Nations Being United by Large Round Ball

In the blown-up photograph, Hakeem Olajuwon is shooting with his right 
hand while shoving the defender with his left hand. 

"That is definitely an offensive foul," said Richard C. Holbrooke, the 
United States ambassador to the United Nations, pointing at the photo 
during a reception last Thursday night. 

Olajuwon chortled. 

"You are absolutely right," he told Holbrooke, not needing to add that 
referees, even three of them, cannot possibly call everything. 

The diplomat and the center were speaking the lingua franca known as 
hoops, shared by a New York man who once dreamed of becoming the next 
Vince Boryla or Carl Braun with the Knicks, and a man who grew up 
dreaming of becoming a soccer goalkeeper for Nigeria, until: 

"There were people from my country who went to school in the U.S.," 
Olajuwon said. "They were not sports fans, but they understood that 
American basketball was great. They came back and told me about Kareem 
Abdul-Jabbar and Dr. J and Magic. Those three." 

Olajuwon was recruited to the University of Houston as a 17-year-old 
who barely knew the fundamentals of basketball. He was a work in 
progress, albeit a 7-foot work, and as a redshirted freshman, he caught 
his first glimpse of the N.B.A. 

"I saw Moses Malone," he recalled with awe. "I saw these guys shoot 
foul shots. I was amazed if they missed. I thought they could shoot 
blindfolded." 

Turning professional, Olajuwon helped form the first true wave of 
foreign-born pro players. 

"This league should be called the International Basketball Association," 
Holbrooke suggested, as David Stern, master of marketing, repressed a 
wince at the logo ramifications. 

National or international, these current finals have been enriched by 
Kobe Bryant, who speaks Italian from his childhood watching his American 
father play professionally in Milan, and by Rik Smits, a center from the 
Netherlands who came to college in America. 

To recognize this influx, Holbrooke designated five N.B.A. players -- 
Olajuwon, now an American citizen; Dikembe Mutombo of Congo; Zydrunas 
Ilgauskas of Lithuania; Vitaly Potapenko of Ukraine and Dirk Nowitzki of 
Germany -- as international ambassadors of sports. 

"Sport is culture," Holbrooke said at the United States residence in the 
Waldorf Towers, where Henry Cabot Lodge and Adlai Stevenson and other 
representatives have lived. 

"I remember in the 50's when the U.S. sent 'Porgy and Bess' overseas," 
Holbrooke added. "Today the N.B.A. represents the U.S." 

The league is surely an American cultural phenomenon, but it is also 
becoming more diversified. While no American team yet matches Manchester 
United or A.C. Milan of soccer in fielding a majority of foreigners, the 
N.B.A. is catching up. 

The league had approximately 50 foreign-born players this season, and 
Stu Jackson, who recently returned to the home office after running the 
Vancouver club, suggests that as many as six first-round draft choices 
this summer could be foreign born. 

And, the league is not for local consumption only. The N.B.A. has been 
beaming its finals, mostly live action, to 205 nations including China, 
where fans still worship the Chicago Red Oxen from the Michael Dynasty. 

"One-third of the visits to our Web site -- we don't use the word 'hits' 
anymore -- are from outside the U.S.," noted Adam Silver, the league's 
Internet maven. 

It was less than two decades ago that the N.B.A. was truly home-grown. 
Mutombo recalls growing up in Kinshasa, the capital of what was then 
known as Zaire. 

"My school was next to the American embassy," he recalled. "We would be 
invited to the cultural center to watch tapes about America. A friend 
from the University of Kentucky showed me a tape about Georgetown 
playing Kentucky in the semifinals. I became a fan of Georgetown from 
that." 

He followed Patrick Ewing -- born in Jamaica, now an American -- to 
Georgetown, and considers Olajuwon and Ewing as his role models. 

Change came quickly in Europe. Kremlinologists claimed to be shocked, 
but the tip-off had come around 1988 when Arvydas Sabonis refused to 
speak the same language as his Soviet Union coach. 

"I Lithuanian," he once rumbled to an American news conference. "I no 
speak Russian anymore." 

Sabonis eventually got to play for a Lithuanian national team, and now 
plays for Portland, and has been followed by many other Europeans. 

"I remember my mother put new wallpaper in our apartment," said 
Potapenko, who grew up in Kiev. "I put my posters of N.B.A. players over 
half the wall. I used clips so I didn't hurt the wallpaper, but my 
mother was mad anyway. 

"My favorite player was Larry Johnson with Charlotte," Potapenko said. 
"He was the best No. 4 position player, you know, big forward." 

"I watched tapes and imitated the wide-open defensive stance they use in 
the N.B.A.," he added. "My coach on the national under-20 team was mad 
because my feet were so wide apart, but I wanted to play like Larry 
Johnson." 

One seminal player from Europe was Drazen Petrovic, the great shooter of 
the Nets from Croatia, who died in an auto accident on the German 
autobahn. 

Petro was shameless in firing up his shots, and fearless against the 
Jordans and Pippens, destroying some of the mystique that European 
players had to be robotic second-line functionaries in the N.B.A. 

Nowadays, European players can aspire to become Larry Johnson. And kids 
in New York, like Richard Holbrooke a few decades ago, could do worse 
than aspiring to be the next Drazen Petrovic. The court seems to have 
shrunk. The world certainly has.