Last season the number of 'ours' - Ukrainians, Russians, Lithuanians and Georgians - reached eight. Darius Songaila and Zaza Pachulia were added to Vitaly Potapenko, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Vladimir Stepania, Stanislav Medvedenko, Andrei Kirilenko and Nikoloz Tskitishvili, who had previously played overseas.
In the upcoming season, this number could well double. After all, it is probably not for nothing that in the first two rounds of the rookie draft, NBA teams selected as many as seven 'Soviet' players. Contrary to most forecasts, the highest rated was not the 19-year-old Russian giant (height 222 cm) Pavel Podkolzin, who plays for Italian club Varese, but the Latvian forward from Riga's Skonto - 18-year-old Andris Biedrins.
The Latvian was selected with the 11th overall pick by the Golden State Warriors. Podkolzin was taken 21st by the Utah Jazz. However, he remained a teammate of Andrei Kirilenko for only a few hours - he was soon traded to the Dallas Mavericks for a first-round pick in the 2005 draft. It is rumored that Dallas's manager intends to make a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers and acquire Shaquille O'Neal. The giant Podkolzin could then become part of the compensation for Shaq.
Following Podkolzin, two more Russians were selected - 21-year-old Viktor Khryapa (a native of Kiev, by the way) and his age mate Sergei Monya. Despite being picked by two different clubs - the New Jersey Nets and the Portland Trail Blazers - the two representatives of Moscow's CSKA will again play for the same club. New Jersey traded Khryapa to Portland. Khryapa had the 22nd pick, Monya the 23rd.
In the second round of the draft, the Atlanta Hawks, for which Kiev native Alexander Volkov once played, showed interest in 18-year-old Tbilisi native Viktor Sanikidze (42nd overall pick). And the 49th was... Ukrainian 22-year-old Sergei Lishchuk, who quite recently had claimed that he had supposedly refused to take part in the draft procedure due to an unimpressive performance at the NBA summer training camp. Nevertheless, a native of Rovno, playing for Khimik from Yuzhny, has every chance to start the next season as a member of the Memphis Grizzlies.
And finally, let us note the virtually unknown Russian Sergei Karaulov, selected at the end of the second round (57th overall pick, chosen by the San Antonio Spurs). And also let us name the first pick of the draft - it was 18-year-old Dwight Howard, born in Atlanta and played for the local team Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. Experts say the young man, who went to the Orlando Magic, has high potential and was named the best player of 2004 in college basketball.