Teaching Their Children Well

Those who have completed secondary school can continue their education through correspondence courses. Shved said he is enrolled in courses at a local college, but with a sheepish chuckle, he couldn't name the course or the school.

"Basically, they are going to college -- basketball college. That's what these farm systems basically are," said CSKA player David Vanterpool, a graduate of Blair High School in Silver Spring and St. Bonaventure who played briefly with the Wizards in 2001. "They don't have those NCAA stipulations. A lot of the arguments in America are about young players losing the ability to mature, losing their education, losing this, losing that. At a time I agreed with it. But seeing the way some of these kids have traditionally learned to grow in a system, I have a big question as to if you lose something by not going to college. Your education never stops. I got a college degree. It's always great to go to college. But I mean the system they have in place, it seems like it's working."

CSKA is backed by billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, an avid basketball fan who serves as controlling owner in the nickel enterprise Norilsk Nickel. The club reportedly has a budget of about $38 million, considered extremely high by European standards (the payroll of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats is also $38 million). The money has paid off: CSKA is the defending Euroleague champion, having made three straight appearances in the final four, and won its third consecutive Euroleague junior championship last April in Prague.

CSKA is affiliated with the Trinta basketball school in Moscow, which works with players beginning at age 7. CSKA also hosts an annual basketball camp where top prospects, such as Klimov, can earn contract offers. In some instances, the process resembles the recruitment of blue chip athletes by American colleges, as CSKA, with six scouts in each region of the country, competes with other pro clubs throughout Russia.

Shved, ranked as one of the top international players, landed in CSKA's lap. Shved's father, a coach of a junior team in Belgorod, contacted team officials about two years ago and asked them to take a look at his son. CSKA sent two coaches to watch the rail-thin point guard and came away impressed with his playmaking and scoring. Within a week, Shved had moved to Moscow. Now he is the junior team's leading scorer and often invited to practice with the senior team, which includes Langdon, Vanterpool and Theodoros Papaloukas, who had 12 assists in Greece's stunning upset of the United States at the world championships. "We didn't know he would be this good," CSKA General Manager Yuri Yurkov said of Shved with a smile. "We are pleased."

Yurkov said the organization selects players based on how well they perform against peers, but other factors are considered in an attempt to project a player's height: the size of his hands and feet, the height of his parents and grandparents.

"Before making a serious choice and invite them, before we start being responsible for them, we must feel they could have an opportunity. We don't have room for mistakes," Yurkov said through an interpreter. "If one or two players makes it to the senior team, then it's a success."

The program has produced two players for the senior team since its inception in 2002. And Los Angeles Clippers forward Yaroslav Korolev used rules established by FIBA, basketball's world governing body, to leave CSKA before playing for the senior team and enter the 2005 NBA draft at age 18. He became the highest Russian ever taken in the draft at No. 12.

Coaching Pipeline

Serbia and Russia have similar player development strategies. Top Serbian pro basketball clubs Red Star and Partizan, which have combined to produce about a dozen NBA players, run youth development programs similar to CSKA's. Players are recruited and signed from different regions -- there are more than 800 youth teams in the country -- and often their families are moved to Belgrade, with the teams helping the parents find jobs. Players attend regular schools and practice in the evening, sometimes pushing close to midnight on weeknights, based on the availability of floor time because the clubs don't own gyms. It is almost a year-long commitment, with players and coaches practicing and playing games for all but two weeks of the year .

Critics of the club system throughout Europe worry about smaller, poorer teams profiting off the young players who are developed. Serbia's FMP Zeleznik, which competes one level below the Euroleague, has an average attendance of about 800 at its gym on the outskirts of Belgrade. The facility, comparable in size to a U.S. high school gym, has no seats at court level; fans sit in bleachers well back and above the court.

FMP states quite plainly that it is in the business of developing and eventually selling players to the highest bidders. Its 200 players receive scholarships, live in dormitories, attend classes and practice twice per day. They have access to a weight room, sauna and a medical center that is used by the Serbian national team. But if a player becomes a star, he won't be around long. Five FMP players, including Mile Ilic, a 7-foot-1 reserve center for the New Jersey Nets, were sold for a reported $3.5 million over the summer. A spokesman said the money from the transactions is invested back into the program.

The one big difference between Serbia and Russia is its emphasis on coaching. You can't take the reins of a team -- at any level -- without a license from the 1,500-member Serbian Coaches Association, which has a training center in Belgrade. Aspiring coaches must train for at least two months, attending classes on Mondays and Tuesdays, to receive a blue license to coach children and work within the low ranks of Serbian basketball. Coaches at higher levels must attend school for two years.