If you want to see herd mentality at its finest, look no further than the NBA.
If it were any more of a herd, they'd all be eating from a trough.
Although management people often make intelligent decisions, the fact Joe Barry Carroll was once a No. 1 pick is enough to cast doubt. Mostly they're just hoping to avoid being left behind. That, in turn, leads to herd thinking. For instance, when Magic Johnson was playing, everyone wanted to have their own 6-foot-9 point guard. But they never did find another like him. That didn't stop them from trying.
On a similar note, a lot of management people thought Ralph Sampson would star in the league. Look what happened.
Today another fad is sweeping the league: foreign players. It seems everybody has to have one. Team executives are scouring the globe in search of the next Dirk Nowitzki.
Thanks to others such as Peja Stojakovic, Vlade Divac, Yao Ming, Eduardo Najera and Emanuel Ginobili, scouting has taken a new look in recent years. Remember when scouts used to complain about traveling to Laramie to watch a player? Now they need a passport and a razor that runs on 220 volts.
Actually, there is good reason for this action. Americans are realizing foreigners have invaded our turf. To assume all the best players in the world are Americans is ignorant. Brazil has 176 million people, China 1.265 billion. You think from those numbers, nobody is good enough to play in America?
The NBA media Web siteincludes 36 foreign players on its list of draft prospects. There's Illia Aleksandrov from Russia (with love) and Malick Badiane from Germany. Leandrinho Barbosa hails from Brazil. Hakan Koseoglu calls Turkey home. Aleksander Djuric is from Austria. (The hills are aliiiiiive with the sound of dribb-ling . . . )
There's also Darko Milicic, who has been playing in Serbia and Montenegro, Anderson Varejao from Brazil and Xue Yuyang from China. Maceij Lampe, a Pole, has been playing in Spain. Mickael Pietrus is from France.
It's not a stretch to imagine the Jazz looking into some of the aforementioned players. They have joined the stampede to sign foreign talent wholeheartedly. Already Andrei Kirilenko (Russia), Raul Lopez (Spain), Carlos Arroyo (Puerto Rico) and John Amaechi (England) are on the team.
One more and they could call it a world peace summit.
They also have Greg Ostertag, who is from Mars, but that's another story.
Which brings us to the reason I wrote this column. I suggest the Jazz draft Jon Stefansson. Never heard of him? In Reykjavic, Iceland, he's a household name. Actually, he's probably been in every household in Reykjavic.
In Iceland, basketball is always in season — because there is only one season.
Stefansson is a 6-foot-5 combination guard. Scouting reports say he's one of Europe's best players, a point guard with a shooting guard's body. Stefansson tore up the Islandic Epson League, which I imagine is similar to tearing up the six-feet-and-under Salt Lake County Rec League.
Still, think of the opportunities if the Jazz drafted him. They could call him "The Iceman." That's already been done, but George Gervin's last game was 17 years ago. Whenever Stefansson sets a screen, they could call it an "Icepick." When the Jazz slow the game down, they could call it an "Icelandic freeze."
Hot Rod Hundley could shout, "Stefansson's bucket puts the game on ice!"
Sweet.
They could have "Iceland Night" at the Jazz games. Everyone who arrives wearing a fur hat gets in free. Why not sell Iceman bobblehead dolls, made out of clear plastic? They could have an ice sculpture contest outside the Delta Center on game nights.
I figure he could get an endorsement deal for Dentyne Ice in a snap, or at very least hawk Dairy Queen Blizzards. He may already have a deal with Mentos. Larry H. Miller could help him set up a car dealership in Akureyri: Jon Stefansson Fjord-Lincoln-Mercury.
The Jazz could field an all-foreign lineup: Amaechi, Lopez, Kirilenko, Arroyo and Stefansson. Nickname it "The Foreign Exchange."
Anyway, that's my vote for the upcoming draft.
Go for the kid with a copy of Njal's Saga in his backpack
I hear he can even score in a storm.
E-mail: rock@desnews.com