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This is the first part of our new miniseries, The Donnie Expedition, a history of international players in the NBA Draft. Here, we'll investigate the pre-history leading up to the NBA's first-ever draft picks direct from abroad. Then we'll meet the first draft pick to come to the NBA direct from overseas.
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00:12Yorgi Glushkoff is not a joke.
00:15What I'm about to show you is pretty funny,
00:17and a lot of things about Yorgi Glushkoff are funny,
00:20but I don't want to let a transient role in our story overshadow his story as a whole.
00:27Yorgi Glushkoff grew up in Triovna, Bulgaria.
00:30He was a tall, basketball-loving teenager,
00:34although evidently not tall enough to enter a contest
00:36or basketball-loving enough to enroll in a sports academy.
00:40Still, a coach in the city of Jambol saw Yorgi's promise
00:43and recruited the 15-year-old to leave home in 1975.
00:48Yorgi developed into a bruising forward
00:50who would star for Bulgarian clubs and the national team in his early 20s.
00:55That was before his season in the NBA.
00:59After the NBA, Glushkoff played another decade in Europe,
01:03coached, then served briefly as Bulgaria's sports minister,
01:06and for a long time as president of its basketball federation.
01:10For Yorgi Glushkoff, the NBA was a detour.
01:13For the NBA, Glushkoff was a critical figure
01:17in the league's expanding universe of talent.
01:20Okay, I promised you something funny.
01:23The video you're about to see is one of the few things on YouTube
01:26from Yorgi Glushkoff's NBA career.
01:29Someone ripped plays from a Sun-Sixers game in December of 1985,
01:33and then those clips got re-uploaded by the Bulgarian basketball federation
01:38of which Glushkoff has been president.
01:40And yet, this is not a Yorgi Glushkoff highlight reel.
01:44Literally, the first play is Yorgi fumbling a rebound.
01:47He has his moments.
01:49Like, this is nice defensive work on the entry pass.
01:52The gorilla's pleased.
01:53Gorilla knows ball.
01:54This is a beautiful tip dunk in transition.
01:57But then here's Yorgi breaking a mid-range jumper.
02:00And here he is mishandling a pass to give Charles Barkley a fast-break dunk.
02:04This is a low-light reel, if anything.
02:06It's not a fair representation of Yorgi Glushkoff's skill or his accomplishments,
02:11and yet it is something his own federation chose to publish.
02:14This is also a snapshot of what Yorgi Glushkoff represented to NBA fans for a moment in time.
02:21How his name loomed over one of the most important projects in the history of American sports.
02:37It takes just a passing glance to notice that the NBA of the 2020s is dominated by stars from overseas.
02:44Not just born and raised, but in many cases trained and employed on professional teams outside the North American basketball
02:52system.
02:53Basically, all these guys got to the NBA through the draft.
02:58Tippy-top picks, deep draft sleepers, late lottery finds, all picked straight from foreign leagues to the NBA.
03:05That's not to be taken for granted.
03:08The drafting of players from abroad reflects changing sentiments, changing politics, changing technologies,
03:15and it's a trend that took root more recently than you might realize.
03:18If you want to know how the NBA got this way, let's go spelunking.
03:31This is the Draft Cavern.
03:33On June 2nd, 1947, the Pittsburgh Ironmen made the first-ever pick in what is now called the NBA Draft.
03:42Since then, teams have been picking away, gradually excavating this cavern in human history.
03:48Each draft year lengthens our tunnel.
03:51Each draft pick deepens the shaft for that year.
03:57Everyone is here.
03:59Everyone.
04:00If someone was picked in the NBA Draft, they've got a spot in this cavern.
04:04Hans Tanzler?
04:07Howie Janata?
04:09Not that one.
04:10It's a different one.
04:11It's dark and treacherous in here, so I just want you to stay close to me and sign the waiver
04:16if you don't mind.
04:17You can pause and read the full waiver if you want, but the upshot is this.
04:21Each draft pick has the player's name and a flag.
04:24The player's name is up to date if they've changed it.
04:27The player's flag reflects their nation of birth as it is known today.
04:31That does not always tell the whole story, and when relevant, we'll get into that.
04:35Shout out to StatHead and to the researchers Robert Bradley and Matthew Maurer for making this data so complete.
04:41Next, the draft order in the first few decades gets intermittently wonky because of vague records and territorial draft picks.
04:49It does not really matter for our purposes.
04:51And finally, we're going to do what the NBA does and count the 1947 BAA Draft as the beginning of
04:57history.
04:58Capisce?
04:59Sign here.
05:02Great.
05:03Let's pick.
05:03With that first pick in the inaugural 1947 draft, the Pittsburgh Ironmen selects Clifton McNeely from Texas Wesleyan University.
05:13Come on down, Clifton.
05:14Or don't, actually.
05:17Clifton McNeely is a useful example for two reasons.
05:20One, Clifton was born, raised, and rostered as a college basketball player in the United States.
05:26He has this in common with the vast majority of NBA draft picks in history.
05:30Two, McNeely did not sign with the Pittsburgh Ironmen.
05:34He became a coach and then a school principal.
05:37Not a bad call, Clifton, because the Pittsburgh Ironmen folded two months later.
05:42Yes, the first ever pick in the first ever draft was a soon-to-be-defunct team drafting a soon
05:49-to-be-retired basketball player.
05:51Never playing NBA minutes is something else Clifton has in common with a lot of draft picks.
05:57Many drafted players never made a team.
05:59We should probably talk about what the NBA draft is.
06:03In a predetermined order, teams choose, one at a time, from a pool of players who have not previously played
06:10in the league.
06:11That choice is not a contract, just a claim.
06:15It says, if this player intends to join the NBA, then this team reserves the exclusive right to offer their
06:22first contract.
06:23If they want to.
06:24If this sounds like a trivial distinction, chalk that up to recency.
06:28Since 1989, the NBA draft has been two rounds, putting the yearly pick total at roughly the number of teams
06:36times two.
06:37As the NBA ticked up to 30 franchises, that made for decades of drafts totaling between 50 and 60 picks.
06:44Not a lot of picks.
06:45On this near side of history, the draft is short, the world is well-connected, and NBA contracts pay better
06:52than school principal salaries.
06:54Players mostly do not decline the opportunity to sign with an NBA team, and teams do not draft players if
07:01they don't think they'll ever be valuable or available to sign.
07:04That would be a waste, and the NBA draft is not a time for waste.
07:09But it used to be.
07:14Before two rounds of picks, there were three.
07:17Before that, seven rounds.
07:20Before that, ten.
07:22Before that, draft till you drop.
07:26Literally, unlimited.
07:27Each team took turns claiming prospects until they were satisfied, which sometimes ended with just a couple teams going back
07:34and forth for quite a while, or even just one remaining team twirling the phone cord and naming obscure college
07:41basketball players deep into the night.
07:43Drafting was not a zero-sum exercise.
07:46You could afford to take flyers on long shots and obscurities.
07:50Teams drafted relative nobodies.
07:52Sometimes they did the opposite.
07:53Teams grabbed the rights to famous athletes from other sports on the off chance they decided to take up basketball,
08:00or just for PR.
08:02Caitlyn Jenner went 139th overall to the Kansas City Kings in 1977.
08:07The world didn't know yet that Jenner was a woman, but other women have been drafted.
08:12The Jazz picked Delta State superstar Lucia Harris two picks before Jenner in 77.
08:18Harris did not sign.
08:20Indeed, none of those people ever signed with an NBA team for a variety of reasons.
08:25It was nothing out of the ordinary in an era with so many draft picks and so few roster spots.
08:31It was only when teams started openly goofing that the NBA moved to apply some constraints.
08:37Like, say, when the Hawks claimed the draft rights to a baby.
08:42Or when the Sixers tried to pick a 49-year-old pharmacist.
08:46The baby pick never went through, and the pharmacist pick got voided.
08:50But they give you a sense for how shaggy the draft could be in the 1970s and 80s.
08:55Still, amid the waste, long drafts offered opportunity.
08:59Every person here has one thing in common.
09:03Before getting drafted, they lived in America.
09:06Or Canada.
09:07We're counting that.
09:08You see some non-American flags, but all the people beside those flags came over here before they were drafted
09:15into the NBA.
09:16That's not to say everyone was the same.
09:20Tomaslav Nikailovic Mesher-Yakov's family had a harrowing, fascinating path to the United States.
09:26Then, Tom Mesheri played college ball at St. Mary's.
09:31In terms of what it took for an NBA team to scout, draft, and sign him, he was ordinary.
09:36To the extent that individuals emigrated to the U.S. for basketball, that pipeline was laid by amateur scouts.
09:44This guy got recruited by BYU, for instance.
09:47So did he.
09:48At the pro level, the United States of the 1960s was way more prone to exporting talent.
09:56To beef up for battles with powerful Soviet clubs, Western European basketball leagues like Italy's Serie A relaxed rules and
10:05opened their doors to American talent.
10:07Enterprising agents built entire businesses out of matching undrafted or unsigned American players with those European jobs.
10:16This name will come up again, so remember it if you want to go, ah, that guy, later on.
10:21While tracking those American players stationed abroad, NBA executives noticed other names, non-American names, popping off the stat sheets.
10:29One such executive was Marty Blake, the longtime general manager of the Hawks, spanning multiple decades in relocations.
10:37Blake made some famous picks near the tops of drafts, for better and worse.
10:42But he was a scout at heart, a talent miner who took pleasure in identifying great players others hadn't.
10:48The clearest sign of where he and the league were headed happened deep in the bowels of history's most monumental
10:57draft.
11:011970, a new decade.
11:03The NBA had three new expansion franchises and had just begun discussing a merger with its rival, ABA.
11:11That year's draft was magnificent.
11:14Look at this absolute dong of an event.
11:17After 170 picks, the live draft concluded.
11:21Teams were permitted to keep picking via telegram.
11:24And they did, making a grand total of 239 picks.
11:30This list is stacked with future Hall of Famers, including a Hawks selection.
11:35Pete Maravich, third overall to Atlanta.
11:37But Marty Blake's most personal, most revolutionary, yet utterly ineffectual move happened hours later.
11:44In the 10th round of this longest ever draft, Marty quietly, matter-of-factly made history.
11:51With the 167th pick in the 1970 NBA draft, the Hawks select Manuel Raga.
11:59Next round, 182nd pick, presumably via telegram, Hawks select Dino Menegheen.
12:05You can practically hear Commissioner Walter Kennedy's exasperation.
12:10Who the hell were these guys?
12:11For the first time ever, the Atlanta Hawks had drafted two players directly from overseas.
12:19Raga was a high-flying wing from Mexico, playing pro ball in Varese, Italy.
12:24There, he teamed up with Menegheen, an Italian, to take down the mighty Teska Moscow and win the 1970 European
12:31Championship.
12:32Neither Raga nor Menegheen had played a minute of high school or college ball in the U.S.
12:38Blake was not goofing.
12:40He had a shoebox of clippings from Spanish-language newspapers to back up his picks.
12:46However, Atlanta ownership would not fork over the cash to facilitate buyouts from the club in Italy.
12:52Raga and Menegheen remained in Europe, won a lot more together and apart,
12:57and went on to both get inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame.
13:00Menegheen was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.
13:05Marty Blake went to his grave believing Manuel Raga and Dino Menegheen could have been productive NBA players,
13:11and he was probably right.
13:13Talk your shit, Marty.
13:15Nevertheless, a seal had been broken.
13:17The drafts of the 1970s are dotted with the flags of other nations.
13:22Mostly guys who attended college in the U.S., but also some foreigners who had not already been plucked by
13:28scouts at the amateur levels.
13:30None of them ever signed, and not for lack of trying.
13:33NBA talent spotters casting their gaze abroad had help from none other than Marty Blake,
13:39who became scouting director for the whole league.
13:42For decades, Blake ran the operation for scouting NBA-caliber talent in obscure colleges and far-off lands,
13:49building a famous library of reports and videos.
13:53Along with Blake's resources, teams began to dedicate in-house staff to scouting other countries.
13:59Occasionally, these scouts convinced their teams to draft a guy or even bring him to camp,
14:04but through 1984, there were no imports signed to actual contracts.
14:0984 is actually a great example year.
14:12The first pick was Hakeem Olajuwon from Nigeria and the University of Houston.
14:16The 131st pick in that draft was Oscar Schmidt, a Brazilian legend playing in Italy.
14:23Schmidt was definitely good enough for the NBA, but the Nets never signed him.
14:27Finances and international amateurism rules just made it too much of a headache.
14:32The first international scout to, I guess, scout to completion was Richard Perkidani.
14:40Ah, that guy.
14:41Perkidani was an American coaching export to Italy.
14:44He knew ball and he knew languages.
14:47While abroad, Perkidani developed a side hustle connecting European teams in need of talent
14:52and American players in need of jobs.
14:53When Perkidani returned stateside to coach and scout, he kept running Earth's premier international
15:00basketball consultancy from his home office in Connecticut.
15:04While a Phoenix Suns draft pick was playing in Italy, team owner Jerry Colangelo found out
15:10about Perkidani's niche expertise and hired him to perhaps reverse the pipeline.
15:15One of Perk's first scouting assignments for the Suns was Eurobasket 1985, when national teams
15:21from around Europe met for a tournament in West Germany.
15:25Perkidani watched a lanky 25-year-old as he helped Bulgaria punch above its weight against
15:30European powerhouses.
15:32The host country had three studs in their front court, three future first-round picks enrolled
15:37at American colleges.
15:39This kid stood up to all of them.
15:42Perkidani reported back to his bosses in Phoenix.
15:45The NBA draft was just days later.
15:48That 1985 draft had a new lottery system and just seven rounds.
15:53Picks were getting precious.
15:54You couldn't waste them like before.
15:56But Perkidani insisted this Bulgarian guy was as good as Charles Oakley, the power Ford
16:02Phoenix missed out on with their 10th pick.
16:04So, with the 148th overall pick, the Suns called it in.
16:10Yorgi Glushkov from Bulgaria.
16:15Now, Phoenix claiming the draft rights to a Bulgarian guy wasn't that big a deal by itself.
16:20But Yorgi came to Phoenix for training camp and preseason.
16:24A tryout, though he didn't necessarily know that.
16:27And it went great.
16:28Yorgi earned himself a nickname.
16:30He put up 18 points in a preseason game.
16:33And he had a crowd of Suns fans chanting for him.
16:36Phoenix wanted Yorgi.
16:38This was still very much the Cold War, but Bulgaria didn't have as stifling a sports
16:43federation as Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union.
16:47So, Colangelo and Perkidani flew to Sofia, met with federation officials, and drank a belly
16:53full of complimentary liquor.
16:54They promised a PR tour, they cut a tasty check, and they even agreed to process Glushkov's
17:01salary through the federation.
17:03The Bulgarians said, okay, Yorgi's yours.
17:06That was a big deal.
17:08The NBA had its first emissary from the Eastern Bloc, the first draft pick directly from overseas
17:15to sign with an NBA team.
17:17Iron curtain punctured, a scouting dream realized, a PR coup.
17:22And when it all settled, a 25-year-old from Bulgaria trying to fit in with the Phoenix Suns.
17:30Yorgi knew basically zero English.
17:32Supposedly, he arrived with just two phrases, Phoenix Suns and pretty girl.
17:39Coach John McLeod taught himself a few Bulgarian basketball terms while teammates got to work
17:44teaching Yorgi.
17:45How to order yogurt.
17:47How to high-five.
17:49The difference between a chicken and, you know, a chick.
17:53To the extent that this stuff is not apocryphal, it's fun.
17:58But it must have been an isolating feeling to share so few words with your team.
18:04The only fellow compatriots Yorgi had to keep him company were one security guy from the
18:10Bulgarian secret police, who wasn't exactly there for a good time, and a man they called
18:16Bo.
18:16Bo was a federation veteran sent to translate for the first few weeks.
18:21A cop and an old guy.
18:23That's it.
18:24Meanwhile, the 85-86 Suns stunk.
18:28Phoenix was already 0-4 when Glushkoff checked into his first-ever official NBA game.
18:34That night against the Hawks, Yorgi played 11 productive minutes, generating the only cheers
18:39amid a depressing fifth straight loss.
18:42I've seen the translation of this Yorgi self-review rendered a few different ways, but it always
18:48boils down to, well, you know, I won't get executed, so it's all good.
18:52This was the vibe early on.
18:54The Suns were quite bad, but Yorgi was a fun diversion.
18:57And he was settling in.
19:00Yorgi drove a Lincoln.
19:02Yorgi enjoyed American candy and American soda and American hamburgers.
19:07Yorgi played hard off the bench, and he made people laugh because he filled his sneakers
19:11with baby powder.
19:12He was a roving attraction on an otherwise dismal team.
19:16In December, Bo had to go home.
19:19Suns' employees were wistful.
19:21They'd grown fond of the old Bulgarian.
19:23Bo's replacement was some guy, a local construction worker who had just showed up one day during
19:29preseason.
19:30He knew nothing about basketball, but he spoke fluent Bulgarian, so congrats.
19:36You're now an assistant trainer.
19:37This, unfortunately, was a bad time to switch translators.
19:41Coach McLeod had originally pushed a read-and-react offense without many set plays, but he tightened
19:48things up after the Suns started 3-15 entering December.
19:51This made it even more vital that Yorgi understand what his coach said, which, according to teammate
19:58Alvin Adams, was a chore.
19:59Coach McLeod explains for 30 seconds, and then Ruman translates for 30 seconds, and then
20:03Yorgi talks back for a minute.
20:05Phoenix just hadn't thought hard enough about the language barrier, and these mid-season
20:10changes only widened it.
20:12In the new system, Glushkov's performance suffered, and his minutes dwindled.
20:17There was lifestyle stuff, too.
20:19The new translator's age made him a more suitable companion for Yorgi than the elder Bo had been,
20:25but that was a double-edged sword.
20:27People spoke vaguely about Glushkov's off-court lifestyle, nothing outlandish for a young
20:32NBA player, but they got specific when it came to his nutrition.
20:37What started as, haha, this guy loves junk food, turned into, holy shit, this guy is only
20:42eating junk food.
20:44Yorgi was floundering, and it could not have helped that he wasn't really getting paid.
20:50Remember, to win Yorgi's release, the Suns had agreed to route paychecks through the Bulgarian
20:55federation, who would then send back Glushkov's cut.
20:59But they weren't doing that.
21:02Even when Bo returned to Bulgaria promising to prod his bosses, Bulgaria was not paying
21:08Yorgi.
21:09The Suns took care of Glushkov, but here he was, months into his historic NBA season,
21:15not getting paid like an NBA player.
21:17Even when the rookie got more minutes in springtime, his reputation seemed set.
21:23This article, given the history to follow, is an incredible snapshot.
21:27On March 12, 1986, Glushkov started for Phoenix and totally outplayed the Bucs' frontcourt as
21:34the Suns pulled off an overtime upset in Milwaukee.
21:37But the losing coach still wasn't impressed.
21:40Yorgi Glushkov, said Don Nelson, was not good.
21:44Good work ethic, sure, but straight up not a good player.
21:48I guess Nelson didn't think much of his own guys.
21:50The article's author suspected that even though Glushkov's Suns contract lasted one more year,
21:57this experimental rookie season would be the end of his NBA career.
22:01Indeed.
22:03Chastened by comments about his diet, Glushkov showed up to 1986 Summer League 20 pounds lighter.
22:10He looked so frail that doctors got involved.
22:13Summer League went poorly.
22:15The Suns soured on their prospect.
22:17When Glushkov got an offer from a team in Italy, the Suns encouraged him to take it, and he did.
22:24Phoenix patted themselves on the back for making history,
22:28expressed some regret over failing to bridge the language barrier,
22:31and otherwise chalked up their failed experiment to lifestyle stuff.
22:36This part has been denied, but the Suns all seem to believe it.
22:41Don Nelson's assessment was the popular one.
22:44Yorgi's name became a cautionary tale trotted out every time another foreigner entered the draft conversation.
22:51If that guy was the best Europe had to offer,
22:55well, then Europeans must not be NBA material.
23:00It would not be easy for the next NBA team to import a player from overseas.
23:05But a few people had devoted themselves to making it happen.
23:09The most devoted of them all would be Don Nelson's own son.
23:14Yorgi Glushkov played another decade in Bulgaria, Italy, and Spain.
23:19He won an Italian Cup title alongside Oscar Schmidt.
23:23He was a FIBA All-Star in 1991.
23:26Glushkov retired from playing in 1997, then took over the National Federation.
23:31That 86 season faded into the footnotes of Glushkov's career.
23:35A sometimes fun, sometimes lonely, sometimes sexy study abroad in Phoenix, Arizona.
23:40In the NBA, Yorgi Glushkov was a guinea pig, a novelty, both pioneer and trivia tidbit.
23:47In Europe, Yorgi Glushkov is a legend.
23:57In Europe, Yorgi Glushkov is a legend.
24:22In Europe, Yorgi Glushkov is a legend.
24:24In Europe, Yorgi Glushkov is a legend.
24:29In Europe, Yorgi Glushkov is a legend.
24:29In Europe, Yorgi Glushkov is a legend.
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