Hornets learning how European basketball culture can benefit them more than NBA routine
When Charlotte Hornets center Willy Hernangomez first came to the NBA, he didn’t get it.
Where’s the structure? Where’s the conformity?
When did everyone stop wearing the same team-issued gear?
“I was so used to ‘Team Lunch,’ ‘Team Dinner,’ always wear team clothes,” said Spaniard Hernangomez. “(In the NBA) we have a lot more individual freedom: It’s ‘See you tomorrow on the team bus. Do whatever you want.’
“That took me time” to understand.
The Hornets are in Paris this week to play the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday in the first NBA regular-season game in France. It’s a fantastic marketing opportunity for the NBA, particularly since Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, the reigning MVP, is Greek.
Antetokounmpo isn’t alone in a dramatic European impact at the top of the league. Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic, a Slovenian, has been so good in his second season that he’s in the MVP discussion.
There is a vibe to many European NBA players that differentiates them from the typical U.S. player. The Observer spoke with the three Hornets who came up through European ball — Hernangomez, Bismack Biyombo and Nic Batum — plus veteran Marvin Williams, who has traveled internationally during several summers with the NBA’s Basketball without Borders program.
Each of those players had essentially the same view: Euros are more team-oriented, more fundamental in their skills and less caught up in individual statistics.
If U.S. youth basketball celebrates the individual, then European ball is all about conforming to what the group needs.
‘You have to be the one scoring’
Biyombo, a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, played professionally in Spain before coming to the NBA in 2011. What he sees in United States youth basketball is foreign to his development.
“In the U.S., it’s a personal game,” Biyombo said. “In the AAU, if your father or somebody else close to you put the team together, then you have to be the one scoring the ball. Kids grow up with that mindset.
“Where, in Europe, kids train more together — winning is more a team thing.”
Batum’s agent, Bouna N’diaye, has a half dozen French NBA players as clients, including star center Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz. N’diaye said the simplest way to describe the contrast is that you’d never see a European teenager taking fadeaway jump shots off one foot — as you frequently might in the U.S. — because it isn’t tolerated by coaches.
“We’re playing basketball every day in the states, but we’re not always doing the best things: You see eighth graders here who don’t yet have the right shooting mechanics, yet he’s shooting from 30 feet out,” Williams said.
“In Europe, they’re not going to let you do that. You’re going to work on all your mechanics every single day.”
The other distinction, Williams said, is the extent Europeans value team above individual.
“Any European player I’ve been around is all about the team — sacrificing himself for the greater good,” he said. “It’s never an argument — guys maybe not playing as much as they would like, or not in the role they would like, but never arguing about it.”
Playing like pros with pros
Hernangomez said the difference in sensibilities grows from the difference in systems. European prospects are identified early, often sent to sports-specific schools (as Batum was at 12 in France), and effectively serve apprenticeships with professional players.
Doncic, who Hernangomez played with for Real Madrid, defines the refinement that system is intended to achieve.
“When Luka was 12 years old, he was practicing with pros. You can tell that from the way he sees the game — how he reads passes,” Hernangomez said of Doncic, averaging a near-triple double this season.
“That’s what’s made him such a quick success in the NBA; his IQ is among the highest in the league. You don’t have to be the biggest, fastest guy to play in the NBA if you’re the smartest.”
Biyombo compares Doncic to a classically trained musician. He said getting the most out of players is about orchestration, and the European model — year-round training as a team, rather than players splintering off on their own — is something the NBA is adopting. It’s something Hornets coach James Borrego strongly encourages in Charlotte.
“If I spend all summer playing with Devonte (Graham), I know what is good for him and good for me. I’ll know what he cannot do and he’ll know what I cannot do,” Biyombo described. “That makes us both more efficient; that’s how it’s done in Europe.”
The challenge, Biyombo said, is breaking down individual egos to adapt to a different approach.
“You really have to reprogram players’ whole mindset,” Biyombo said. “Sometimes they’re receptive to that, sometimes they’re not.”
‘More prepared when we get here’
Batum started 76 of 82 games for the Portland Trail Blazers as a 20-year-old rookie in 2008. He said the basketball schooling he got had him ready for the NBA.
“We go through the pro system earlier. We’re used to everything that goes with it — practice, traveling, money. We’re more prepared when we get here,” Batum said. “The adjustment is to a new culture and a new country. Everything else — the structure, leaving friends and family — we’ve already done.”
Biyombo said there was so much Europeans had to learn to catch up to in the U.S. Now, there are elements of Euro-ball that smart franchises (he mentioned championship runs by the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors) learned and assimilated.
“In Europe, we’ve got to do whatever for the benefit of the group — it’s not a choice,” Biyombo summed up. “In San Antonio, they figured that out. It made them that much more efficient.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 4:50 PM.
