"It was near the end of my second season. We'd made it to the European Cup, which was a first for a team from Belgium, we were 18-3, we had just won our 15th league game in a row, it was three games before the playoffs started, and they came to me and said they'd decided to make a change. They brought in Phil Henderson from Duke to replace me. The next game they played on the road against the last-place team and lost. Before I even left town they called and said it wasn't working out with Phil, they wanted to bring me back for the rest of the year. The general manager basically said, `We've already paid you for the rest of the year, so why don't you just come back and forget this ever happened.' He said it was just a business decision, nothing personal."
- Marty Haws"One year, if we win this game we make the playoffs, but if we win by more than 14 we move a position higher (in the standings) than the team we are playing. So with three minutes left in the game, our coach says, `I arranged with the other coach that we win no matter what, just by no more than 14. Start missing.' We were up by 15 then; we won by 7."
- Mitch Smith
Playing professional basketball outside the United States is a great way to make a living - not secure, not glamorous, sometimes even downright dangerous - but it's a good living.
Gone are the days when foreign hoops was strictly the last refuge for the too old, the too fat, the too flaky ex-NBA player looking to prolong a fading career. With players like Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley getting international attention, the rest of the world is getting serious about hoops. Professional teams now compete in leagues in such unlikely locales as Japan, The Philippines and Finland.
One thing all this hoops expansion means is more opportunity for players to earn money as professionals. Not too long ago, once a player completed his college eligibility, he had one chance to play for pay - the NBA. Now, players whose skills aren't quite up to NBA level can make a handsome living overseas. They aren't being paid like Jordan, most of them aren't even being paid like Mark Eaton, but they are making a lot more than the average guy right out of college, whether they have a degree or not.
In Italy, for instance, players make from $150,000 a year to $3 million, with the average probably around $500,000. Players in Spain's first division make from $50,000 to a million. In Belgium, salaries range from $50,000 to $200,000.
And while the salaries don't match up with the NBA's, the benefits may be better. Almost all foreign teams provide American players with living quarters and use of a car - although the quality of the housing and transportation can vary greatly. Former BYU player Haws lived in a modern high-rise apartment building and drove a new Renault minivan his last year in Belgium. In Turkey, where ex-Ute Mitch Smith has played for two of his four foreign seasons, team owners are notorious for trying to house players in dives, and a good car is one that runs all season.
"The clubs try to cheat you any way they can," Smith said. "We went through three homes in two weeks. I had to keep telling them, `No, I'm not playing, give me a new home.' And dumps in Turkey are a lot worse than dumps here."
Americans playing overseas also get huge tax breaks. Most teams pay players' local taxes, and then they get to bring $70,000 back to the U.S. tax-free. One player estimated he paid 5 percent in taxes on a $125,000 salary.
With all the extras and taxbreaks, players generally pay for just food and gas, allowing them to save most of their salary. Jim Usevitch, another former Cougar, said it's not far-fetched to say a player could bring home $30,000 of a $40,000 salary.
On the other hand, getting a "guaranteed" salary from a team can be a hassle at times. The key is to play tough.
"There's always a problem getting your money, it's just a question of how much," Smith said. "The big thing is to be willing to say, if they're a day late, you don't play."
Pace Mannion, another former Ute and Utah Jazz player who has spent the past four seasons in Italy, said he once missed a practice, ostensibly because of a pulled hamstring, actually because the team was welshing on a promise to get him a new TV. The next day, a TV was delivered to his home and the hamstring miraculously healed.
"It was ridiculous," Mannion acknowledged. "But that's the way you have to play the game."
That kind of attitude doesn't always sit well with one's teammates, especially the ones who hold down full-time jobs while practicing every day, making road trips and playing every week. But Smith said there is no alternative.
"The only other thing you can do is go to the courts, and you can imagine what the courts are like in Turkey," Smith said. "You're looking at three years before it gets to court, and in the meantime everyone is trying to make a deal. You can always pay a little extra money and win your case, or maybe the other guy knows somebody and you lose. I could give them a pack of cigarettes and win my case."
Collecting money is just an occasional irritant, however, compounded by the capricious nature of teams' owners and general managers. The general rule in overseas basketball is: If it's broke, dump the American.
"If something is going wrong, they are going to change it then and there, try to get instant results," said ex-Cougar Tom Gneiting. "That's their mentality."
Ex-Ute Jimmy Soto found out that the rule holds true even in Puerto Rico, where he played for the Aguadilla Sharks in the Superior League this year. First they dumped former NBA player Jawann Oldham because, despite his 14 blocked shots a game, he wasn't scoring much, and replaced him with former Jazzman Chris Munk. Before the season was over, they were seeking a replacement for Munk. The coach also fell victim.
"They told the coach there wouldn't be any pressure because it was a first-year team, and then they got rid of him after 11 games," Soto said.
Former Jazz player Andy Toolson had a similar - though more personal - experience two years ago in Brescia, Italy.
"We started out 4-and-2, and everybody was singing our praises," the former BYU star said. "Then we lost three straight, and I sprained my ankle, and that was it. I went to my last game and the headline on the program was, `Brescia to cut one or both Americans.' It's extremely emotional. You play one game a week, so if you win it's like winning the Super Bowl, and if you lose, you wear black."
Toolson's replacement was Michael Smith, another former Cougar. Smith came in, averaged 27 points and 13 boards and shot 57 percent from the field, but after three games they were asking Toolson, by then in Albany, Ga., playing in the Global Basketball Association, if he'd come back. He said OK, packed his bags and gave up his apartment, but three days later the team changed its mind again.
"There's a tremendous amount of pressure," Toolson said. "The bottom line for Americans over there is, if you're not winning, you're vulnerable. If I go in a shooting slump for two or three games and the team loses, it's, `Welcome back to Salt Lake, Andy'."
Like team management, fans in Europe also tend to get emotional.
"They're a lot crazier," Gneiting said. "They chant obscenities. If the ref makes a call they don't like they'll throw coins or bottles or anything they have. It's not uncommon to get spit on in the tunnels from the court to the dressing room. You never know if something's going to get thrown on you."
Things really got tense, Smith said, during the Persian Gulf War two years ago when he was in Muslim-dominated Turkey.
"We were kind of nervous, with the war going on," Smith said. "There had been a lot of talk about anti-American terrorism and stuff, and the week before all the Americans didn't play because they were nervous. During the next game, somebody threw a big firecracker on the court, right at my feet, and I didn't see it. It went off and I hit the ground. I thought somebody was taking shots at us. The fans were cracking up."
Less amusing are the games played on courts surrounded by cops in riot gear. Smith remembers a couple of games in Turkey where knives hurled by fans landed in the floor, and Soto said one on-court scuffle resulted in fans coming onto the floor to fight and one player defending himself with a broom. In another game in Turkey, a U.S. player slugged the other team's star and was promptly assaulted by the opponent's coach, general manager and teammates.
On-court action is more physical in Europe, too. International rules tend to allow more mugging inside, and most of the rule exceptions favor the offensive player. Americans have to learn to stay out of foul trouble, because when the American fouls out, his team is dead.
"They have players on the other team whose job is to come in and get the American kicked out," Smith said. "One time in Spain, this guy came in and hit me in the back of the head and in the back, and I turned around and socked him. Luckily it was an exhibition game, or I would have been suspended three or four games. In a league game, you have to let them hit you and just walk away from it. When you're playing for money, and you have a family, it's a lot easier to turn your back."
It's also easier to walk away when you know that the refs may be looking for an opportunity to stick it to the American player, especially in road games.
"The officiating on the whole over there is not too good, but the worst places are usually in the little towns with small gyms where they pack them in, and they're right down at courtside," Gneiting said. "It puts a lot of pressure on the referee, he knows they're going to kill him if he does something wrong. In one game on a court like that, we were tied, and someone hit the referee in the head with something from the stands. After that I got three quick fouls and the game turned around totally."
In Turkey, Smith said, good treatment from refs can be bought. "Our coach, he picks up the refs at the airport and takes them to the hotel, and we're sure of a win that night," he said. "It won't be blatant, but if I get four fouls and foul somebody, they're not going to call it."
Usevitch said the refs always side with the home team or a top team or with the team that is supposed to win. In Belgium, there are Flemish-speaking teams and French-speaking teams. One year, Usevitch's Flemish team was in the Cup semifinals against a French team, the winner advancing to play a Flemish team in the finals.
"The foul ratio was 27-9 against us," Usevitch said. "The story was that in order to get the whole nation to watch on TV it would be better to have a Flemish team against a French team. The rumor was that if there were two Flemish-speaking teams in the finals that French TV wouldn't carry it."
In areas of Italy that are Mafia strongholds, Mannion said the home teams hold a definite advantage. "The refs want to make sure they get out of there," he explained.
Mannion said it's a no-no in Italy to even speak to an official. "To question a referee there is like questioning deity," he said. "I once got a technical for smiling at a ref."
Another irritant for American players in Europe is the press, which leans heavily toward the sensational, the negative, sometimes the downright dishonest.
"In Turkey, the press is just like the Enquirer," Smith said. "They write anything they want. During the war, they wrote in this paper that Mitch Smith says he wants to join the army so he can go and get Saddam (Hussein) himself. I was really angry about that. A couple of times they wrote that my wife had left because of the war. They don't even interview you to write a story about you. It's wacky."
"They don't really understand the game, and they don't have a conscience about what they're writing," Haws said. "And then, because it's in the paper, it's gospel for everyone who reads about it. They'd write off a guy after one bad game, and the next thing you knew he was gone."
Haws, a point guard, said sportswriters were constantly comparing his game performances to his Belgian opponents. "They took a certain pride in seeing a Belgian guy do well, even if he outscored me by five points while we won by 20," he said.
American players also have to get used to coaching techniques that are sometimes archaic, almost always alien to them. Gneiting went to the first practice for one team and found his teammates playing leapfrog as a warmup drill. They're also big on running - one day you might run 10 kilometers, the next day 20 100-meter sprints, the next day four 1,000-meter sprints. Teams practice twice a day, five days a week.
"They do things that were totally off the wall," Smith said. "Last year we had a rule that we couldn't dribble the ball in practice. How can you play without dribbling the ball? Or they'd make us shoot with the left hand or do warmup drills where we played tag and the only way to be free was by jumping on somebody's back."
Smith said the key to getting along is to "have an open mind. You can't think American. I had a problem with that my first year, speaking my mind too much. If it's not going to hurt you, you just have to do it. They're playing games and doing goofy stuff, and you just have to fit in or they're going to resent you."
One defense, Smith said, is to pretend you don't understand the coach's Spanish or Turkish or whatever. "I understand them until the coach starts yelling at me, and then I don't have a clue," he said. "And I don't care."
There are other drawbacks to playing overseas - small gyms that are too hot or too cold or too smoke-filled; questionable health care; all-night bus rides to road games, etc. - but while the disadvantages and the quirks of basketball outside the United States make for entertaining reading, they don't negate the fact that it's still a good job.
Toolson, for example, ended a season in the CBA last March and decided to get on with life. He took a job in Florida as sales manager for a clothing company. Four days into his new job, an agent called and said he had an offer from a team in Andorra, in the Spanish League. Toolson grabbed it.
"I guess that makes me sound a little lazy," Toolson said, "but I decided to milk this as long as I can. I still have fun playing basketball. It's pretty volatile, but it beats working."