Pro hoops with a little Seoul

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, July 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It is 5,983 miles from Las Vegas to Seoul, so I suppose holding the Korean Basketball League draft in Las Vegas, which they did Saturday afternoon, makes perfect sense.

Maybe if you were starting a new automobile racing series featuring fuel-efficient sedans you might hold an organizational meeting in South Korea, because that is where they make Hyundais and Kias, which get much better mileage than the American SUV I drove to the KBL draft. But other than that, I don’t know what the equivalent would be.

So my narrow world of sports got a little wider Saturday afternoon because, I must confess, I had never heard of the KBL. Or, for that matter, the Renaissance Hotel on Paradise Road, which is where they held the draft.

Everything looked familiar and yet, everything looked a little strange, too. Starting with the time. Who does anything in sports at 2:30 in the afternoon?

This was like the Bizarro World version of the NBA Draft. There were gigantic banners with logos of the KBL teams and pingpong balls and oversize placards, which were hung on a big board to determine the order of the draft. There were two rounds, and replica jerseys and caps, which the picks put on for photos.

Just like the NBA Draft, the commissioner also was on hand. Only he didn’t pose with the draftees. Young Soo Kim sat at a conspicuous table to the side of the dais, by himself, in one of those executive chairs with a high back. It was the only executive chair in the ballroom and gave the commissioner an air of authority and stateliness. If the ESPN cameras weren’t focused on the stage at the NBA Draft, I’m sure this is where David Stern would sit.

Anyway, it looked enough like the NBA Draft, except there weren’t a bunch of angry Knicks fans on hand to jeer Danilo Gallinari after he was selected with the sixth overall pick. And the players were dressed casually in sneakers and T-shirts instead of natty three-piece suits. I’m told the KBL pays pretty well, but you can probably buy a Hyundai with all the options for what one of those NBA draft-day suits costs.

Although the draft was supposed to begin at 2:30, it didn’t begin until after three, when two public address announcers began to speak in hypnotic monotones. At 3:40, Park Kwong Ho, the KBL’s head of basketball operations, still was fiddling with pingpong balls.

At 3:40, the ET Incheon Land Black Slamer made Carlos Powell, a sturdy big guy from South Carolina, the No. 1 pick in the KBL draft. Most of the other draft hopefuls cheered. A few didn’t. Not that they weren’t happy for Powell, one of the 20 chosen Americans who will be able to put off finding a real job for another season.

It was because they were sleeping.

•••

Every five minutes, they would call another name in Korean and English. Another sturdy big guy would walk toward the stage, then make a detour to room behind it. This is where the player, his agent and a representative from the league would hammer out a contract. In five minutes. The rules are simple. If you don’t sign a contract within five minutes, enjoy Turkey. They just select another sturdy big guy to take your place.

I think I could grow to like the Korean Basketball League.

Nobody refused to sign. Nothing against Turkey, says Odartey Blankson, the former UNLV star who was the KBL’s second-leading scorer last season for Changwon LG (the cell phone people) Sakers. And the Italian countryside (where he played a couple of years ago) is spectacular. But they’ve got Bennigan’s, Outback, TGI Fridays and even Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits in Korea. And you eat for free.

Despite being one of the KBL’s best players, Blankson had to reenter the draft, because he didn’t help the Sakers win the championship, and in The Land of the Morning Calm, that’s about all they care about. That and Kim Jong Il up north.

The Hyundai Mobis Phoebus picked Blankson in the second round. Two more former Rebels, James Peters and Wendell White, also were selected in Round 2, Peters by Busan KTF Magic Wings and White by Wonju Dongbu Promy, last year’s champions. Remember Eric Chenowith, the big lug from Kansas? He also went in the second round.

Chenowith should be glad that Ha-Seung Jin didn’t catch on with the Milwaukee Bucks. At 7-foot-3, he’s a couple of inches taller than Chenowith. The KBL limits teams to two Americans, and until Jin was released by the NBA, they could stand no taller than 6-foot-8.

“They have illegal defense rules like the NBA so basically, you wind up battling against other Americans,” Blankson says. “The Koreans are good shooters. They’re the real stars since they change Americans so frequently.”

Blankson says KBL teams play a 54-game schedule and practice twice on non-game days. The coaches get in your face, just like in college. But he says he’s OK with that, because a little discipline is good for a guy, especially when he is supporting a family and can earn as much as $200,000 after bonuses. He says NBA D-leaguers make around $18,000.

Maybe they understand English a little better in Fort Wayne and Sioux Falls than they do in Seoul, but Blankson says he has learned to work around the language barrier when he’s open on the baseline.

“I just put my hand up,” he says.