PRAGUE, Czech Republic– The decision by the NBA to expand its talent search globally and select 14 international players in its annual draft has raised another significant question: How long will it be before an NBA team hires its first internationally born head coach or at least duplicate its hiring of another American born coach like Mike D’Antoni, a West Virginia born former Marshall star who played in Italy and coached eight years in Italian Pro League before home for NBA head coaching jobs in Phoenix, New York and Los Angeles.
The hottest name out there right now is Ettore Messina, the Italian born coach of CSKA Moscow, who has NBA assistant coaching experience and got a serious look from the Atlanta Hawks last month before deciding on Spurs assistant Mike Bunderholzer. Messina, 53, is a four-time Euroleague championship coach and two-time Euroleague coach of the Year. In two decades of head coaching jobs in Italy and Russian, he has won five Russian League championships and four Italian League titles.
Messina spent the 2011-12 season as a part of Mike Brown’s coaching staff with the Los Angeles Lakers. With uncertainty over Brown’s future, Messina left to take a $1 million-plus a year job with CSKA Moscow. Messina brought Lakers assistant Quin Snyder to CSKA with him as an assistant coach. Atlanta Hawks GM Danny Ferry and Snyder have a long, close relationship, dating back to their days as Duke teammates and Ferry has since added Snyder to Budenholzer’s staff.
Ferry, who signed a six year, $12 million contract with the Hawks, is considered one of the few NBA executives with the courage and contract security to dive into uncharted waters. He played for a year in Italy to avoid signing with the Clippers out of college, has strong respect for the European game, and as Cleveland’s GM, sent his coach Mike Brown overseas to spend time studying Messina’s offense. Ferry also sent Drew to Israeli a year ago to observe Maccabi Tel Aviv’s David Blatt.
Messina is a superior practice and game coach. He speaks fluid English and has long been considered – along with the American born David Blatt – the most likely Euroleague candidates to be hired as a head coach in the NBA.
Blatt is one of the most successful American coaches in European basketball. He played for Pete Carril at Princeton and is currently the head coach of Macabbi Tel Aviv. He won the FIBA EuroCup as the coach of Dynamo St. Petersburg and was Coach of the Year in Russia in 2004. He also coached Bennetton Treviso to the Italian Championship in 2006. Blatt has since coached the Russian national team to the Eurobasket title for club teams in 2008 and the Russian national team to a surprise bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics.
“It’s going to hit,” Nike global executive George Raveling, one of the visionary thinkers in the game, said. “What you need to find is a visionary owner or a GM. It might bring fresh thinking to the game. The way Europeans coach the game, their approach to the game is definitely different to ours. They are bigger risk takers. In the European game, if you’re up three and the other team has the ball, they’re going to foul you. We’ve always been a little reluctant to do these things. Early on when the three point shot first came in– I remember in ’88 in Seoul– the Soviets never fast breaked for a layup. They always fast breaked for a three point shot. The way the Americans are taught, they come back and always line up in a tandem. The Russians just threw the ball out to the wing. They didn’t care if they got a layup.
“They exploited the three point shot. It took the Americans a long time to learn the value of it because of fear of fouling on a three point shot. In Europe, it’s a no brainer. Another thing in Europe, a guy steals the ball for a fast away layup, they automatically foul you.
“The game today in my opinion is suffering more than any other time in the history of the game. You’ve seen one offense, you’ve seen them all. Anytime we get down to 20 seconds, I don’t care who is, you know what’s going to happen. The big guy is going to step out and they’re going to try to find a shot. We don’t have any innovative thinking. There’s no imaginary thinkers in the game. In the old days, Dean Smith came up with the four quarters. There’s nothing like that anymore.”
There are other coaches with international resumes– specifically long-time Spurs assistant Brett Brown, who once coached the Aussie Boomers; and Rob Beveridge, who was the head coach of the Perth Wildcats for the last three years before leaving to pursue other opportunities, who merit long looks.
Brown, a Portland, a Maine native who played basketball at Boston University, has worked for the Spurs since 2002, spending five seasons as an assistant coach/director of player development before moving to the bench as an assistant to head coach Gregg Popovich prior to the 2006-07 season. Prior to joining the Spurs, Brown coached in the Australian National Basketball League (149 career wins) and also coached the Australian national team to the 2012 Olympics. He interviewed for both the Sixers’ and Celtics’ head coaching vacancies this spring.
The 39-year old Beveridge, who has coached the international team in the Nike Hoop Summit for a number of years, will be remembered as one of the most successful coaches in the history of the Perth, Australia Wildcats’ after leading the team to a championship in his first year in 2010, a semi-final in his second, and then back-to-back grand finals. He is credited with upgrading the team’s personnel with a new wave of talent, including Australian Boomer Damian Martin and former NBA Chicago Bulls center Luke Schenscher. He has coached both the national junior and senior teams.
“I think he might be the hidden gem in all of coaching,” Raveling said. “I’ve actually told a couple of college coaches. I’d pay the guy $500,000 and bring him in as an associate head coach.”
Raveling’s points are well taken. There is little question the better international coaches have a strong understanding of the fundamentals of the game.
The NBA may be a cultural transition for demanding international coaches, who feel hours of skill practice produce better results than simply playing games. The veterans play. The younger players learn. It’s hard to tell whether a young 23-year old millionaire from America working on his second contract will accept that rigid philosophy.
“I look at the NBA, they’re simply recycling coaches so much now.” Raveling said. “It’s become this money ball thing. We’re a country of fads. So they bring in a lot of GM’s who are big on statistics and coaches. But in the meantime, you look at coaches who are a success and they stick with a system and you got owners who know what it takes. I look at some of these guys and wonder how they make as much money as they do because if they ran their business like they run these franchises they’d be bankrupt within a year.”
