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In 1982, Indiana Hoosiers head coach Bob Knight said after an exhibition game between the Hoosiers and the Soviet national team, in which the 17-year-old Arvydas led fast breaks, made turnaround jumpers, and finished with 25 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks, that Arvydas "was as good a prospect as I'd ever seen." For years, his legend only grew. U.S. politicians became involved, trying to assist in bringing him to the NBA, but Arvydas remained behind the Iron Curtain, caught in the geopolitical pull of the Cold War. He suffered two Achilles tendon ruptures in his early 20s -- he later suspected one was from overuse -- before the Soviets relented, allowing him to visit Portland for treatment in 1988. He led the Soviets to the Gold Medal in the ensuing Olympics in Seoul, even though he hadn't fully recovered, but Arvydas suffered knee injuries and stress fractures in the years that followed, when he played professionally in Spain. Still, the Trail Blazers never gave up their pursuit.
Royce White: Obviously World War II needs to be retaught to the American public. It seems people forget we were allied with the communists, and then absorbed the fascists into our military and academic institutions. Then we started a Cold War with the very "allies" we had fought with. Only to have the entire global economy monopolized by death and debt warmongers.
The meeting, which was first reported by the New York Post, is a potentially significant development. Before the sit-down, Paul had been reluctant to do business with the Knicks, who are obviously led by Rose and executive vice president William Wesley. Rose was a top agent at CAA before he took over the Knicks and Wesley was a consultant for the agency before he joined Rose in New York. Before meeting with Rose on Friday, Paul had met with Wesley to discuss issues between them and the Knicks. Now that the Klutch-Knicks Cold War has come to a close, New York can again be viewed as a potential destination for Klutch clients.
Whatever the reasons are, there is a potential path forward for both the Knicks and Klutch. I'm told that Klutch would consider changing its current stance if there is an in-person meeting between Paul and the Knicks, presumably including Rose and Wesley. Until and unless the two sides meet in person, the Klutch-Knicks Cold War will remain in place.
Alas, nearly two decades removed from the height of the Spurs/Lakers rivalry, Popovich admits that there is realistically little of that animus that lingers from those peak levels of enmity between the teams … even when they’re in the same building. “Do I have to be honest?” Popovich said. “It ain’t the same. We always talked about the Cold War and the Soviet Union, and when that was no more it was a real letdown. … They’re still the Lakers, but after we went up against Shaq and Kobe so many times, for so many years, it’s hard to negate that and say: 'Nah. This is the same.' It’s just not."
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Blackburn is giving Silver a July 21 deadline to respond to three questions she poses at the letter’s end regarding China Central Television’s ban on NBA games, the league’s relationship with Chinese state-owned enterprise Alibaba and the league’s training center in the controversial region of Xinjiang. The relationship between China and the United States is at a “pivotal moment,” she writes, and it could eventually lead to a new Cold War.
The National Basketball Association had virtually no relationship with FIBA when Mr. Stankovic requested a meeting with the N.B.A.’s commissioner at the time, David Stern, in the mid-1980s, during the latter years of the Cold War. “His goal was very much to unify the world of basketball,” Russ Granik, a former N.B.A. deputy commissioner, said of Mr. Stankovic in a phone interview.
Of the perception of Russia in America these days, Mozgov said many Cold War-era ideas still persist. "It seems to me that there are stereotypes of Russia [from] back in the day that are still there," he said. "I know a lot of [people who] have been in Russia and they say, 'Oh, my god. This is different than what I thought.'"
“You sit around a locker room, and you talk about your home,” Casspi said. “I always tell my teammates, ‘Come see my side of the world. I go to your house when we go to Washington. Come meet my parents, my brother, my sister.’ It’s literally as simple as that. On CNN, all you see is war. My thought is, ‘Come see for yourself.’ Sheldon … is a Republican; our president (Barack Obama) is a Democrat. Good, bad, whatever. It doesn’t matter. We have to work on our relationship.” While the NBA’s involvement is limited to providing a clinician and T-shirts for the campers, league officials have long encouraged coaches and players to conduct clinics – usually in conjunction with the U.S. State Department – in war-torn countries such as Lebanon, Iran and Iraq. During the Cold War, the Atlanta Hawks toured the former Soviet Union and fostered lifelong friendships among the players, coaches and members of the respective basketball federations.
From Dwayne Henderson: Why do redheads always seem to kill it in the NBA? Brian Scalabrine was a God! Matt Bonner: Redheads kill it in the NBA because it has been scientifically proven that we are genetically predisposed to be superior basketball players. It’s kind of like the Bourne Identity… It’s a side effect of a classified government experiment during the height of The Cold War. Why I have chosen this moment to publicly disclose such a closely guarded secret I have no idea. Our secret society, The League of Redheads, will not be happy about this…
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On a more serious note, a report from Yahoo! quoted anonymous executives from around the league who accused Prokhorov of improperly circumventing the salary cap – i.e. money under the table – to sign Andrei Kirilenko. The basis was Kirilenko opted out of a contract paying him $10 million in Minnesota and signed for about $3 million with the Nets. Prokhorov hinted the accusations were rooted in Cold War stereotypes. In other words, when two Russians agree to a deal, there has to be something shady. “I think old stereotypes, they are very hard to beat and to break,” Prokhorov said. “And I want to thank our fans and members of the press, because they have been very quick to support us. And I respect all the NBA rules, and we play by the NBA rules. But I want just to stress once again, like with the luxury tax, I will do whatever I can in order to win championship, but under the NBA rules, please make no mistake about this.”
Wilkins, the Naismith Memorial Hall of Famer who accompanied the Atlanta Hawks on their tour of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, believes popularizing the sport in India will be more incremental than explosive. "I went with Basketball Without Borders for its first visit in 2008," said Wilkins, "and it was a very different experience than the Soviet Union of 30 years ago. Russia, even when the wall was coming down, all the Cold War stuff, was much more familiar with the game. But then when I went back to India again two years ago, I definitely could sense a difference. It's not leaps and bounds, but I think the access to information, social media, the Internet, getting more NBA games on television is changing things."
Now the U.S. enters the medal round facing the possibility of a gold-medal final against Russia, and in many ways, the story of this Russian team is harder to believe than the outcome of 1972. For these Russians are coached by David Blatt, a Jewish-American whose religion and nationality would have made him an antagonist of the old Soviets. "Oh, people were looking at me like I had three heads," Blatt said of his 2006 hiring by the Russian federation. "It was not a popular decision. "You take an American growing up in the time of the Cold War, add to it the fact that I'm Jewish and with an Israeli passport, and then you time- warp me into the ex-Soviet Union as the head of the Russian men's basketball team. It's almost mind-boggling. And I lasted! I didn't get my head chopped off in the first year or two."
"For a child who grew up in the Cold War, and to be Jewish and American and Israeli all at the same time, when you find yourself as head coach of the Russian national team, it's not just ironic, it's downright amazing when you think about it," (David Blatt) says. "But for me, it's been a great experience on a cultural level, a human level and a political level."
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