Oscar Schmidt - The Story of the First Foreign Player Drafted

In today's NBA foreign players are taken for granted. We've had two foreign players drafted number 1 (plus Andrew Bogut) and a foreign MVP. Furthermore, after years of American dominance, countries around the world have stood equal and above the USA in the international game. But just 20 years ago, this wasn't the case.

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Oscar Schmidt (or Mão Santa - translates to Holy Hand) played in 5 Olympics ('80, '84, '88, '92, and '96) and averaged a record 28.8 points a game, including an astounding 42.3 in Barcelona.

He is also the first foreign player with no college experience picked in the NBA draft.

A 6'8" Brazilian shooting guard with legit 3-point range, Schmidt's offensive firepower was enough to make him a 6th round draft pick in the 1984 draft. Uninterested in defense, Schmidt justified his Iverson-esque shooting habits by saying, "Some people, they play the piano. And some people, they move the piano." Nonetheless, the prospect of adding such a prolific scorer at such a nominal price was worth the roll of the dice for the New Jersey Nets.

However, years of recruitment fell upon deaf ears as Schmidt would never come to play in
the Association saying, “I know my limitations, my defects, but I could never play 10 minutes a game. [The] NBA is great if you are a star. But if not, you get moved around. My friend (Georgi) Glouchkov played a year in Phoenix. He tells me bad stories about [the] NBA. The guards [did not] like him, they don’t pass him the ball. I would not like that. I could not stand that.”

Video: Petrovic vs. Schmidt - Oscar's 44 can't match Petrovic's 62 in the European Cup



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It is assumed that it's every player's dream to play in the NBA and when they get that chance, it is expected that they will take it. When a Kirilenko or a Pavlovic postulates about playing overseas, cries of fiscal frivolity and insult echo throughout sports media. However, the story of Oscar Schmidt proves that it isn't unusual or new for a player to want to succeed on their own terms.

5 Historically Awesome Basketball Moustaches

The Clyde Stache






















The Legendary Stache
















The Commishstache


















Arvydastache






















The Terrifying Stache

I Loved the 1997-98 New Jersey Nets

Every few seasons there is an NBA team that I'm drawn to beyond any explanation. This year, it appears to be the Grizzlies for whatever reason. However, back in my sophomore year of high school I was obsessed with the New Jersey Nets. Never mind the fact that I was a Bulls fan living in Illinois during the last year of the Jordan Dynasty; forces unknown to me pushed me to follow the exploits of an average east coast team for the better part of 2 years.



It took me 15 minutes of intense Googling and address modification to even recover this absolutely ridiculous Slam magazine cover, and with good reason. If you were the editors of Slam, would you want to prominently display the fact that you predicted the Nets would win a title by 2001?

Looking back, that roster was an absolute disaster. I'm not even sure who you could call the centerpiece. Van Horn was the #2 pick, but he wasn't ready then (or ever, as we would learn) to be a go-to guy. Sam Cassell was a winner back then too, but you couldn't really consider him a first option. Kittles, JaYson Williams, and Kendall Gill were all guys who would have been fantastic bench players. But then you look at the stats and see that 6 guys averaged double figures and it isn't that crazy that a high school kid could love this team.

When I really examine it, I guess the main reason that I was attracted to the Nets was that they were very different from most other teams stylistically. Kittles wore one sock up at Villanova, which was just about the coolest thing a kid from the far, far south suburbs could imagine. Van Horn was the benchmark for moderately athletic big men like myself. A smooth, mobile, white guy who could pass and score; he is/was the NBA player I liken myself to the most. And then you had characters like Chris Gatling, Sherman Douglas, and Luscious Harris off the bench, filling in the sketch of a 14 year old's basketball dream.

Finally finding that picture really helped me understand just what I enjoy about the NBA. Yes, the Bulls titles were mind-blowing, but back then you knew the post-MJ years would be a tundra. Needing something to fall back on, entertainment hooked me. The Nets were never great, and they never would be. But for those 2 years, they were a team I admired from afar and appreciated any way I could. They ran, they scored, they didn't play much defense, and they were fun. When you're trying to find something to keep you interested, there isn't anything better to ask for than that. Plus they were awesome in NBA Live '97.

A Walk Through the Annals of NBA History

A few weeks back I got the idea to look at NBA teams in a historical context. Being a science major and professional researcher guy, I figured I was as qualified as anyone. Basing my study around 4 variables (NBA championships, all-time winning percentage, Hall of Famers, and years in the NBA) I figured I’d be able to cobble together some results that would support a few theories that I’ve assumed true since I started truly caring about the NBA.

Hypothesis 1: the 5 most historically successful teams in NBA history are the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls and Philadelphia 76ers.

Hypothesis 2: the next tier of historically successful teams is some mix of the Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns, Seattle Supersonics, Detroit Pistons, and Portland Trailblazers.

With these as my baseline assumptions, I set about devising what I felt would be the best way to define historical greatness.

Study Design

The blue portion of that delicious pie represents how many NBA championships a team has won in its history. Since this is the ultimate goal of every franchise, it was given significant weight (50%) in calculating the total score of a team’s score.

The red portion of the chart shows the percentage (37.5) given to a team’s winning percentage throughout their history. In order for a team to be considered consistently great, they must be a consistently winning team and over time their winning percentage will show that.

Last is the orange slice, which depicts how many Hall of Famers have played for a franchise. This can be a little misleading, however. For instance, Dominique Wilkins is a HOFer based on his Atlanta Hawks exploits, but he did play that one season for the Spurs so he counts for them as well. Because of the nature of this variable, HOFers is only given 12.5% of a team’s total score. In the end it all evens out because Robert Parrish played on pretty much every team since the beginning of basketball.

After adding these different variables together, the team’s total score was multiplied by the percentage of league history that that team has been a part of. Two examples: the Sacramento Kings have played in every NBA season (this will be number 58) and therefore have their total score multiplied by 1, whereas the Minnesota Timberwolves have only played 18 seasons (31% of all seasons) and have their total score multiplied by .31 to determine their cumulative score.

Data

NBA historical data (contains years in NBA, titles, winning percentage, and HOFers)

Historical Greatness of NBA Teams (final data after relative score multiplier)

All data can be found on these two Google spreadsheets.

Results

Obviously, the Celtics and Lakers easily topped the list of most NBA championships. Here’s the top 10 accompanied by the number of titles the franchise has won:

1. Boston Celtics (16)
2. Los Angeles Lakers (13)
3. Chicago Bulls (6)
4. San Antonio Spurs (4)
5. Detroit Pistons (3)
6. Golden State Warriors (2)
7. Philadelphia 76ers (2)
8. New York Knicks (2)
9. Houston Rockets (2)
seven teams tied with 1 championship

Due to this huge advantage in titles won, Boston and the Lakers will have solidified the top 2 spots in our historical rankings. However, there were still some interesting findings. I was surprised to discover that Golden State had as many championships as the Knicks. And once again, my eyes were opened to the true greatness of Tim Duncan.

The next variable I looked at, all-time winning percentage, bore testament once again to the two premier franchises in the NBA. Here are the top 10 historical winning percentages:

1. Los Angeles Lakers (.618)
2. San Antonio Spurs (.595)
3. Boston Celtics (.587)
4. Phoenix Suns (.556)
5. Utah Jazz (.538)
6. Milwaukee Bucks (.532)
7. Seattle Supersonics (.531)
8. Philadelphia 76ers (.528)
9. Portland Trailblazers (.528)
10. Chicago Bulls (.512)

Here is where I felt a little bit educated, as I “picked” 8 out of the 10 most winning franchises in the league’s history. However, I was definitely taken aback by how consistently good the Suns have been, while never getting over the hump. And it was also a tad surprising that the Bucks and Jazz have been so good for so long.

The amount of HOFers to have played for a franchise was easily the most surprising discovery. Well, except the top 2 of course:

1. Boston Celtics (25)
2. Los Angeles Lakers (17)
3. Detroit Pistons (14)
4. Golden State Warriors (11)
5. Philadelphia 76ers (10)
6. New York Knicks (10)
7. Atlanta Hawks (10)
8. Sacramento Kings (9)
9. Milwaukee Bucks (8)
10. Houston Rockets (7)

Once again the Celtics and Lakers are tops, but as we move down the list there are some eye-openers. I would have never guessed the Hawks to have fielded so many Hall of Fame caliber players or for the Kings to have so many either. But as stated before, a guy only had to play one game to get counted as a HOFer for a franchise; ergo, the low weight of this variable.

These scores were added up, giving us a top 10 that looked like this:

1.Boston Celtics
2. Los Angeles Lakers
3. Chicago Bulls
4. Detroit Pistons
5. San Antonio Spurs
6. Golden State Warriors
7. Philadelphia 76ers
8. New York Knicks
9. Houston Rockets
10. Atlanta Hawks

Clearly I underestimated the historical relevance of both the Warriors and Hawks while slightly overstating the importance of the Knicks and 76ers. But when we add in the rating based on percentage of league history that a team has been a part of, the list looks like this:

1. Boston Celtics
2. Los Angeles Lakers
3. Detroit Pistons
4. Chicago Bulls
5. Golden State Warriors
6. Philadelphia 76ers
7. New York Knicks
8. Atlanta Hawks
9. Sacramento Kings
10. Houston Rockets

Being a relatively new franchise hurt the Spurs, as they dropped out of the top 10 when compared over the span of the league. And helped along by their inclusion as an original NBA team, the Kings make a surprising re-entry in to the realm of historical importance.

Conclusion

When people talk about the Celtics and Lakers being the cornerstone franchises of the NBA they are totally correct. In basically every statistical measure they rank at the top and they have been a part of the league since its inception. However, I (and I would assume many others my age) was unaware of how truly great the Warriors and Hawks are. Since I’ve followed the NBA, both of these teams have been mostly irrelevant, but the data shows that they are among the most important teams over the course of time. Unfortunately, this only exacerbates the frustration that fans must feel while watching their team be run in to the ground. Nonetheless, it never hurts to understand just where a team has been. In some ways, it can be the best way of knowing what the future holds.

Who is Drazen Petrovic?

Who is Drazen Petrovic?

The answer is both simple and complicated. Happenstance and natural selection, really.

The simple answer is that Drazen Petrovic was an explosive shooting guard from the early 90s; and the more important and more correct answer is that Petrovic was instrumental in introducing America to basketball outside of the United States. Without Petrovic (and other pioneers such as Detlef Schrempf, Dino Radja, and Sarunas Marciulionis), players like Dirk Nowitski wouldn’t win the MVP. Juan Jose Barrea wouldn’t be a highly sought after commodity, and Marco Belinelli wouldn’t be a first round draft pick.

Petrovic, born in Croatia, spent his early years dominating Eastern European leagues and starring international competition, even leading his team to a silver medal behind the Dream Team in 1992. After averaging 37.7 points (with a single game high of 112 -- seriously, read that again, 112 points in a SINGLE GAME), Petrovic jumped from his Croatian team, Cibona, to the more competitive Spanish league, signing with Real Madrid. At this same time, Petrovic was drafted in the third round by the Portland Trailblazers, and after a second place finish in Spain, he jumped to the NBA in the 1989-1990 season.

Though smothered by established Blazer greats Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter, Drazen still posted impressive numbers in his rookie season, averaging 7.4 ppg in only 12 min (29.6 per 48 minutes). However, as the Blazers focused their efforts on the ultimately unfulfilled quest of an NBA championship, Petrovic was pushed even deeper to the bench, averaging only 7 minutes a game before requesting a trade 38 games in to the season.

On January 23, 1991 Petrovic joined Derrick Coleman and Kenny Anderson to form one of the most potential-laden and FreeDarko teams in league history. Petrovic would have an immediate impact as he averaged 12.6 ppg for the remainder of the season. The 1991-92 season saw Petrovic establish himself as a star in the NBA as he averaged 20.6 ppg while leading all guards in shooting percentage at the impressive clip of 51%. Furthermore, the play of Petrovic helped lead the Nets to the playoffs for the first time since 1986. Though impressive, the following season would be Petrovic’s finest. While increasing his scoring to 22.3 per and continuing to lead NBA guards in field goal percentage at 52%, Petrovic was named to the All-NBA Third Team.

However, the following summer resulted in the ultimate tragedy as Petrovic lost his life in an automobile accident on June 7th, 1993. While riding on a rain-soaked highway, Petrovic’s car slammed in to an out of control semi, killing Petrovic and leaving the other two occupants seriously injured. Just 4 months shy of his 29th birthday, Drazen Petrovic’s promise was taken, leaving only memories behind.

Though he was a devastating combo guard, Petrovic’s true legacy is the path he carved for European players who dream of playing in the NBA. Petrovic embodied every characteristic typically associated with Euros today. He was a great shooter, great passer, he really couldn’t care less about defense., and he was kind of goofy-looking. Despite his short career Petrovic was posthumously inducted in to the basketball hall of fame in 2002.

I could write all night about the impact that Petrovic had on the NBA and its influx of European talent, but it’s really a testament to his influence that that conversation could even take place. To understand where Drazen Petrovic came from is to understand how the NBA is today.