Jazz-Lakers playoff series is spiced with international flavor

Merhaba. Zdrahvo. Mambo. Pryvit. Zivjo. Hola.

Did we miss any greeting besides, How's it going, dude?

Welcome to the Rosetta Stone Language Learning NBA Playoffs. When the Jazz and Lakers meet tonight in Game 5 at the Staples Center, it might take a linguist to sort things out.

There will certainly be an international flavor. There's overseas legend Andrei Kirilenko from Russia. And Mehmet Okur from Turkey. Although he won't be in uniform, there's also Kyrylo Fesenko from Ukraine. If you want to get technical, Carlos Boozer was born in Germany.

Foreign-born players on the Lakers include Vladimir Radmanovich (Serbia and Montenegro), Pau Gasol (Spain), DJ Mbenga (Congo), Sasha Vujacic (Slovenia) and Ronny Turiaf (Martinique).

A regular United Nations assembly.

The influx of foreign players started a couple of decades ago and grew like, well, the world population. Five No. 1 draft picks since 1997 were born in foreign lands. Five of six MVPs from 2002-07 were born outside the good old USA (Steve Nash and Tim Duncan twice, Dirk Nowitzki once).

You know that phrase "A billion Chinese don't care?" Apparently they do. Houston Rockets' center Yao Ming has 10 to 12 Chinese media members at every game, eight of whom actually move to Houston during the regular season.

"I think the NBA soon will be an NHL," said Kirilenko, "where everybody is from different countries of the world."

Odds are good that foreign-born players will play a big part in tonight's outcome. Sunday's game was a case in point. Kirilenko had five blocks, and Okur's late shooting was the Jazz's salvation. Vujacic scored 15 points off the bench in L.A.'s Game 1 win. Radmanovich and Gasol are starters.

Even the most talked-about play of Sunday's game — Turiaf's flagrant foul on Ronnie Price — involved an international player. (Incidentally, Turiaf can say, "That's a charge!" in five languages.)

Ten years ago, when the Jazz and Lakers met in the playoffs, there was only one foreign-born player on either team: L.A.'s Rick Fox, who came from the decidedly un-foreign city of Toronto. Back then, the NBA had 29 international players from 21 countries. This year there were 76 from 31 countries.

"I don't know that I envisioned MVPs and the numbers that would be here, but I knew it would probably come," said Jazz assistant coach Phil Johnson.

Johnson held clinics in Italy two decades ago and saw what he calls "tremendous interest in the game."

"They were so enthusiastic about learning what we knew, I knew that sooner or later it would come," said Johnson.