TrueHoop reader Jim emails:

Most of us in the US didn't get a chance to see the recent EuroBasket tournament. In it, players like Sarunas Jasikevicius played like stars. Saras is seemingly a figure of Michael Jordan-like status in Europe. Not only is he a star player, but he's a gossip column hero who gets all the women on top of it. But in the NBA, he was a slow as molasses point guard who spent a couple years glued to the bench.

Why? How come international teams can beat NBA all-star squads, but lots of their players don't make much of a mark in the NBA? My main question is, really, what's the difference between international and NBA basketball? What are the rule differences and how much do they matter? What about the teamwork vs. individual stereotype? Is it real? And so on.

There's endless speculating on all this, but I've yet to read a single article (or come across anything in any other media) anywhere written by someone who knows both worlds well and delves heavily into this. I haven't even seen an attempt. I realize that there may be plenty of stuff out there. I'm just not aware of it.

Any ideas? Could you post about this, or get some of your contacts to do so?

I forwarded Jim's email to some smart people, and got some smart responses. First, ESPN's David Thorpe:

More than anything, it is due to lack of opportunity/coaching/style. Players like Dirk Nowitzki and Tony Parker can excel in any situation, no different than Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, or Kobe Bryant. They are the best of the best.

But guys like Saras are a level below. Like Boris Diaw or even Chauncey Billups. They both needed the right system, coach, and opportunity to find their potential. Most NBA players are in this category. Some guys, like Billups, I suspect, could play for many coaches and systems (but not all), and some just need a perfect fit. Think Matt Barnes.

Euros often have a strike against them in terms of a bias from their NBA coaches: "too soft," or "too slow," etc.

Bostjan Nachbar is another great example of someone who needed the right situation to perform at his best. Marquis Daniels was terrific for Don Nelson, but horrible for everyone else (thus far). The list is endless.

There is one important point to be made with regard to differences in the European game compared to the NBA one. The level of moving screens in Europe is much higher than what we see here, so for a relatively slow guy like Jasikevicius, in Europe he is able to shed a defender by having a teammate screen (in the NFL they'd call some of these screens "clips") for him while on the move. That makes it much tougher for the help defender to slow Saras.

In the NBA, ballscreens are far easier to defend because the help defender has time to read and react since his man (the screener) must be stationary during the screen. Hubie Brown teaches that screens are set to "make defenders think," but in Europe there is no time to think. Not only is the screener's defender disadvantaged, but the other three potential helpers lose that all-important second or so to read and react as well. So smart guys like Saras can take advantage of that liberal interpretation of a "legal screen" in Europe, but do not have that luxury here.

One other point on Saras. He is not even a decent defender. But in a European system, his offensive skills are so great that his coaches find ways to protect him on defense. At Maccabi Tel Aviv, they played mostly a matchup zone -- strictly because of Saras. What NBA coach will junk his best style of defense to get Saras on the court?  

Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress spends a lot of time watching American and European players, and regularly consults with the front offices of international teams. He knows both games, and he emailed:

First of all he really didn't play that well in the Eurobasket (which I attended almost in full). He started off really strong but barely did anything in the crucial final three games, partially due to injury.

Sarunas' biggest problem in the NBA is how incredibly poor his lateral quickness is, to the point that isolating his man against him is almost a guaranteed two points for the other team.

In European basketball the three-point line is shorter, meaning there is less spacing, meaning you don't have to travel as far to match up with the open man. Thus it's easier for your teammates to rotate into the paint to help when your man blows by you. He still hurts the Lithuanians big time even internationally with his terrible defense. Maccabi Tel Aviv played a matchup zone almost exclusively when Saras stepped on the floor, and even though they had two fantastic perimeter defenders next to him in Anthony Parker and Tal Burstein, they still had one of the worst defenses in Europe (but also the very best offense).

Zone doesn't work as well in the NBA as it does as Europe, again, because of spacing issues. I would like to see more coaches try to use it as a gimmick for a few minutes at a time, but it's not a long-term solution for most NBA teams.

A guy like Tony Parker proves more than anything to me how good of a coach Gregg Popovich is. He just knows how to get the absolute maximum out of him, while minimizing his many shortcomings (poor court vision, average perimeter shooting, somewhat selfish play) that become incredibly obvious every time he steps on the floor for France. Parker's still the same incredible athlete who is almost unstoppable stepping into the lane, but packing in the lane and forcing his marginally skilled teammates to make shots is a sure-fire way to beat the French (they finished eighth in Madrid).

Like Thorpe said before me, Dirk is Dirk ... nothing you can do about that. He'll go down as the greatest international player of all time. It's all about the system, like David said.

Guys like Matjaz Smodis and Ramunas Siskauskas could have made the NBA a long time ago, but once you narrow down the teams who've really looked at them seriously (maybe half the league, at best), and then subtract the ones who don't have money/roster spots/a need at that position and then try to find the right coach/system for them, its understandable that they haven't latched on yet.

There are many more reasons why the US has been losing consistently for the past few years in international play. I think Chris Sheridan has done a very good job covering those. Go back through his archive over the past two years, including his blog, and you'll read many arguments from both sides of the spectrum. 

ESPN's John Hollinger chimes in with another piece of news: maybe Sarunas Jasikevicius just isn't a good example of a European player who comes to the NBA. Hollinger emails:

He was also seriously overrated -- Sarunas's Euroleague stats in the three years before he came here just weren't that good. He projected as a backup point guard and that's exactly what he was. He earned a lot of notoriety because his team won the title, and because earlier he had put up better numbers, but stat-wise Anthony Parker and Maceo Baston clearly were the best players on that Maccabi team. 

(Photo: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images)