2011 NBA draft: Three European players could be selected in top 10

NEW YORK — When the Dallas Mavericks returned home from Miami after vanquishing the Heat last week, Dirk Nowitzki emerged from the team plane witha cigar in his left hand, the NBA Finals most valuable player trophy in his right hand and wearing an uncharacteristically boastful T-shirt that read, “I’m that dude.”

It was a bold statement, but it couldn’t be denied that the Mavericks won their first NBA championship because a once-maligned German player wouldn’t let a freshly torn tendon in his left middle finger, a fever, or even the overly hyped opposition stand in his way. Many myths about international players have been put to rest through the globalization of the game over the past 20 years, but Nowitzki ended one of the last remaining tales — that a player from Europe couldn’t be the centerpiece of an NBA championship team.

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“This might be the first time in memory where the true Alpha dog has been a European product,” said Donnie Nelson, Mavericks president of basketball operations. “That is a special situation.”

While there is no “Next Nowitzki” expected to emerge from Thursday’s NBA draft, three European players — Turkey’s Enes Kanter, Jan Vesely of the Czech Republic and Jonas Valanciunas from Lithuania — are expected to be among the top 10 players selected for the first time. Three other international players could go in the top 20 — Congolese center Bismack Biyombo, Lithuania’s Donatas Motiejunas and Southern California forward Nikola Vucevic, a native of Montenegro.

Duke point guard Kyrie Irving and Arizona forward Derrick Williams are expected to go first and second to Cleveland and Minnesota, respectively, and Utah is strongly considering taking Kanter, a bruising, 6-foot-11 forward, third overall. Vesely, an athletic 6-11 forward who compares himself to Andrei Kirilenko, or Valanciunas, a promising, 19-year-old center, are not expected to slip past the Wizards, who select sixth overall. Kanter was forced to miss all of last season at Kentucky after being ruled ineligible for accepting benefits from this Turkish team, Fenerbahce. But if he had been allowed to play, Kanter said he would’ve been rated higher in this draft. “I would go with the No. 1 pick,” Kanter said, confidently. “I believe I am the best player in this draft. I’m going to show everybody European basketball is getting so much better.”

The NBA hasn’t been afraid to raid talent from overseas — three of the past 10 No. 1 overall picks came from abroad — but only two international players were selected among the top 14 lottery picks in the past three years, with none reaching those heights last season — when no international player was taken until the Wizards drafted France’s Kevin Seraphin with the 17th pick.

Tony Ronzone, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ assistant general manager, said that the championship success of Nowitzki, Los Angeles Lakers forward Pau Gasol and 2007 NBA Finals MVP Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili of San Antonio, among others, has played a role in eliminating the inaccurate perceptions of foreign-born players, but added that what Nowitzki accomplished last week has probably made more teams comfortable about investing higher draft picks on players from abroad.