Club vs. Country - Basketball Edition

Marc Cuban, the eccentric billionaire owner/superfan of the Dallas Mavericks, runs an excellent blog over at blogmaverick.com that I check every week. Whether he's talking about basketball or technology, it's great to see what one of the guys on the inside thinks, especially one as knowledgeable and straight-shooting as Mr. Cuban.

This week, it was basketball - Mr. Cuban reposted an oldie-but-a-goodie from the last Olympiad, arguing why he doesn't support NBA players playing in the Olympics. It's of note, though, that if Cuban thinks a tournament every four years is a problem, he should be glad he doesn't own a soccer team. It's known as the "club vs. country" debate in Europe, and it's in the news nearly every other week, especially when tournaments like the current Euro 2008 take place. In one corner, you've got national teams who get big money from TV deals and advertisers; and in the other corner, you've got team owners who pay the players the rest of the year and want a cut (or at least don't want to see their players get hurt). The issue is even greater in the soccer community because of more frequent tournaments and more nationalities and national leagues sharing the main stage. FIBA Americas and the World Basketball championship are only just beginning to cause the kind of problems the EPL, La Liga, Serie A and the like have long faced with EURO, the African Cup of Nations, the CONCACAF Gold Cup (not to mention the much more frequent friendlies between national teams in the soccer world).

The scheduling and cash flow become infinitely more complex because soccer is truly the world's game. Basketball is not, although the NBA is working on it. You can still describe international basketball issues (as Mr. Cuban does) as America vs. the World, or the NBA vs. the World, or in cases like this, America vs. the NBA. Even though the EPL wishes it did, nobody has the same monopoly of soccer talent that the NBA has on basketball talent. The closest thing was the G-14, a coalition of the rishest soccer clubs in Europe, and that group disbanded in February as part of an uneasy truce over national teams compensating teams for injured stars.

And as far as "And1-ing" goes, Euro 2008 is another good place to look, where a half-dozen Brazilians are playing for Poland, Turkey, and even talent-rich Spain and Portugal. If there are legitimately two countries that you identify with, I can understand the crisis, but mercenaries choosing new citizenship based on roster openings do more to cheapen the international game than a thousand endorsements ever could. The more interesting issue is coaches crossing borders. How does the equation change when your national team commitment is your full-time job? How much is representing a country and how much is just paying the bills? It can certainly be a point of pride to have a homegrown coach, but if you're paying the man, business sense and what's best for the team on the field have to factor in alongside emotions. Case in point: Russia's manager Guus Hiddink, who's passion could arguably make his fellow Dutchmen proud during the 3-1 defeat his adopted team handed the Netherlands, but I think most people in Holland are more likely to call him traitor of the year.

Or, on the other hand, you could look at Sweden's finest, Sven-Göran Eriksson, getting ready to begin his tenure as Mexico's head coach. Seriously, just look at him. It looks like there's a decent chance he didn't understand most of what was said at that press conference.