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MARC STEIN ON BASKETBALL

The N.B.A. Elite Are

Now From Everywhere
In this week’s newsletter, Marc Stein
looks at how the biggest stars —
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid,
Luka Doncic — are coming from all
over the world.

Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks led fan voting in

the Western Conference in the first round of returns
for the All-Star Game. Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports,
via Reuters

By Marc Stein

Jan. 8, 2020, 10:00 a.m. ET

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It was at the 2018 All-Star Game in Los

Angeles that I asked Steve Nash, one of
the foremost imports in N.B.A. history, if
the league would ever be ready — really
ready — for a Rest of the World vs.
United States format for its annual
midseason showcase.

“We’re getting there,” Nash said then.

Nash suggested that perhaps 2022 would

be “the time to try it,” as a 30th
anniversary tribute to the original Dream
Team that wowed the world at the
Barcelona Olympics.

That forecast is looking smarter every

day.

Understandably somewhat lost last week

amid the very sad news of the former
N.B.A. commissioner David Stern’s death
was the bulletin from the league office
detailing the first batch of returns from
fan balloting for next month’s All-Star
Game in Chicago.

The leading vote-getter in the Eastern

Conference: Milwaukee’s Giannis
Antetokounmpo from Greece.

The leading vote-getter in the West:

Dallas’s Luka Doncic of Slovenia.

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Fan voting will always generate outrage

for one reason or another. Boston’s little-
used Tacko Fall, who placed sixth among
East frontcourt candidates, and the Los
Angeles Lakers’ Alex Caruso, who landed
at No. 8 among West guards, were the
primary causes for complaints from the
opening round of polling. Yet you
scarcely heard a quibble about the fact
that LeBron James trailed both Giannis
and Luka even though he has joined
Anthony Davis in powering the Lakers to
a 29-7 start.

Tacko Fall has barley played for the Celtics this

season, but he received more than 110,000 votes for
the All-Star Game from fans. Maddie Meyer/Getty
Images

Antetokounmpo is the league’s reigning

Most Valuable Player Award winner and
is playing at an even higher level this
season. Doncic has yet to appear in an
N.B.A. playoff game, but he has
established himself as a consensus top-10
player by averaging a ridiculous 29.7
points, 9.7 rebounds and 8.9 assists in his
sophomore season — leading the upstart
Mavericks to a surprising 23-13 record in
the process.

Unlike Nash’s era, when the N.B.A.

certainly featured numerous successful
international players but only a few who
were considered truly elite, there are
several at that level besides Giannis and
Luka.

The Cameroonian duo of Philadelphia’s

Joel Embiid and Toronto’s Pascal
Siakam have their own gaudy stat
lines that make them All-Star locks.

Denver’s Nikola Jokic (Serbia), despite

some slippage in his numbers from last
season, remains the unquestioned
fulcrum for the team with the second-
best record in the West.

Utah’s Rudy Gobert (France) is not

assured of making his All-Star
breakthrough next month because a
defense-first reputation like his
historically doesn’t help much in All-
Star campaigning. But Gobert has
made such an all-around impact for the
Jazz that you can find his name on
Basketball Reference’s M.V.P. tracker
at a solid No. 10.

Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns, who

was born in New Jersey but represents
the Dominican Republic
internationally, played in the past two
All-Star Games and would be a cinch
for a third appearance if not for a
recent knee injury — and the
Timberwolves’ slump to a 14-21 record
from a 10-8 start.

Throw in top All-Star contenders such as

Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons (Australia)
and Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis
(Lithuania) — as well as All-Stars of
recent vintage such as Orlando’s Nikola
Vucevic (Montenegro), Philadelphia’s Al
Horford (Dominican Republic), Toronto’s
Marc Gasol (Spain), Miami’s Goran
Dragic (Slovenia) and Dallas’s Kristaps
Porzingis (Latvia) — and the point
becomes clear.

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There may not quite be 12 internationals

playing at an indisputable All-Star level
as we speak, but it’s increasingly fair to
ask, as Nash predicted, if we’re all that
far away.

Porzingis, after all, is working his way

back to an All-Star standard after a
lengthy injury layoff. Two of Nash’s
young fellow Canadians — Oklahoma
City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and
Denver’s Jamal Murray — have also
flashed All-Star potential. Recent top-five
lottery picks include Phoenix’s Deandre
Ayton (Bahamas) and the Knicks’ RJ
Barrett (Canada).

The way things are going, as we dribble

into a new decade, it looks as though
mathematical fairness is the only
deterrent to N.B.A. Commissioner Adam
Silver’s trying out a United States/World
format.

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There were 108 foreign-born players on

opening-night rosters this season,
meaning there were more than 300
American-born players. It simply
wouldn’t be equitable for two groups of
such disparate size to battle for 12 All-
Star spots each.

But I also don’t believe that the league is

married to its two-year-old system in
which the two leading vote-getters, as
captains, pick their respective squads
without regard to conference. For all the
anticipation and chatter that the made-
for-television selection show generates,
momentum from the first game played
using this format in L.A. in 2018, after
years of waning interest, did not carry
over to the 2019 edition in Charlotte.

Don’t forget that Silver, when he initially

proposed the introduction of an in-season
tournament starting with the 2020-21
season, was looking at the final four of
that competition as a potential
replacement for the All-Star Game
entirely. The league ultimately backed off
that proposal when teams and the
players’ union voiced resistance to an in-
season tournament that would fall any
later on the league’s calendar than
December, but Silver’s original thinking
suggests that the N.B.A. remains
concerned about how flat All-Star Games
tend to feel.

At the M.I.T. Sloan Sports Analytics

Conference in Boston in March,
remember, Silver himself said the 2019
All-Star Game “didn’t work” and
admitted that the most recent changes
were akin to putting “an earring on a
pig.”

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Maybe the starry imports who have

succeeded Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau
Gasol, Tony Parker and all the
international stars from the last decade
will never get their chance to engage the
Americans in an All-Star duel. Maybe
restricting that format to the Rising Stars
Game featuring first- and second-year
players, as the N.B.A. has done for the
past five seasons, is the right call.

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Yet the mere fact that the debate only

gets stronger may be as fitting a tribute
as we can muster for Stern — since
taking the N.B.A. global before any other
North American sport, and to a much
greater degree, is such a huge slice of his
legacy.

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The Scoop @TheSteinLine

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Corner Three
You ask; I answer. Every week in this
space, I’ll field three questions posed via
email at marcstein-
newsletter@nytimes.com. (Please include
your first and last name, as well as the
city you’re writing in from, and make sure
“Corner Three” is in the subject line.)

Q: Where would you rank David Stern as

a commissioner compared to those in
other sports like Pete Rozelle in the
N.F.L., Bowie Kuhn or Fay Vincent in
baseball, etc.? — Bob Purcell (San
Diego)

Stein: I covered a smattering of all the

major North American men’s team sports
in my youth, but I have been covering the
N.B.A. almost exclusively since February
1994. So it’s not really fair for me to
answer this one.

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I would naturally put Stern ahead of all

his competitors because I know so much
more about his work. Most of my older
peers always say that mythical top spot
has to go to either Stern or Rozelle. But
as our own Harvey Araton sagely noted
when I asked him, Stern’s edge may well
be that on his watch the N.B.A. achieved
relevance on social, cultural and
international fronts that the N.F.L. — for
all its advantages in TV prominence and
in-stadium attendance — can’t match.

What I can say with greater confidence is

that I will always wish Stern, upon ceding
his office to Adam Silver in February
2014, would have spent a few years trying
to bring order to a sport he loved almost
as much as I do: tennis.

Tennis has always suffered greatly from

the lack of a commissioner who could
exert authority over the sport’s many
(too many, really) competing factions.
But Stern’s focus, for pretty much his
entire adult life, was the N.B.A. and
growing/enhancing/protecting his
league. So I am forced to concede that it
probably would have been hard for him to
muster anywhere near the same passion
for another sport in a working capacity.

Q: I have to agree with the recent

comment here that the Raptors are
mostly ignored by the American sports
media. Maybe you are an exception, but
why aren’t more people writing about the
Chris Boucher story alone? — Kent
Goodwin (Stowe, Vt.)

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Stein: I think we’ve reached the point in

this discussion where nothing I say is
going to persuade the skeptics. But I
think I will be vindicated when Coach of
the Year Award voting results are
released in June.

The Raptors awoke on Tuesday on a 54-

win pace. If they maintain that level for
the rest of the regular season, given the
ridiculous string of injuries they’ve faced
along the way, Nick Nurse will have a
real shot at winning the C.O.Y. prize —
and thus prove how closely the Raptors
are being monitored south of the border
in the post-Kawhi Leonard era.

It was suggested to me last week by a

trusted insider that the Raptors just
might surprise us again before the Feb. 6
trade deadline and emerge as buyers to
fortify themselves for another playoff
run. The widespread assumption coming
into the season held that Toronto would
trade the veteran likes of Kyle Lowry,
Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka to prepare
for a reset in the summer of 2021 built
around the free-agency pursuit of
Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo. (I
predicted as much myself.)

The safe bet remains that Masai Ujiri,

Toronto’s president of basketball
operations, will avoid any deals that
affect the Raptors’ cap space in 2021. But
the Raptors will be a huge source of
curiosity over the next month — thanks
in part to the unexpected contributions
from the likes of Boucher, Terence Davis,
Matt Thomas, Oshae Brissett and O.G.
Anunoby — whether or not they’re
generating reams of coverage.

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Q: How convenient for you. Now you get

to expand your hate for Houston beyond
basketball. — @venramamurthy from
Twitter

Stein: This tweet came in response to my

social media cheering for the Buffalo Bills
as a proud former Western New Yorker
— which lasted until the Bills unraveled
in Saturday’s A.F.C. wild-card loss to the
Houston Texans to extend their drought
without a playoff win to 1995.

The supposition from Venkat is that

rooting against the Texans was a natural
for me because I “hate” his Rockets.

We’re still not past this stuff in 2020,

friends?

My only issues with Houston, here in the

real world, are the traffic, how hard it is
to get to Cafe Adel for some wonderful
Bosnian food in that traffic when staying
downtown and the oppressive weather
from June to September (my quarrel with
every city in Texas — including the one I
live in).

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Happy New Year!

Numbers Game
$2,615,000

In 20 years as the team owner of the

Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban has
accrued more than $2.6 million in publicly
announced fines from the N.B.A.,
according to this ledger maintained by
the longtime Mavericks historian Patricia
Bender. Not all fines issued by the league
office are made public.

The N.B.A.’s two Florida teams sport

quite the contrast with their records in
overtime games so far this season:
Miami is 6-0, and Orlando is 0-0.

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