FROM INSIDER, a while back:
by chad

Word has spread throughout Yugoslavia that Ronzone and I are here. The journalist I spoke of Monday, Djordje Matic, has written a piece on me in the Glas Javnosti newspaper, and by Wednesday they are coming out of the woodwork. One by one the top young players are making their way to my hotel to get interviewed. By the time we leave, I will have interviewed more than dozen players in just three days.

Slavko Vranes
At 7-foot-6, Slavko Vranes would be the tallest player in the NBA.
The most interesting is 7-foot-6 giant Slavko Vranes. Vranes speaks great English and is incredibly enthused to get the interview under way. As we meet in the lobby, he forgoes the handshake and puts his huge arm around me to give me a hug. He's so big he literally has to bend all the way down to hug me. It is a hilarious sight.

Vranes is just 18 years old, but he already is making a big impact on his team, B.C. Buducnost. Vranes, like most big men, is quick to play down his size. He's still a little uncomfortable in his skin. He tells me he's just a regular guy and that he'd be a good basketball player no matter what his size was.

"I'm nothing special," he tells me. I'd beg to differ.

Vranes, if he gets drafted this year, would likely be the tallest player in the NBA. He wears a size 20 shoe, but it's his intelligence that keeps impressing me. He is speaking almost fluent English. When I ask him where he learned, he holds up three fingers and says school. Vranes took English in high school for three years. I took Spanish for four and have trouble ordering at Taco Bell.

While he doesn't have all the offensive skills that make the Yugoslavian big men so great, the upside is there. He's very coordinated for his size and runs the floor like a guard. Vranes can explain this.

"I take karate since I was a kid." Really. "I am brown belt now. I would be black, but I don't have time to practice it much. I spend too much time in the gym working on my game."

It's showing. Last year he didn't play at all. Now he gets major minutes, though he claims he's "nothing special" at least four more times. The more we talk, the more I understand why.

After about 15 minutes, he begins to open up. As you can expect, Vranes was teased as a child for being so tall. He's struggled to gain acceptance. All he wants is to be normal. "I don't mind being tall," he says. "It doesn't make me special. Just different. We're all different."

Vranes goes on to tell me that he had to leave Yugoslavia when he was 16 after his coach kept hitting him. "He hit me and call me stupid and say that I am a worthless player. I finally came home and tell my parents that I quit, I can't take it anymore. But I soon change my mind and decide that I should go somewhere else to get better and come back to Yugoslavia when I'm ready."

Vranes packed his bags and moved to Turkey. In a little over a year he learned to speak fluent Turkish and developed into one of the premier young big men in Europe. Now he's back in Yugoslavia, playing with a vengeance. Scouts are flocking to get a look, and within the next six months, he could be headed to the NBA. Not bad for a kid who has had to fight constant abuse his whole life. As you guessed, Vranes isn't as impressed with his story as I am.

"It's nothing special."

I like this:

While he doesn't have all the offensive skills that make the Yugoslavian big men so great, the upside is there. He's very coordinated for his size and runs the floor like a guard.

Me like.

but...I would have preferred Badiane instead. Just the picture in my head of Badiane dunking while being pulled by 2 bunji cords stuck in my craw.