Gasol helped open the door for Doncic
DALLAS — Pau Gasol entered the 2001 NBA draft confident he had the skills to excel in the league. He just wasn’t sure the teams in the lottery shared that belief.
As it turned out, at least one club was as high on the 7-foot Spaniard as he was on himself. The Atlanta Hawks selected him third overall in a trade worked out on the eve of the draft, then shipped him to the Vancouver Grizzlies, who finalized a move to Memphis a few weeks later.
It was a groundbreaking pick, making Gasol the first European to go in the top five. The Milwaukee Bucks made Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki the first European lottery pick when they selected him ninth overall in 1998 on behalf of the Dallas Mavericks.
“It was still kind of unheard of, or a surprise, that an international guy could be taken that high in the draft,” said Gasol, now in his 18th season and third with the Spurs. “But little by little, you have seen more and more selected high. And just like any other American pick, some have worked out better than others. But we have seen a lot of them become very good players or even superstars.”
Mavericks rookie sensation Luka Doncic, who will battle the Spurs for the second time tonight, seems well on his way to membership in the latter category.
Last June, the 19-year-old Slovenian nicknamed “Wonder Boy” arrived in Dallas in a trade for former Oklahoma star Trae Young and a
protected 2019 first-round pick after the Hawks drafted him third overall on behalf of the Mavericks.
Doncic was the sixth international player selected in the top four since Gasol went third in 2001. Two of those players, China’s Yao Ming (2002) and Italy’s Andrea Bargnani (2006), went No. 1. The others are Serbia’s Darko Milicic (second overall in 2003), Latvia’s Kristaps Porzingis (fourth in 2015) and Croatia’s Dragan Bender (fourth in 2016).
While some of those players turned out to be disappointments, Doncic seems poised for greatness after averaging 20.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists in 42 games while helping the Mavs to a better-than-expected 20-23 record.
“I knew he could do this eventually,” Gasol said. “But the team pretty much handed the reins over to Luka, disregarding his age and just acknowledging the type of talent he is. It’s wonderful.”
With his signature stepback 3-pointer as his go-to shot, Doncic already has established himself as one of the NBA’s top clutch performers. He’s ninth in the league with 72 clutch points in 71 minutes and third in clutch field-goal percentage (.522) among 47 players with at least 30 attempts.
In a 119-115 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves last week, the former EuroLeague MVP for Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid had three go-ahead field goals in the final 1:28, including a 28-foot 3-pointer with 23.9 seconds left that gave Dallas the league for good.
The last time a rookie scored three go-ahead baskets in the final two minutes of regulation was April 1, 1999, when the Toronto Raptors’ Vince Carter did it against the Indiana Pacers.
“His ability to take over down the stretch and finish games with tough, gutsy shots, not many players have that in their DNA, especially at 19 in their rookie year,” Gasol said of Doncic.
Charlotte Hornets coach
James Borrego, a former Spurs assistant, compared Doncic to another international star with a flair for the dramatic.
“He’s got that (Manu) Ginobili confidence — ‘I can get it done,’ ” Borrego said. “He just oozes it.”
Indeed, the success the Spurs enjoyed with Argentina’s Ginobili, France’s Tony Parker and so many other international players helped pave the way for the Mavs to scout Doncic when he was just 14, a year after he signed with Real Madrid.
Doncic entered the NBA nearly 29 years after the Spurs signed their first European player, a Yugoslavian forward named Zarko Paspalj who was scouted by Gregg Popovich, then an assistant on Larry Brown’s staff.
“I learned from Nellie (Don Nelson) early on that there were a lot of good players in Europe,” Popovich said. “And even before I was in the league, I played over there with military teams, and I saw good players everywhere.”
But Popovich and Nelson were in the minority when it came to viewing Europe and other continents as ripe with NBA prospects.
Unlike this season, when 108 international players from a record-tying 42 countries and territories were on opening-night rosters, including a record 65 Europeans,
few foreigners made the NBA in the 1980s. The ones who did, such as Nigeria’s Hakeem Olajuwon and Germany’s Detlef Schrempf, played college basketball in the United States.
“A couple came over,” Popovich said. “Atlanta brought (Russian center Alexander) Volkov over, and Nellie brought a few, and now and then there were a few (others).
“But, overall, nobody believed in it. They thought the guys wouldn’t adjust and they wouldn’t play defense.”
The Spurs helped shatter those stereotypes, a source of pride for Popovich.
“We’ve always enjoyed it,” he said of sporting United Nations-style rosters. “It helps your culture. It helps people understand each other better and (makes them) want to be responsible to each other. It’s a big world out there, so we might as well not be xenophobic.”
Spurs forward Davis Bertans, who hails from Latvia, is grateful for the doors the club opened for Europeans.
“In the earlier years, there was just maybe a handful of Europeans in the NBA,” he said. “Then (came the success of) Tony, Manu and so many more. They are the reason why there are so many international players in the game today. Teams started looking more overseas to try to find some good players.”
In Doncic, the Mavericks seem to have found a great one. He’s registered 25-plus points in each of his past four games to become the first rookie to accomplish that feat since Golden State’s Steph Curry did it in five straight in April 2010.
“He is confident beyond where you would expect somebody in his shoes to be, coming from a different country and being 19,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “He’s a brilliant player. I don’t know how the vote’s going to shake out, but he looks like an All-Star player to me.”
In his first meeting with the Spurs, Doncic had a team-high 31 points, including 14 in the third quarter, to go along with eight rebounds and four assists in a 113-108 overtime loss Oct. 29 at the AT&T Center.
“It’s great to see teams be more willing to take a bet on an international talent (rather than) national or local talent,” Gasol said. “Guys like Giannis Antetokounmpo, (Nikola) Jokic, Doncic, (Bojan) Bogdanovic, all such incredible talents playing at a high level and not being scared of anything, playing the game they love, going against the best and proving they are just as good. It’s great to see. It’s something that makes me happy and proud.”