One could argue that the NBA draft is even more widely enjoyed than the Finals. In the draft, all fans can convince themselves that their team achieved victory. In the Finals, only one team gets that honor. No matter how much you try to convince yourself, the fact is LeBron James lost and Kevin Durant won. It does not matter if that causes you to fall ill or jump in jubilance, it’s the undisputable truth.
The draft is much different. Perceived victories run rampant because there is room for them. No one quite knows which prospects will pan out and which won’t. It leaves so much to interpretation and perception that everyone walks away a winner. The entire process is one large mystery, and the bigger the mystery the larger the potential victory. “Hidden gems” and “diamonds in the rough” are scoured for as if they are real gemstones, not humans with debatable upside.
This may be the basis of the NBA community’s confused obsession with foreign prospects. In an ocean filled with shiny lures of mysterious origins, foreign players are the shiniest and most unexplainable. Foreign players put up numbers incomparable to the stats of their American college counterparts. They use strange colored balls and have far fewer media outlets covering their every move. Highlight videos and word of mouth cause intrigue to grow like bamboo on a moist forest floor.
This year’s young foreign-born enigma is France’s Frank Ntilikina. The long-armed point guard dribbles the ball low, as if he was picking it up off the ground rather than bouncing it repeatedly. He is known for his defense, his length and his ability to knock down shots from three-point land. Frank has the talent, the size and the mystery to continue a long tradition of enticing foreign-born players because in a system built on uncertainty, the most mysterious garners the most attention. He shot 43 percent from three last season, which is a distance far more comparable to the NBA’s three-point range than the NCAA’s. Most international players shooting transfers because of this. His shot chart is also a thing of beauty:
But Ntilikina, like so many foreign prospects, is young. He needs to learn more complex dribble moves, become a better passer and simply play more. He averaged just 5 points, 2 rebounds and 1.4 assists while playing a quiet 18 minutes per game. Making anything out of these stats is impossible and making anything out of highlights and opinions is more impossible still. It is this uncertainty that has the unique power to excite fans while troubling front offices. You can learn only so much from workouts and games against unknown talent. General managers must trust their scouts and be willing to take a chance. Some teams have been more willing than others.
The Nuggets have done well in the middle of the draft by snagging foreign-born players and may have just snagged one of those coveted “hidden gems” in Nikola Jokic – the goofy big man from Serbia. The Spurs are known for molding players from other countries, the most famous of which – Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili – becoming likely Hall-of-Famers. There have been, of course, a fair share of misses, with Darko Milicic, Nikoloz Tskitishvili and Yi Jianlian being a few of the most famous.
Passing on drafting foreign prospects because of the past failed NBA careers of others would be a mistake, however. For every over-hyped foreign-born player, there are three just like him from the states that failed to pan out. Those teams stuck in the center of the draft should look to these players as opportunities. A mystery box inside a mystery machine, or as Winston Churchill more eloquently put it: ” A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
The greater the question marks, the more possible positive answers are available. Fans and front offices are then allowed to let their imaginations run wild with possibilities.
The finale you create inside your own head is always better than the one you watch on TV. Fans can use that same type of vast and personally biased imagination to envision the perfect scenario for their beloved teams. Reality is much more cruel. So, the draft is a time to revel in mystery and achieve dozens of mental victories as fans are able to create their own finales.
Foreign-born players like Frank Ntilikina make those stories much more fun and full of hope because maybe, just maybe, these players will make reality as sweet as their imaginations.
