Perennial All-Stars:
Derrick Rose
O.J. Mayo
Fringe All-Stars:
Michael Beasley
Starters on Champions:
Jerryd Bayless
Kevin Love
Danilo Gallinari
Anthony Randolph
Darrell Arthur
Brook Lopez
Brandon Rush
Mario Chalmers
Rotation Guys:
Russell Westbrook
Eric Gordon
Joe Alexander
Kosta Koufos
Donta Greene
Chris Douglas-Roberts
DJ White
Short Career:
Roy Hibbert
Robin Lopez
Marreese Speights
Joey Dorsey
JaVale McGee
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
"Russian Revolution"
Posted: Tuesday April 22, 2008 8:21AM; Updated: Thursday April 24, 2008 5:26PM
Ian Thomsen
"Russian Revolution"
The home of Stalin, Putin and Langdon -- Langdon? -- is trying to embrace American-style (read: capitalist) basketball . . . with a little Elvis thrown in.
The world's most elegant cheerleaders take the court like a troupe of ballerinas, dressed simply in lilac tops and low-rise black pants for their role as arm candy to the star of this brief show. The iconic main attraction is decked out in the telltale white body suit and has the familiar upswept hair. During his brief time on earth, the original Elvis Presley typified the Western entertainment that was banned by the Soviet Union as "tumors on the social organism." But in this incarnation he is belting out bastardized Russian-and-English lyrics to the tune of Blue Suede Shoes as the twirling ladies encircle him. "Come on, SESS-ka!" sings Elvis, leaning into the crook of his glittering elbow.
SESS-ka refers to CSKA, or Central Sports Army Club, the home team for this February basketball game in Moscow. The celebrated organization dates to the Soviet days of Stalin and Khrushchev and Brezhnev, who ruled the army generals and also, by chain of command, the gold medalists competing for CSKA. The Red Army athletes were the most intimidating of competitors: fundamentally disciplined basketball stars, ice hockey players and figure skaters who tormented the U.S. in the Olympic Games every fourth winter and summer.
Then in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, and soon the Soviet system collapsed. But the teams of CSKA Moscow have continued to thrive, though they bear little more than symbolic allegiance to the military. Instead, they answer to a former disc jockey.
It's true: CSKA is run by a deejay named Sergey Kushchenko, a genial, outgoing 46-year-old who was spinning LPs of the Beatles and bootlegging cassettes of the Rolling Stones even as Soviet coach Alexander Gomelsky and five CSKA players were leading the U.S.S.R. to an 82-76 win over the U.S. at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. That Sergey the deejay happened also to fall in love with basketball has resulted in his spectacularly unpredictable rise to president of CSKA. Sitting courtside in a dark suit and tie -- uncomfortable attire during his deejay days -- he watches the team that he has reinvented to become the best in the world outside the NBA.
Two decades ago Soviet stars such as Arvydas Sabonis and Sarunas Marciulionis earned disposable income by selling athletic gear and black-market caviar out of their hotel rooms during international road trips. Now, the high-end clubs of the Russian Superleague have more money to spend than most of their European rivals. Russia's vast natural resources and the ambitions of president Vladimir Putin (who will move to the prime minister's office on May 7) have recast basketball as a metric of the nation's new identity -- even if that identity is often cast by foreigners. The coach of what is still commonly referred to as the Red Army team is Ettore Messina, an Italian. He yells at his three American players, two Greeks, a Slovenian, a Lithuanian, a Belgian, an Australian and a half-dozen Russians in English -- English! -- proof that the new Russia is competing for talent on a global scale.
Sergey the deejay is driving this revolutionary trend in Russian basketball. He is striving to create an open-market environment for the American-born sport within an old-world government of Russian secrecy (in which investigative journalists are routinely found murdered) and strong-arm politics (as manipulated by Putin, who prolonged his influence by handpicking his presidential successor in a March election that was free of viable opposition candidates). The NBA has recognized the ambitions of Kushchenko, and over the last three years he has patiently negotiated a unique relationship between his progressive club and the NBA. Commissioner David Stern usually prefers to marry himself to international federations or leagues, but so important is CSKA to all of basketball in Russia, and so visionary is Kushchenko, that in February the NBA was ready to sign a deal with CSKA that would open the Russian frontier to opportunities benefiting both sides.
On this afternoon the Superleague meeting between CSKA and visiting Khimki is tight into the fourth quarter as CSKA's cheerleaders return yet again to the court. Their elegance is part of Sergey the deejay's larger vision for basketball in the CSKA Universal Sports Hall, a steeply tiered arena of 5,500 seats built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. As the young women sweep gracefully onto the floor, they are met by dozens of colored lights spinning and strobing from the ceiling, another of Kushchenko's innovations. "Like disco," he explains.
An and-one drive by the visitors cuts CSKA's lead to 65-64 with 25 seconds remaining. Trajan Langdon, the former All-America guard at Duke who is one of CSKA's go-to scorers, responds with a free throw. Another drive by Khimki fails and CSKA seizes a 68-64 victory, one of 23 it will earn (against just one loss) domestically this season to claim first place in the Superleague.
Basketball is important to Russia because, in the beginning, it was important to the U.S. The Soviets embraced basketball after World War II for no other reason than to try to prove they could beat the U.S. at its own game, to demonstrate that their collective approach could overcome superior talent. They started by dominating the sport in the old world, dividing the first six European Champions Cups among ASK Riga, the army team of Latvia (winner of the first three titles, all coached by the legendary Gomelsky); Dinamo Tbilisi, the police-sponsored team from the Soviet republic of Georgia; and, of course, CSKA Moscow.
Today there are at least 1,500 Americans playing basketball professionally around the world, but this trend began in Europe when they were imported like mercenaries to repel the Soviets. In 1962 Real Madrid became the first Western European club to break into the finals of the Champions Cup (known today as the Euroleague) after its Hall of Fame coach, Pedro Ferrà ndiz, had traveled to Philadelphia to recruit 6' 8" power forward Wayne Hightower, an African-American who had left Kansas a year before he was eligible for the NBA draft. Europe had never seen an athlete like Hightower, and though he would return home to spend 11 years in the NBA and ABA, his one season in Europe created demand for more Americans to stand up to the Soviets.
The U.S.S.R. ratcheted up the standards of international competition by turning games into metaphorical life-and-death struggles with the free world. The common denominator for many of the nation's significant basketball victories was Gomelsky, who began an 11-year term as CSKA's coach in 1969 and later served as the team's president while guiding the Soviet national team on and off over three decades. "He was a wily little guy, politically shrewd, considered one of the 100 most powerful men in Russia, disliked by many, connected with higher-ups in the Politburo," says Dan Peterson, the expatriate American who coached in Italy during the Gomelsky era. "A ruthless winner, a brilliant guy."
Gomelsky's most important -- and final -- triumph was the 82-76 semifinal win over coach John Thompson's collegians in the '88 Games, which prompted USA Basketball to assemble the original Dream Team four years later. That last Soviet team, like the U.S.S.R. itself, was on the verge of splintering amid ethnic quarrels and demands for freedom, but Gomelsky achieved temporary unification in his locker room, according to Peterson, by persuading Mikhail Gorbachev to allow the players to sign with clubs outside the country provided they won the gold medal.
After the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, most of its famed basketball generation scattered throughout Europe and the NBA, for in the first tortured decade of independence there was little money for Russian hoops. The proud clubs of the former empire were unable to pay their bills -- CSKA included, though that did not stop the team from winning nine straight Superleague titles. Gomelsky's search for his eventual replacement as team president, someone capable of responding to the problems and opportunities of the new millennium, led him to the isolated Russian city of Perm, a former Soviet weapons-manufacturing base 800 miles east of Moscow that was closed to foreigners until 1989. Perm was home to a small start-up club known as Ural Great, which had dethroned CSKA to win the 2001 Russian championship and which was owned and operated by none other than Sergey Kushchenko. "I visited Perm in 2001," recalls Roy Kirkdorffer, an American financial adviser based in the south of France who represents European basketball players. "And I had breakfast with Gomelsky, who said of Kushchenko, 'He's our bright young hope.' "
Three things that illustrate the paradox of Russian basketball:
1. It is not run as a business. While the NBA exists to make money, there is no tradition for profitability throughout European basketball. The major clubs are funded by private financiers or parent sports clubs and exist simply to win games for their city, region and country -- red ink be damned.
2. Kushchenko wants to run it as a business. Kushchenko, who took over CSKA's basketball team in 2002, talks of creating a market for basketball, of eventually developing sources of revenue that will equal or exceed his club's budget of more than $40 million, which makes it among the richest in Europe. (The average NBA team's budget is more than $100 million.) Over the last three years he has made several trips to the U.S. with his CSKA employees, and together they have studied everything from the marketing to the merchandising to the administration of the NBA website in hopes of acquiring the perspectives of an organization that is built for profit. As foreign as this may be to his Russian colleagues, Kushchenko sees no other future for basketball in his country.
3. There is no compelling need to run it as a business. CSKA is funded by a billionaire oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, 42, who made his initial fortune in the 1980s by selling stone-washed jeans in the U.S.S.R. When the state-owned industries were privatized in the '90s by Boris Yeltsin, Prokhorov leveraged his chairmanship of a bank to acquire Norilsk Nickel, the world's leading producer of nickel and palladium. He has since relinquished his stake in Norilsk, though he retains control of sister company Polyus Gold, the largest gold producer in Russia.
Despite standing 6' 9" and having played basketball in grade school, Prokhorov has shown minimal interest in the team. It appears to Western observers that he is involved with CSKA because Putin has instructed billionaire oligarchs to invest heavily in basketball and other sports to raise Russia's profile around the world. As it is, Prokhorov, the 24th-richest person in the world according to Forbes (net worth: $19.5 billion), rarely attends hoops games, and he tends to be impressed neither by the spectacle nor by the American need to profit from the sport. During the NBA Europe Live exhibitions in Moscow in 2006, where the carnival of NBA sideshows was on display during timeouts, he turned to a few international guests and said, "This is all bulls---."
Prokhorov's passive interest has not prevented the team he bankrolls from becoming the most talented outside the NBA. CSKA has reached the Euroleague Final Four a record six consecutive times, and next week in Madrid the Russian power is favored to win the title for the second time in three seasons.
The leading scorer throughout the season (at just 13.4 points per game, befitting the club's balance) is 6' 11" center David Andersen, a 27-year-old Australian who plays on a Danish passport and is considering a move to the NBA next season. (The Atlanta Hawks drafted him in the second round in 2002.)
The point guard is a surprisingly talented player from Bucknell named J.R. Holden, 31. In his six years with CSKA he has become, according to coach Messina, the best point guard in Europe. The 6' 1" Holden's skills are so highly valued by the Russians that he was naturalized in 2003 -- despite not having met residency requirements -- so he could play for the national team. (A former national team general manager, Kushchenko helped persuade the government to grant Holden an exemption.) Last September, Holden hit a contested jump shot with 2.1 seconds left to give Russia a shocking 60-59 victory over Spain in the European championships, a victory that promised to maintain political interest and money in Russian basketball for years to come.
The CSKA roster is overloaded with renowned Europeans such as Theodoros Papaloukas, 30, recently named one of the 35 greatest players in the 50-year history of the Euroleague; his fellow Greek guard Nikos Zisis, 24; and Lithuanian forward Ramunas Siskauskas, 29, who chose to leave Euroleague champion Panathinaikos to move to Moscow this season. The 6' 8" forward Marcus Goree, who grew up playing with Denver Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin in Dallas, is a 30-year-old who, according to Messina, "could be the European Ben Wallace." Messina himself was named one of the top 10 coaches in Euroleague history, and he views his team leaders as Holden and Langdon, who last season was the only American to make first-team all-Euroleague.
The man who put CSKA together, the open and sincere Kushchenko, is in every way the opposite of the stern, cold authoritarian whom one would expect to be presiding over the Red Army club. It helps that he doesn't particularly need basketball. He and some friends from Perm also cashed in on the privatization boom of the 1990s, and their ownership of Kam Kabel -- a manufacturer of electronic cables with 5,000 employees -- has made a millionaire of him. Today he lives with his wife, Svetlana, and their three children in a gated community outside Moscow, in a modern, four-story house with heated floors, a skylit penthouse and fixtures designed by Italian architects.
In 2006 Kushchenko was rewarded with a promotion to the presidency of all of CSKA and its 41 sports, which is a far more political position than simply managing the daily affairs of the basketball club. At All-Star weekend in New Orleans, he was welcomed by the NBA to finalize their long-sought partnership. The agreement appeared to be in place: CSKA would put up close to $10 million to serve as host of NBA events in Moscow, including the charitable youth event Basketball Without Borders and preseason exhibitions involving NBA teams. NBA and CSKA officials would work side by side in Moscow, enabling the Americans to grow their league in Russia while providing CSKA with expertise in transforming basketball into a market-based business. CSKA games would be broadcast in the U.S. on NBA TV. Left unsaid was the eventual possibility that CSKA might become an NBA franchise during the league's planned expansion to Europe over the decades ahead.
The meetings in New Orleans were expected to be a formality -- sign the papers, shake hands, bring in Stern for group photographs -- but Kushchenko unexpectedly revealed that he was unable to agree to the terms. He also was unable to explain why. He grabbed the arm of NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver and whispered, "Don't worry. We'll get that done."
The NBA isn't giving up on Kushchenko. "Russia remains an important market for the NBA," says Silver. "We are encouraged by the discussions we've had with Sergey and his colleagues. We remain hopeful that we're going to work out a long-term deal with him."
But something had changed, in spite of all of Kushchenko's successes in moving basketball forward in Russia. Was he unable to persuade the politicians to run the sport as a business? Were they, in spite of their reliance on foreign basketball talent, unwilling to form a partnership with the Americans? The story of Sergey the deejay, though it is not yet finished, is that Russia, for all of the promise of its new frontier, is still mired in its old ways.
Find this article at: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/ian_thomsen/04/22/russian.revolution0428
Ian Thomsen
"Russian Revolution"
The home of Stalin, Putin and Langdon -- Langdon? -- is trying to embrace American-style (read: capitalist) basketball . . . with a little Elvis thrown in.
The world's most elegant cheerleaders take the court like a troupe of ballerinas, dressed simply in lilac tops and low-rise black pants for their role as arm candy to the star of this brief show. The iconic main attraction is decked out in the telltale white body suit and has the familiar upswept hair. During his brief time on earth, the original Elvis Presley typified the Western entertainment that was banned by the Soviet Union as "tumors on the social organism." But in this incarnation he is belting out bastardized Russian-and-English lyrics to the tune of Blue Suede Shoes as the twirling ladies encircle him. "Come on, SESS-ka!" sings Elvis, leaning into the crook of his glittering elbow.
SESS-ka refers to CSKA, or Central Sports Army Club, the home team for this February basketball game in Moscow. The celebrated organization dates to the Soviet days of Stalin and Khrushchev and Brezhnev, who ruled the army generals and also, by chain of command, the gold medalists competing for CSKA. The Red Army athletes were the most intimidating of competitors: fundamentally disciplined basketball stars, ice hockey players and figure skaters who tormented the U.S. in the Olympic Games every fourth winter and summer.
Then in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, and soon the Soviet system collapsed. But the teams of CSKA Moscow have continued to thrive, though they bear little more than symbolic allegiance to the military. Instead, they answer to a former disc jockey.
It's true: CSKA is run by a deejay named Sergey Kushchenko, a genial, outgoing 46-year-old who was spinning LPs of the Beatles and bootlegging cassettes of the Rolling Stones even as Soviet coach Alexander Gomelsky and five CSKA players were leading the U.S.S.R. to an 82-76 win over the U.S. at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. That Sergey the deejay happened also to fall in love with basketball has resulted in his spectacularly unpredictable rise to president of CSKA. Sitting courtside in a dark suit and tie -- uncomfortable attire during his deejay days -- he watches the team that he has reinvented to become the best in the world outside the NBA.
Two decades ago Soviet stars such as Arvydas Sabonis and Sarunas Marciulionis earned disposable income by selling athletic gear and black-market caviar out of their hotel rooms during international road trips. Now, the high-end clubs of the Russian Superleague have more money to spend than most of their European rivals. Russia's vast natural resources and the ambitions of president Vladimir Putin (who will move to the prime minister's office on May 7) have recast basketball as a metric of the nation's new identity -- even if that identity is often cast by foreigners. The coach of what is still commonly referred to as the Red Army team is Ettore Messina, an Italian. He yells at his three American players, two Greeks, a Slovenian, a Lithuanian, a Belgian, an Australian and a half-dozen Russians in English -- English! -- proof that the new Russia is competing for talent on a global scale.
Sergey the deejay is driving this revolutionary trend in Russian basketball. He is striving to create an open-market environment for the American-born sport within an old-world government of Russian secrecy (in which investigative journalists are routinely found murdered) and strong-arm politics (as manipulated by Putin, who prolonged his influence by handpicking his presidential successor in a March election that was free of viable opposition candidates). The NBA has recognized the ambitions of Kushchenko, and over the last three years he has patiently negotiated a unique relationship between his progressive club and the NBA. Commissioner David Stern usually prefers to marry himself to international federations or leagues, but so important is CSKA to all of basketball in Russia, and so visionary is Kushchenko, that in February the NBA was ready to sign a deal with CSKA that would open the Russian frontier to opportunities benefiting both sides.
On this afternoon the Superleague meeting between CSKA and visiting Khimki is tight into the fourth quarter as CSKA's cheerleaders return yet again to the court. Their elegance is part of Sergey the deejay's larger vision for basketball in the CSKA Universal Sports Hall, a steeply tiered arena of 5,500 seats built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. As the young women sweep gracefully onto the floor, they are met by dozens of colored lights spinning and strobing from the ceiling, another of Kushchenko's innovations. "Like disco," he explains.
An and-one drive by the visitors cuts CSKA's lead to 65-64 with 25 seconds remaining. Trajan Langdon, the former All-America guard at Duke who is one of CSKA's go-to scorers, responds with a free throw. Another drive by Khimki fails and CSKA seizes a 68-64 victory, one of 23 it will earn (against just one loss) domestically this season to claim first place in the Superleague.
Basketball is important to Russia because, in the beginning, it was important to the U.S. The Soviets embraced basketball after World War II for no other reason than to try to prove they could beat the U.S. at its own game, to demonstrate that their collective approach could overcome superior talent. They started by dominating the sport in the old world, dividing the first six European Champions Cups among ASK Riga, the army team of Latvia (winner of the first three titles, all coached by the legendary Gomelsky); Dinamo Tbilisi, the police-sponsored team from the Soviet republic of Georgia; and, of course, CSKA Moscow.
Today there are at least 1,500 Americans playing basketball professionally around the world, but this trend began in Europe when they were imported like mercenaries to repel the Soviets. In 1962 Real Madrid became the first Western European club to break into the finals of the Champions Cup (known today as the Euroleague) after its Hall of Fame coach, Pedro Ferrà ndiz, had traveled to Philadelphia to recruit 6' 8" power forward Wayne Hightower, an African-American who had left Kansas a year before he was eligible for the NBA draft. Europe had never seen an athlete like Hightower, and though he would return home to spend 11 years in the NBA and ABA, his one season in Europe created demand for more Americans to stand up to the Soviets.
The U.S.S.R. ratcheted up the standards of international competition by turning games into metaphorical life-and-death struggles with the free world. The common denominator for many of the nation's significant basketball victories was Gomelsky, who began an 11-year term as CSKA's coach in 1969 and later served as the team's president while guiding the Soviet national team on and off over three decades. "He was a wily little guy, politically shrewd, considered one of the 100 most powerful men in Russia, disliked by many, connected with higher-ups in the Politburo," says Dan Peterson, the expatriate American who coached in Italy during the Gomelsky era. "A ruthless winner, a brilliant guy."
Gomelsky's most important -- and final -- triumph was the 82-76 semifinal win over coach John Thompson's collegians in the '88 Games, which prompted USA Basketball to assemble the original Dream Team four years later. That last Soviet team, like the U.S.S.R. itself, was on the verge of splintering amid ethnic quarrels and demands for freedom, but Gomelsky achieved temporary unification in his locker room, according to Peterson, by persuading Mikhail Gorbachev to allow the players to sign with clubs outside the country provided they won the gold medal.
After the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, most of its famed basketball generation scattered throughout Europe and the NBA, for in the first tortured decade of independence there was little money for Russian hoops. The proud clubs of the former empire were unable to pay their bills -- CSKA included, though that did not stop the team from winning nine straight Superleague titles. Gomelsky's search for his eventual replacement as team president, someone capable of responding to the problems and opportunities of the new millennium, led him to the isolated Russian city of Perm, a former Soviet weapons-manufacturing base 800 miles east of Moscow that was closed to foreigners until 1989. Perm was home to a small start-up club known as Ural Great, which had dethroned CSKA to win the 2001 Russian championship and which was owned and operated by none other than Sergey Kushchenko. "I visited Perm in 2001," recalls Roy Kirkdorffer, an American financial adviser based in the south of France who represents European basketball players. "And I had breakfast with Gomelsky, who said of Kushchenko, 'He's our bright young hope.' "
Three things that illustrate the paradox of Russian basketball:
1. It is not run as a business. While the NBA exists to make money, there is no tradition for profitability throughout European basketball. The major clubs are funded by private financiers or parent sports clubs and exist simply to win games for their city, region and country -- red ink be damned.
2. Kushchenko wants to run it as a business. Kushchenko, who took over CSKA's basketball team in 2002, talks of creating a market for basketball, of eventually developing sources of revenue that will equal or exceed his club's budget of more than $40 million, which makes it among the richest in Europe. (The average NBA team's budget is more than $100 million.) Over the last three years he has made several trips to the U.S. with his CSKA employees, and together they have studied everything from the marketing to the merchandising to the administration of the NBA website in hopes of acquiring the perspectives of an organization that is built for profit. As foreign as this may be to his Russian colleagues, Kushchenko sees no other future for basketball in his country.
3. There is no compelling need to run it as a business. CSKA is funded by a billionaire oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, 42, who made his initial fortune in the 1980s by selling stone-washed jeans in the U.S.S.R. When the state-owned industries were privatized in the '90s by Boris Yeltsin, Prokhorov leveraged his chairmanship of a bank to acquire Norilsk Nickel, the world's leading producer of nickel and palladium. He has since relinquished his stake in Norilsk, though he retains control of sister company Polyus Gold, the largest gold producer in Russia.
Despite standing 6' 9" and having played basketball in grade school, Prokhorov has shown minimal interest in the team. It appears to Western observers that he is involved with CSKA because Putin has instructed billionaire oligarchs to invest heavily in basketball and other sports to raise Russia's profile around the world. As it is, Prokhorov, the 24th-richest person in the world according to Forbes (net worth: $19.5 billion), rarely attends hoops games, and he tends to be impressed neither by the spectacle nor by the American need to profit from the sport. During the NBA Europe Live exhibitions in Moscow in 2006, where the carnival of NBA sideshows was on display during timeouts, he turned to a few international guests and said, "This is all bulls---."
Prokhorov's passive interest has not prevented the team he bankrolls from becoming the most talented outside the NBA. CSKA has reached the Euroleague Final Four a record six consecutive times, and next week in Madrid the Russian power is favored to win the title for the second time in three seasons.
The leading scorer throughout the season (at just 13.4 points per game, befitting the club's balance) is 6' 11" center David Andersen, a 27-year-old Australian who plays on a Danish passport and is considering a move to the NBA next season. (The Atlanta Hawks drafted him in the second round in 2002.)
The point guard is a surprisingly talented player from Bucknell named J.R. Holden, 31. In his six years with CSKA he has become, according to coach Messina, the best point guard in Europe. The 6' 1" Holden's skills are so highly valued by the Russians that he was naturalized in 2003 -- despite not having met residency requirements -- so he could play for the national team. (A former national team general manager, Kushchenko helped persuade the government to grant Holden an exemption.) Last September, Holden hit a contested jump shot with 2.1 seconds left to give Russia a shocking 60-59 victory over Spain in the European championships, a victory that promised to maintain political interest and money in Russian basketball for years to come.
The CSKA roster is overloaded with renowned Europeans such as Theodoros Papaloukas, 30, recently named one of the 35 greatest players in the 50-year history of the Euroleague; his fellow Greek guard Nikos Zisis, 24; and Lithuanian forward Ramunas Siskauskas, 29, who chose to leave Euroleague champion Panathinaikos to move to Moscow this season. The 6' 8" forward Marcus Goree, who grew up playing with Denver Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin in Dallas, is a 30-year-old who, according to Messina, "could be the European Ben Wallace." Messina himself was named one of the top 10 coaches in Euroleague history, and he views his team leaders as Holden and Langdon, who last season was the only American to make first-team all-Euroleague.
The man who put CSKA together, the open and sincere Kushchenko, is in every way the opposite of the stern, cold authoritarian whom one would expect to be presiding over the Red Army club. It helps that he doesn't particularly need basketball. He and some friends from Perm also cashed in on the privatization boom of the 1990s, and their ownership of Kam Kabel -- a manufacturer of electronic cables with 5,000 employees -- has made a millionaire of him. Today he lives with his wife, Svetlana, and their three children in a gated community outside Moscow, in a modern, four-story house with heated floors, a skylit penthouse and fixtures designed by Italian architects.
In 2006 Kushchenko was rewarded with a promotion to the presidency of all of CSKA and its 41 sports, which is a far more political position than simply managing the daily affairs of the basketball club. At All-Star weekend in New Orleans, he was welcomed by the NBA to finalize their long-sought partnership. The agreement appeared to be in place: CSKA would put up close to $10 million to serve as host of NBA events in Moscow, including the charitable youth event Basketball Without Borders and preseason exhibitions involving NBA teams. NBA and CSKA officials would work side by side in Moscow, enabling the Americans to grow their league in Russia while providing CSKA with expertise in transforming basketball into a market-based business. CSKA games would be broadcast in the U.S. on NBA TV. Left unsaid was the eventual possibility that CSKA might become an NBA franchise during the league's planned expansion to Europe over the decades ahead.
The meetings in New Orleans were expected to be a formality -- sign the papers, shake hands, bring in Stern for group photographs -- but Kushchenko unexpectedly revealed that he was unable to agree to the terms. He also was unable to explain why. He grabbed the arm of NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver and whispered, "Don't worry. We'll get that done."
The NBA isn't giving up on Kushchenko. "Russia remains an important market for the NBA," says Silver. "We are encouraged by the discussions we've had with Sergey and his colleagues. We remain hopeful that we're going to work out a long-term deal with him."
But something had changed, in spite of all of Kushchenko's successes in moving basketball forward in Russia. Was he unable to persuade the politicians to run the sport as a business? Were they, in spite of their reliance on foreign basketball talent, unwilling to form a partnership with the Americans? The story of Sergey the deejay, though it is not yet finished, is that Russia, for all of the promise of its new frontier, is still mired in its old ways.
Find this article at: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/ian_thomsen/04/22/russian.revolution0428
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
2007-08
38-33
reg season + playoffs without Arenas
Antawn Jamison
Caron Butler
DeShawn Stevenson
Brendan Haywood
Roger Mason
Andray Blatche
Antonio Daniels
Nick Young
Darius Songalia
Oleksiy Pecherov
U-FA Jamison, Mason
R-FA Arenas
Etan Thomas returning
Either bring back Arenas with a true pg and play Arenas at the 2
Or
Let Arenas go
-they were starting Arenas at pg and Stevenson at sg
38-33
reg season + playoffs without Arenas
Antawn Jamison
Caron Butler
DeShawn Stevenson
Brendan Haywood
Roger Mason
Andray Blatche
Antonio Daniels
Nick Young
Darius Songalia
Oleksiy Pecherov
U-FA Jamison, Mason
R-FA Arenas
Etan Thomas returning
Either bring back Arenas with a true pg and play Arenas at the 2
Or
Let Arenas go
-they were starting Arenas at pg and Stevenson at sg
Thursday, April 17, 2008
"The Lakers' film star"
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Smith column: The Lakers' film star
Chris Bodaken spends hours of time in the video room, helping to prepare the Lakers for their next opponent.
MARCIA C. SMITH
Register columnist
masmith@ocregister.com
TBD – to be determined – is like a curse phrase. It's the ugly, unnerving unknown and quite possibly the worst three letters anyone can tell Chris Bodaken.
As a Lakers scout and director of video services, Bodaken has to think ahead. He's the guy who sizes up the next opponent, considers the next contest, writes statistics-loaded scouting reports, strings together highlight footage for each player and coach and anticipates each one-on-one matchup, game situation and crunch-time scenario.
And with "TBD" as the Lakers first-round opponent in NBA playoffs for much of the last frenzied week in the wild, wild Western Conference, Bodaken has had to fight a panic that strikes like a medicine ball to the kidney.
"It's a crazy time, not knowing," said Bodaken, a 1990 USC grad who latched onto the Lakers 15 seasons ago as an intern. "The uncertainty of the playoffs is hard. When this happens at the end of season, I have to ask myself, 'Can I be a gambler? Can I wait until the last minute and pull an all-nighter?' "
A week ago, the Lakers' playoff picture was scrambled. As games played out and teams flip-flopped positions, there were four possible opponents, then three, and after the Lakers locked up the top seed with Tuesday night's regular-season-finale victory over Sacramento, two.
Bodaken had to wait until the final buzzer of the league's regular season sounded Wednesday night for the Lakers' first-round foe – TBD – to turn into either the Denver Nuggets or the Dallas Mavericks.
Denver or Dallas? Denver or Dallas? Denver or Dallas? The teams rattled in Bodaken's head and twisted his stomach for days.
He's the gambler he was a decade ago when he would wait to know the opponent, get the coffee pot going on a constant drip and spend 24 tense hours scanning through boxes of videotape.
He doesn't want that work stress anymore. He's 40 now. He has children.
So by Tuesday morning, Bodaken and his assistant, Patrick O'Keefe, had prepared for both the Nuggets and the Mavericks, knowing all along that they would ultimately have to chuck half their work into the trash.
"I'm afraid to guess how many days and hours of watching film it takes to get ready for the playoffs," said Bodaken, of Pasadena. "It's probably a scary number."
Bodaken and O'Keefe can pace themselves and even get ahead during the regular season because the next game and the next opponent are on the schedule. Playoffs usually kick their work into fast-forward.
Their workplaces at Staples Center and at the Lakers' practice facility in El Segundo are cramped, chilly climate-controlled quarters with just enough room for two chairs, a video editing station, 10 TV screens, four TiVos, a couple VCRs, a DVD recorder, walls lined with thousands of hours of archived NBA footage, stacks of blank DVDs and a clock.
There are no windows. Only a timepiece tells Bodaken whether it's day or night in these rooms where it's always gametime.
"It's like a Vegas casino in here," he said. "You keep going, watching, working, not knowing what's happening outside."
Getting ready for the Nuggets and the Mavericks began with poring over the Lakers' games against both teams and meeting with the Lakers assistant coach assigned to study that team throughout the season.
The Lakers went 3-0 against the Nuggets, but they haven't faced Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony since a 116-99 victory on Jan. 21. So Bodaken had to pull footage from the Nuggets' more recent games to see how they're playing now against other teams.
The Lakers went 3-1 against the Mavericks in close contests with an average score of 107-106. Fortunately for Bodaken, the Lakers played the Mavericks on April 4 and won, 112-108.
Bodaken and O'Keefe also retrieved the fourth-quarter action of every close game the Nuggets and Mavericks played this season to see what the teams did in critical situations. They watched the game both teams played this week, checked injury reports and analyzed statistics from the minutes the star players played to the team's free-throw shooting percentage.
"About 98 percent of NBA games are on DirecTV, so it was just a matter of going back and finding the game," he said. "It was a lot harder before the days of digital TV and the Internet."
For each Lakers coach, Bodaken and O'Keefe made highlight DVDs – or in the case of some less tech-savvy assistants, VHS tapes – of game footage featuring both teams.
"Phil (Jackson) likes to see the flow of the game, so he won't get quick cuts but segments of action," said Bodaken of the Lakers coach's viewing preferences. "He watches more video than any coach I know."
For each Laker, they put together 15-20 minute DVDs featuring about 60 game scenes of the Nugget or Maverick player or players whom the Laker will be defending.
"It's all about finding the tendencies of the other player in the matchup, things like whether a guy dribbles twice to his left before pulling up and shooting," said Bodaken. "Knowing the details, especially for a student of the game like Kobe Bryant, really helps them get ready."
His eyes have burned from all the watching, scanning in fast-forward and focusing frame-by-frame in slow-motion. But Bodaken is at ease knowing he will be ready to hand the Lakers their customized DVDs and written scouting reports when they leave their first practice in preparation of the playoffs.
His job will be done – until the next gametime, when he will log Sunday's action live from his Staples Center workroom. His day could last 15 hours. His eyes could be tired. His hands could cramp, his back ache.
But Bodaken knows that the Lakers depend on him to leave as little as possible to TBD.
Smith column: The Lakers' film star
Chris Bodaken spends hours of time in the video room, helping to prepare the Lakers for their next opponent.
MARCIA C. SMITH
Register columnist
masmith@ocregister.com
TBD – to be determined – is like a curse phrase. It's the ugly, unnerving unknown and quite possibly the worst three letters anyone can tell Chris Bodaken.
As a Lakers scout and director of video services, Bodaken has to think ahead. He's the guy who sizes up the next opponent, considers the next contest, writes statistics-loaded scouting reports, strings together highlight footage for each player and coach and anticipates each one-on-one matchup, game situation and crunch-time scenario.
And with "TBD" as the Lakers first-round opponent in NBA playoffs for much of the last frenzied week in the wild, wild Western Conference, Bodaken has had to fight a panic that strikes like a medicine ball to the kidney.
"It's a crazy time, not knowing," said Bodaken, a 1990 USC grad who latched onto the Lakers 15 seasons ago as an intern. "The uncertainty of the playoffs is hard. When this happens at the end of season, I have to ask myself, 'Can I be a gambler? Can I wait until the last minute and pull an all-nighter?' "
A week ago, the Lakers' playoff picture was scrambled. As games played out and teams flip-flopped positions, there were four possible opponents, then three, and after the Lakers locked up the top seed with Tuesday night's regular-season-finale victory over Sacramento, two.
Bodaken had to wait until the final buzzer of the league's regular season sounded Wednesday night for the Lakers' first-round foe – TBD – to turn into either the Denver Nuggets or the Dallas Mavericks.
Denver or Dallas? Denver or Dallas? Denver or Dallas? The teams rattled in Bodaken's head and twisted his stomach for days.
He's the gambler he was a decade ago when he would wait to know the opponent, get the coffee pot going on a constant drip and spend 24 tense hours scanning through boxes of videotape.
He doesn't want that work stress anymore. He's 40 now. He has children.
So by Tuesday morning, Bodaken and his assistant, Patrick O'Keefe, had prepared for both the Nuggets and the Mavericks, knowing all along that they would ultimately have to chuck half their work into the trash.
"I'm afraid to guess how many days and hours of watching film it takes to get ready for the playoffs," said Bodaken, of Pasadena. "It's probably a scary number."
Bodaken and O'Keefe can pace themselves and even get ahead during the regular season because the next game and the next opponent are on the schedule. Playoffs usually kick their work into fast-forward.
Their workplaces at Staples Center and at the Lakers' practice facility in El Segundo are cramped, chilly climate-controlled quarters with just enough room for two chairs, a video editing station, 10 TV screens, four TiVos, a couple VCRs, a DVD recorder, walls lined with thousands of hours of archived NBA footage, stacks of blank DVDs and a clock.
There are no windows. Only a timepiece tells Bodaken whether it's day or night in these rooms where it's always gametime.
"It's like a Vegas casino in here," he said. "You keep going, watching, working, not knowing what's happening outside."
Getting ready for the Nuggets and the Mavericks began with poring over the Lakers' games against both teams and meeting with the Lakers assistant coach assigned to study that team throughout the season.
The Lakers went 3-0 against the Nuggets, but they haven't faced Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony since a 116-99 victory on Jan. 21. So Bodaken had to pull footage from the Nuggets' more recent games to see how they're playing now against other teams.
The Lakers went 3-1 against the Mavericks in close contests with an average score of 107-106. Fortunately for Bodaken, the Lakers played the Mavericks on April 4 and won, 112-108.
Bodaken and O'Keefe also retrieved the fourth-quarter action of every close game the Nuggets and Mavericks played this season to see what the teams did in critical situations. They watched the game both teams played this week, checked injury reports and analyzed statistics from the minutes the star players played to the team's free-throw shooting percentage.
"About 98 percent of NBA games are on DirecTV, so it was just a matter of going back and finding the game," he said. "It was a lot harder before the days of digital TV and the Internet."
For each Lakers coach, Bodaken and O'Keefe made highlight DVDs – or in the case of some less tech-savvy assistants, VHS tapes – of game footage featuring both teams.
"Phil (Jackson) likes to see the flow of the game, so he won't get quick cuts but segments of action," said Bodaken of the Lakers coach's viewing preferences. "He watches more video than any coach I know."
For each Laker, they put together 15-20 minute DVDs featuring about 60 game scenes of the Nugget or Maverick player or players whom the Laker will be defending.
"It's all about finding the tendencies of the other player in the matchup, things like whether a guy dribbles twice to his left before pulling up and shooting," said Bodaken. "Knowing the details, especially for a student of the game like Kobe Bryant, really helps them get ready."
His eyes have burned from all the watching, scanning in fast-forward and focusing frame-by-frame in slow-motion. But Bodaken is at ease knowing he will be ready to hand the Lakers their customized DVDs and written scouting reports when they leave their first practice in preparation of the playoffs.
His job will be done – until the next gametime, when he will log Sunday's action live from his Staples Center workroom. His day could last 15 hours. His eyes could be tired. His hands could cramp, his back ache.
But Bodaken knows that the Lakers depend on him to leave as little as possible to TBD.
Monday, April 7, 2008
More on Tom Thibodeau
Outside of two seasons, the teams that Tom Thibodeau has been an assistant coach for have been very successful on the defensive side of the ball - thirteen times finish in the top ten in defensive points per game in the league.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Another Quick Mock Draft
1.) Miami: Michael Beasley
2.) Seattle: Derrick Rose
3.) Memphis: Brook Lopez
4.) Minnesota: O.J. Mayo
5.) New York: Eric Gordon
6.) LA Clippers: Danilo Gallinari
7.) Milwaukee: Blake Griffin
8.) Charlotte: D.J. Augustin
9.) Chicago: Anthony Randolph
10.) Indiana: Jerryd Bayless
11.) New Jersey: Kevin Love
12.) Sacramento: Russell Westbrook
13.) Portland: Darren Collison
2.) Seattle: Derrick Rose
3.) Memphis: Brook Lopez
4.) Minnesota: O.J. Mayo
5.) New York: Eric Gordon
6.) LA Clippers: Danilo Gallinari
7.) Milwaukee: Blake Griffin
8.) Charlotte: D.J. Augustin
9.) Chicago: Anthony Randolph
10.) Indiana: Jerryd Bayless
11.) New Jersey: Kevin Love
12.) Sacramento: Russell Westbrook
13.) Portland: Darren Collison
Thursday, March 27, 2008
"Policies ensure futures"
Policies ensure futures
Insurance protects top college athletes
Robbi Pickeral, Staff Writer
CHARLOTTE - North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough doesn't worry about his NBA future despite being bruised, nicked, bloodied -- and sometimes broken -- by his aggressive style of play.
"I think it does concern my parents at times, though,'' he said.
Which is why the All-America is one of three Tar Heels starters, along with point guard Ty Lawson and shooting guard Wayne Ellington, who has a special insurance policy that protects him in the case of a career-ending injury.
"I don't even want to think about, talk about, the possibility of him getting seriously hurt,'' said Gene Hansbrough, who first took out a policy on his son when Tyler was a senior in high school. "But it does give him some level of protection to fall back on, just in case."
The investment is expensive. Once they leave school, players get bills for premiums usually in the range of $20,000, although they can top $50,000. And the protection rarely pays off, mostly because of medical advances and the limited instances of devastating injuries.
Still, the insurance has become as standard as autograph requests and ESPN highlights for elite college athletes who stand to make millions in the pros.
Hansbrough, a junior, originally was insured by Lloyd's of London, but he switched to an NCAA-sponsored program during his freshman season, his father said. His policy is worth close to $4.4 million, the NCAA's current maximum for men's basketball players. Ellington and Lawson, both sophomores, also became eligible and signed up for policies through the NCAA during their freshman seasons. Their parents declined to disclose the amounts of their policies, but even players projected to be chosen near the bottom of the first round of the NBA Draft are eligible for $500,000 policies.
Eventually, UNC forwards Deon Thompson and Danny Green could be candidates. On top 10 teams, it's not unusual for multiple players to be insured, said Keith Lerner, an insurance underwriter and CEO of Total Planning in Gainesville, Fla.
"There won't be a player drafted in the first round this year that doesn't have insurance," predicted Lerner, who has been in business 20 years. "... These are guys who are going to be making millions in the NBA. So it makes business sense to protect that. ... The cost will come out of their first paycheck."
A variety of reasons
Insurance policies have been available through private underwriters for decades.
The NCAA launched its Exceptional Student-Athlete Disability Insurance program in 1990 for men's basketball and football players. Baseball was added in 1991, hockey in 1993 and women's basketball in 1998.
The reason for the program isn't to protect student-athletes' pro careers but to safeguard their college ones, said Juanita Sheely, the NCAA's manager of travel and insurance.
"Back in its original inception, the idea was to help get agents out of the mix," Sheely said.
"Agents would promise, 'I will get you this insurance coverage if you sign with me.' And immediately, if there was any kind of agreement there, the student-athlete lost his eligibility."
One company, HCC Specialty Underwriters of Wakefield, Mass., is the administrator of the program and also handles other insurance needs for the NCAA, including protecting its signature event of the year -- the men's basketball tournament -- in the case of disruptions, cancellations or other trouble.
Roughly 100 to 150 athletes per year have the insurance at any one time, Sheely said. And at certain points in the year, as many as 40 basketball players can be in the program, said Jeff Stanley, senior sports underwriter at HCC.
Eligibility and the amount of coverage are based on projected draft status.
Football players are eligible for up to $3 million of insurance if they are projected to go in the first three rounds. Men's basketball players can get up to $4.4 million if they have top-five potential.
Which players are eligible and for how much is determined in large part by several confidential scouting services.
"We try to base our coverage on 50 to 60 percent of their after-tax salary on their contract, only for the first two years,'' Sheely said. "We can't include any bonuses or endorsements, because we don't know exactly what those will be."
Projecting when, or whether, athletes will be drafted is not an exact science, however. UNC coach Roy Williams said that in September 2004, the school applied to get the insurance for center Sean May. The junior, who went on to become MVP of the Final Four, was denied.
"They wouldn't approve it because they weren't comfortable saying he was going to be a first-round draft choice,'' Williams said. "And then 10 months later, he was the [13th] pick in the draft. So it's also a deal where everyone's not perfect."
Security at a price
For those who are approved, NCAA premiums cost about $6,000 per year (plus interest), per $1 million of coverage.
UNC encourages Tar Heels who want insurance to go with the NCAA program, UNC senior associate athletic director Larry Gallo said, to make sure the players stay in compliance with NCAA rules. But it isn't required.
Players who choose to go with private insurance companies and banks outside the NCAA program must still check in with their school's compliance office to make sure their interest rates and payment schedules are within the rules. But there are benefits.
Through Lerner's company, Lloyd's of London offers policies worth up to $12.5 million for projected top NBA draft picks, almost three times more than the NCAA allows for basketball players. Those premiums cost more -- usually $8,000 to $10,000 per year for every $1 million of coverage. But for about double that bill, a rider can be added to the policy that also protects an athlete's draft status -- meaning that if he falls from his projected draft status because of injury, he still could be paid.
The NCAA's policy pays out only if an injury is so catastrophic it ends the athlete's chances at any pro career.
Either way, payouts are rare. Stanley, of HCC, estimated that only about five claims had been paid under the ESDI program in the past seven or eight years. Lerner's company has paid twice, to a football player and to a hockey player.
Buying peace of mind
But business is still booming. Only about 10 percent of Lerner's policy-holders are basketball players, but he said hoops interest has increased since the NBA passed the 19-and-under rule, eliminating almost all prep players from jumping straight to the NBA.
"I've gotten a lot more calls from parents, because they anticipate their son only being in college a year -- and they want him to be protected,'' said Lerner, who insures athletes throughout the ACC, SEC and Big East.
"There are even kids in high school [taking out policies],'' he added. "Those are still few and far between, ... but it's happening more than it used to."
Hansbrough was one of those kids who qualified for a private policy when he was a McDonald's All American at Poplar Bluff (Mo.) High.
Seeing the aggressive way he played and anticipating a possible pro future, his father had no qualms about insuring him then -- or now -- despite the expense.
Lawson's mother, Jackie, did not want to comment on her son's involvement in the insurance program. But Ellington's dad, Wayne Sr., lauded the opportunity to buy insurance as "a good business decision."
"It does help take the pressure off kids to come out early, or think that they should come out early, because they're scared that they may get hurt ... especially the kids with no financial pressures,'' he said.
Wayne Ellington Sr. said his son will evaluate all his options after this season. Meanwhile, Gene Hansbrough said he doesn't anticipate that having the policy will affect whether his son leaves school early for the NBA. Tyler Hansbrough has said the biggest factor will be whether UNC wins a national title.
To that end, No. 1 seed UNC will play fourth-seeded Washington State in the NCAA's round of 16 tonight.
"For Tyler, playing is not about the money,'' Gene Hansbrough said. "He's a pretty frugal guy; the most he spends on is food. He just wants to win.
"But it [the insurance] gives me a little bit of piece of mind. I love the way he plays, I love how hard he plays. But every time he goes down, I hold my breath till he gets back up."
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/unc/story/1014707.html
Insurance protects top college athletes
Robbi Pickeral, Staff Writer
CHARLOTTE - North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough doesn't worry about his NBA future despite being bruised, nicked, bloodied -- and sometimes broken -- by his aggressive style of play.
"I think it does concern my parents at times, though,'' he said.
Which is why the All-America is one of three Tar Heels starters, along with point guard Ty Lawson and shooting guard Wayne Ellington, who has a special insurance policy that protects him in the case of a career-ending injury.
"I don't even want to think about, talk about, the possibility of him getting seriously hurt,'' said Gene Hansbrough, who first took out a policy on his son when Tyler was a senior in high school. "But it does give him some level of protection to fall back on, just in case."
The investment is expensive. Once they leave school, players get bills for premiums usually in the range of $20,000, although they can top $50,000. And the protection rarely pays off, mostly because of medical advances and the limited instances of devastating injuries.
Still, the insurance has become as standard as autograph requests and ESPN highlights for elite college athletes who stand to make millions in the pros.
Hansbrough, a junior, originally was insured by Lloyd's of London, but he switched to an NCAA-sponsored program during his freshman season, his father said. His policy is worth close to $4.4 million, the NCAA's current maximum for men's basketball players. Ellington and Lawson, both sophomores, also became eligible and signed up for policies through the NCAA during their freshman seasons. Their parents declined to disclose the amounts of their policies, but even players projected to be chosen near the bottom of the first round of the NBA Draft are eligible for $500,000 policies.
Eventually, UNC forwards Deon Thompson and Danny Green could be candidates. On top 10 teams, it's not unusual for multiple players to be insured, said Keith Lerner, an insurance underwriter and CEO of Total Planning in Gainesville, Fla.
"There won't be a player drafted in the first round this year that doesn't have insurance," predicted Lerner, who has been in business 20 years. "... These are guys who are going to be making millions in the NBA. So it makes business sense to protect that. ... The cost will come out of their first paycheck."
A variety of reasons
Insurance policies have been available through private underwriters for decades.
The NCAA launched its Exceptional Student-Athlete Disability Insurance program in 1990 for men's basketball and football players. Baseball was added in 1991, hockey in 1993 and women's basketball in 1998.
The reason for the program isn't to protect student-athletes' pro careers but to safeguard their college ones, said Juanita Sheely, the NCAA's manager of travel and insurance.
"Back in its original inception, the idea was to help get agents out of the mix," Sheely said.
"Agents would promise, 'I will get you this insurance coverage if you sign with me.' And immediately, if there was any kind of agreement there, the student-athlete lost his eligibility."
One company, HCC Specialty Underwriters of Wakefield, Mass., is the administrator of the program and also handles other insurance needs for the NCAA, including protecting its signature event of the year -- the men's basketball tournament -- in the case of disruptions, cancellations or other trouble.
Roughly 100 to 150 athletes per year have the insurance at any one time, Sheely said. And at certain points in the year, as many as 40 basketball players can be in the program, said Jeff Stanley, senior sports underwriter at HCC.
Eligibility and the amount of coverage are based on projected draft status.
Football players are eligible for up to $3 million of insurance if they are projected to go in the first three rounds. Men's basketball players can get up to $4.4 million if they have top-five potential.
Which players are eligible and for how much is determined in large part by several confidential scouting services.
"We try to base our coverage on 50 to 60 percent of their after-tax salary on their contract, only for the first two years,'' Sheely said. "We can't include any bonuses or endorsements, because we don't know exactly what those will be."
Projecting when, or whether, athletes will be drafted is not an exact science, however. UNC coach Roy Williams said that in September 2004, the school applied to get the insurance for center Sean May. The junior, who went on to become MVP of the Final Four, was denied.
"They wouldn't approve it because they weren't comfortable saying he was going to be a first-round draft choice,'' Williams said. "And then 10 months later, he was the [13th] pick in the draft. So it's also a deal where everyone's not perfect."
Security at a price
For those who are approved, NCAA premiums cost about $6,000 per year (plus interest), per $1 million of coverage.
UNC encourages Tar Heels who want insurance to go with the NCAA program, UNC senior associate athletic director Larry Gallo said, to make sure the players stay in compliance with NCAA rules. But it isn't required.
Players who choose to go with private insurance companies and banks outside the NCAA program must still check in with their school's compliance office to make sure their interest rates and payment schedules are within the rules. But there are benefits.
Through Lerner's company, Lloyd's of London offers policies worth up to $12.5 million for projected top NBA draft picks, almost three times more than the NCAA allows for basketball players. Those premiums cost more -- usually $8,000 to $10,000 per year for every $1 million of coverage. But for about double that bill, a rider can be added to the policy that also protects an athlete's draft status -- meaning that if he falls from his projected draft status because of injury, he still could be paid.
The NCAA's policy pays out only if an injury is so catastrophic it ends the athlete's chances at any pro career.
Either way, payouts are rare. Stanley, of HCC, estimated that only about five claims had been paid under the ESDI program in the past seven or eight years. Lerner's company has paid twice, to a football player and to a hockey player.
Buying peace of mind
But business is still booming. Only about 10 percent of Lerner's policy-holders are basketball players, but he said hoops interest has increased since the NBA passed the 19-and-under rule, eliminating almost all prep players from jumping straight to the NBA.
"I've gotten a lot more calls from parents, because they anticipate their son only being in college a year -- and they want him to be protected,'' said Lerner, who insures athletes throughout the ACC, SEC and Big East.
"There are even kids in high school [taking out policies],'' he added. "Those are still few and far between, ... but it's happening more than it used to."
Hansbrough was one of those kids who qualified for a private policy when he was a McDonald's All American at Poplar Bluff (Mo.) High.
Seeing the aggressive way he played and anticipating a possible pro future, his father had no qualms about insuring him then -- or now -- despite the expense.
Lawson's mother, Jackie, did not want to comment on her son's involvement in the insurance program. But Ellington's dad, Wayne Sr., lauded the opportunity to buy insurance as "a good business decision."
"It does help take the pressure off kids to come out early, or think that they should come out early, because they're scared that they may get hurt ... especially the kids with no financial pressures,'' he said.
Wayne Ellington Sr. said his son will evaluate all his options after this season. Meanwhile, Gene Hansbrough said he doesn't anticipate that having the policy will affect whether his son leaves school early for the NBA. Tyler Hansbrough has said the biggest factor will be whether UNC wins a national title.
To that end, No. 1 seed UNC will play fourth-seeded Washington State in the NCAA's round of 16 tonight.
"For Tyler, playing is not about the money,'' Gene Hansbrough said. "He's a pretty frugal guy; the most he spends on is food. He just wants to win.
"But it [the insurance] gives me a little bit of piece of mind. I love the way he plays, I love how hard he plays. But every time he goes down, I hold my breath till he gets back up."
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/unc/story/1014707.html
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