talent, he's unbelievable.

Arturas Karnisovas

The grassroots, the way [international teams] develop players, nothing changed. They continue to drill fundamentals in young players, and then it's just, generationally, some players are just better than others. It goes in cycles. You're looking for these patterns, where are the hotbeds of certain players? It just depends on the country, the time. There's gonna be some studs coming out.

Masai Ujiri

There's less nonsense around the game. Before, I think people focused too much on the antics of getting them drafted. Now it's actually kids trying to get better in the game. Because if you don't, there's another person who will take it from you. You think you're doing s--- in Brazil? There's another person in Europe doing the same thing. You're in Nigeria? Well there's another person in the Congo. The more competition there is, people work even harder.

Kim Bohuny

And now it’s almost commonplace. Giannis is saying openly, “I want to be MVP.” Kristaps, the new face of the Knicks. Ben Simmons's breakout rookie season. It's not only wonderful to see, but it's just so accepted. No one even thinks, “Oh he's from Latvia, he shouldn't be able do that.” It's just, “He's the best player on the team and he's leading. And his name's Kristaps, and he's from Latvia? So be it.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo

International players are just basketball players. But there’s a lot of good players overseas, and they’re going to keep coming over here.