July 27, Italy –There is no doubt that basketball is a global game. You can find a basketball court in virtually every country in the world, and everyone knows that practice makes perfect. So it’s no surprise that NBA teams now have talent scouts checking out talents all over the world.

NBA.com caught up with Rich Sheubrooks, Director of International Scouting for the Memphis Grizzlies and Nike Global Basketball Consultant to find out just what it takes to be one of the best.

How long have you been a scout for?
I’ve been with Memphis for four years and lived in Europe now for almost nine years and it’s been really interesting. I mean I used to go to games and there were no scouts. Then all of a sudden I would go to games and there would be one or two. Now I go to games in places like Austria which is not a basketball country, walk in a gym in an obscure little town outside of Vienna and there’s six people sitting in a gym that are coming to scout players so as far as the visibility, the flattening out of the whole landscape, it’s really amazing what’s taking place out there as far as basketball’s concerned.

Do you travel around lots of different countries?
I travel more than my wife wants me to travel. To give you an idea, the past two summers were pretty incredible. Last summer we started off with a camp in Beijing in June and then I went to Memphis for the Draft then Rio for Basketball without Borders Latin America camp then I came back to Europe. I went to Treviso, Italy for Basketball without Borders Europe and then I traveled to the Junior U20 European Championships in Prague, then Sweden for the European Championships. After that I went to Athens for the Olympics and then I went down to South Africa for Basketball without Borders. So basically I circled the whole globe and touched four continents.

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Wow that’s a lot of traveling! Where have you been this summer?
Well I started off in Amsterdam and had some meetings there then I went to Beijing then I went to Portland and had some meetings with Nike then Memphis for the Draft again, then I went to Buenos Aires for Basketball without Borders. Now I’m here in Italy for [Basketball without Borders Europe], then when it’s over I’ll leave to go to a tournament in Spain. Then I’ll be off to Africa and then after that I’ll go to Belgrade for the European Men’s Championship. So the past two summers I bought round the world tickets and I circled the globe and watched a lot of games.

Which country would you say is currently producing the best basketball talent?
You almost have to look at it as a region because of what happens. Players move around, I mean obviously Lithuania has good players, Argentina has good players but I would say right now that Europe in general is producing the best players. For me the best potential in the future would certainly be in Africa and China and then South America. The truth is that the next Michael Jordan will probably not come from the US or Europe but from Africa or China.

What do you do if you see a player who has the potential to make it in the NBA?
I’ll watch as many games as I can, then I’ll write up a report on the players and note those that I think would make good NBA players, good European players and if they would make good endorsees for Nike. Then I put a book together at the end of September which is a couple of inches thick with everything that I’ve done over the summer. Basically I rank all the players that I’ve seen and then have a master list of all the different players of all different ages, because a lot of times you’ll see young players and you know that it’s going to be a few years before they will move up. But for some you know right away, like Tony Parker, you knew that he was going to be a good player, when I saw Dirk Nowitzki it was the same thing. I mean we had Yao Ming in a camp in Paris when he was 17 years old and Pau Gasol when he was only 16.

How about the players at this camp [basketball without Borders Europe]. Do you expect to see some who will stand out?
Yeah, I mean the guys that are coming to this camp were all born in ’88, but we know that there will be a proportion of these guys that will have the talent and skills to take them on to the next level. And what’s happening everywhere is once you get a player from a specific country that makes it in the NBA then it’s almost like he opens the door of dreams that other players now don’t just dream that they can make it, they’ve seen somebody from their country make it, so it really makes dreams a reality and you put that local hero back in the country and he connects. I mean there are more games on TV on Spain than there’s ever been because of Gasol, the same in France because of Tony Parker. In South America, Manu Ginobili was like a rock star when we were in South America with him [for Basketball without Borders, Latin America] because all the Playoff games are all on TV, everybody knows him. He walks into a hotel and gets a standing ovation. He was selected as sportsman of the year in Argentina. Right now he’s probably the most key sports figure in the country which is really special for a country that’s predominately interested in football and soccer.

How do you track the players that you see? After you’ve written the book what would you do?
I’ll look at the schedules of all the different leagues like the Lithuanian league, the Spanish league then make a schedule of that and note who the guy is playing for and how many opportunities I’m going to have to see him play. If he’s somebody that looks like he’s really close to playing in the NBA, then I might go watch a guy play 10 or 12 times through the course of the season, if he’s really that high a level player.

Going back to what I said about the dreams, there’s an interesting quote that the problem is we don’t set our dreams to high and not achieve them. The problem is we set our dreams to low and we do achieve them. So once you achieve it you think you’ve made it, so the thing is we’re probably not setting our dreams high enough, and I think what’s happening now with the players going back to their countries has raised the level of dreams. A kid can see himself now in the NBA. In the past they couldn’t see that.

Is it like that in all countries or is it still different like say in Africa?
It’s going to take a bit more seeding I mean there are some guys that made it but because they don’t have maybe as much visibility, maybe TV and media exposure they don’t have the organizational leagues down there the same way it’s going to take a little bit more time but they have great talent. The raw talent out there is unbelievable.

Maybe they don’t quite realize what they can achieve?
Yes, I still think it’s a little bit more of a dream to them not so much reality. But that’s coming.

So in your opinion has the gap between US basketball players and those in the rest of the world has closed?
Well let me just say, I’m reading a book out right now called ‘The World is Flat’, it’s a great book and is all about the fact that we export a lot of technology to countries like India and China who are now able to compete on a level playing field. As far as basketball is concerned the world is now flat because it’s now very level and opportunities are there for people from all over. I mean Bogut from Australia was drafted as number one pick this year, that’s just an example of what’s happing in the world of basketball. And it will be very interesting at the start of the season I think more than any time it will be a new record for the number of International player on rosters. Not just the ones that have been drafted but all these guys that have been going over and signing as free agents.

What’s going to push the popularity of basketball in Europe?
I think the greatest injection for basketball in Europe is going to be with the NBA bringing the training camps [NBA Europe Live] over here in 2006. There is going to be so much NBA talent coming over that basketball will be at a fever pitch. Not since 1992, when the dream team came over will Europe have felt that, and now they are in a position to take advantage of it. I mean after 1992 I don’t think they were really able to take it to the next level but after these training camps are here then I think basketball will really explode.