croco

If you weren't old and senile I would give you an infraction.

Dre™

I didn't mean all of those things at once, I meant how many Euros are playing that have at least one of those qualities.

I think the upbringing of European players, with the boarding schools and such, don't foster as aggressive an attitude as American ball does. Most NBA players come from climates where basketball competition, and the people playing, is a lot more fierce.

European players do play for club teams, but their style of play isn't overtly physical and they spend most of their basketball time learning individual skills. There aren't (m)any blacktop, pickup games for them, the competitve spirit isn't in their nature as much as it is for a US player.

That's why when you look at the draft profiles of the vast majority of European prospects, you'll see "skilled, but soft". Of course that's a paraphrase, but still.

I don't see how it could be argued otherwise. I can't think of 10 European NBA players looked at as more than soft pushovers.

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xray

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xray

It is a cultural issue, and we fans simply look at their attitudes on the court. Yao Ming is a great example of a player from probably the most strict culture on earth - one who disdains attitudes of boasting and disrespect toward others - and had to take on a mindset that would allow him to "dominate" (or at least compete) like we would expect a 7'6" center to do.

If he hadn't progressed in the American way of basketball, few would have understood that he was not scared or timid, but understood the importance of maintaining character traits of his ancient homeland. We lose sight of that, imo.

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