Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic and the NBA player development system conspired make life very hard on Ugonna Onyekwe two weeks ago.
In no small part due to the success of Nowitzki and Stojakovic -- and San Antonio's championship-winning backcourt of France's Tony Parker and Argentina's Emanuel Ginobili -- 20 of the 58 spots in this year's NBA draft, held June 26 were spent on non-American players.
Onyekwe, a former Penn star, was one of those to feel the squeeze as he went undrafted.
After a collegiate career that saw him score 1,762 points, lead Penn to the NCAA Tournament three times and win Ivy League Player of the Year two straight times, Onyekwe had to settle for a roster spot on the Knicks summer league team in an effort to break into the pros.
The Penn grad -- who has been on the NBA's radar for at least the entirety of his senior season - solidified himself as a legitimate draft prospect in his final game at Penn. In the NCAA Tournament, Onyekwe racked up 30 points against a staunch Oklahoma State defense that held Syracuse star -- and eventual third overall pick in the draft -- Carmelo Anthony to 13 points.
However, in the flawed system that is the NBA Draft, teams have a large disincentive to draft American players that are not quite ready over similarly unprepared European players. That system needs to change, and a true NBA minor league needs to be adopted.
After the first few picks most players are not ready to play in the pros against the best talent in the world. Like most professional athletes, these players need a few years to develop their talent. Onyekwe, for instance, needs to develop a more consistent perimeter game and improve his ball-handling.
There is no developmental league in America for him to do this. Therefore he will -- if he's lucky enough to make a team -- likely have to sit on the end of an NBA bench, and not get the playing time necessary improve.
Overseas players have the opportunity to hone their skills before playing in the NBA. They can continue to play for the team they were on in Europe -- or Latin America or Asia -- while an NBA team holds their rights until the player is NBA-ready. San Antonio did this with fabulous success with Ginobili, a second-round pick from Argentina, who was an immediate contributor as a 25-year old rookie in their championship run.
The fact that 12 of 29 second round selections were foreign, and therefore will not be expected nor required to make the NBA roster, demonstrates that teams preference is to draft an overseas player and let him develop for a season or two instead of wasting a pick on an American player who would have to make their roster immediately. Rarely are American players shuttled overseas. After all, why bother when a team can simply draft a player already there?
The fix for the system, which increasingly leaves American players with NBA talent without an NBA home is simple -- a true minor league system.
Currently the NBDL -- the National Basketball Developmental League -- is developmental in name only. As teams do not hold the rights to the players in this league, few teams would release anyone it thought to be an NBA-worthy talent to the common pool. And so the NBDL has become a place for those who could have been contenders to peak-- instead of a home for those who will truly go on to contend.
A minor league system, like that in basketball or hockey, where teams could draft a player they thought to have talent, and keep the rights to him would solve this problem. Players' fundamentals -- foreigners are regarded as having these in spades over their American counterparts -- would improve as they could develop NBA-level skills to match their natural ability. The increasingly abhorrent quality of play in the NBA would also benefit from a minor league system.
And finally, the Onyekwes of the world -- American born college and high school stars -- would be competing on equal footing with, well, the world.
