BILBAO, Spain– When Mike Fratello, one of the most respected minds in basketball, coached the NBA Atlanta Hawks, that NBA franchise was in the midst of its golden era, making the playoffs five times and winning the Central Division in 1987. Fratello won 324 games in Atlanta, second most in franchise history behind Hall of Famer Richie Guerin. He went on to coach the Hawks, Cleveland and Memphis to 667 victories and his teams made the playoffs 15 times in 17 years from 1980-2007 before he left to get into network TV work, developing a repuation as the Czar of the telestrator when he worked as an analyst on NBA games with Marv Albert for NBC.
That all seems like ancient history now.
But the ageless 67-year old Fratello, a Hubie Brown disciple and one-time Five Star counselor from Hackensack.N.J. is back on the world stage again over here in this capitol of modern art in the northern part of the country. Fratello is coaching the Ukraine– a war torn country in Eastern Europe– in the FIBA World Cup of Basketball. Fratello, who currently does commentary for the Brooklyn Nets for YES TV, accepted the coached job four years ago in 2011 after being offered it by former Atlanta Hawks player Alexander Volkov, the head of the Ukraine’s national federation. and has been an elected member of parliament since 2006 Volkov was drafted by the Hawks in the sixth round of the 1986 draft and was with the team for three years from 1989 through 1992, initially playing for Fratello.
“I had been out of the NBA since 2006 and this gave me a chance to coach basketball again,” Fratello said after Team USA defeated his adopted country, 95-71, here at the BEC Thursday night to finish pool play with a perfect 5-0 record. Forward James Harden led Team USA with 17 and five others scored double figures. Seven-foot center Slava Kravtsov had 15 for the Ukraine.
This was a heartbreaking loss for Fratello, whose team missed out on advancing to the knockout round by one point in the tie breaker. Turkey, the Dominican Republic and New Zealand will accompany the United States to Barcelona for the Round of 16. “The basketball Gods gave us a taste,” Fratello said. “But they didn’t let us advance..”
The Ukraine played the U.S. tough for the first ten minutes, taking a 19-14 lead and controlling tempo in first quarter before the Americans got their legs and went on a 30 point second quarter tear. “We knew would have to play a perfect game to beat them,” Fratello admitted.
When the Ukraine qualified for the World championships for the first time ever in the fall of 2013 by finishing sixth in Eurobasket, their success provided a much needed ray of sunshine for the people of Kiev, who found themselves involved in a civil war with separatists in the Eastern cities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, who want to break away from the Ukraine the way Crimea did earlier this year and form their own country that is more closely aligned with Russia.
Before the political problems and current unrest, Fratello traveled throughout the country. He was with Volkov in Crimea looking for players. His team played in Donetsky, the rebel held city in the East. And, during summers in Kiev, he and his assistants stayed in an hotel that was just a two minute walk from Independence Square, where protests last year forced the former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, — a close friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin– from power in an effort to forge closer ties with the European Union and set the wheels in motion for a succession crisis on Crimean Peninsula, which has a significant number of Russian speaking people. Unmarked armed Russian soldier began moving into Crimea last February and the Crimea eventually held an unmonitored referendum in which it voted to declare independence as the Republic of Crimea and request they be admitted to the Russian Federation.
Meanwhile, armed men in the East, declaring themselves local militia, seized government buildings and police stations with the same intent. When Petro Poroshenko won the president election i May of 2014, he vowed to continue military operations by Ukrainian government forced to end the insurgency. More than 2,500 people have been killed and thousands had left to either Russia or other parts of the Ukraine.
“When we left for the World Cup qualifier last fall, everything was fine,” Fratello said. “‘Shortly afterwards, things started to turn. Two of my assistants went over there twice last winter and they spent 10 days there. When they got over there they were in the middle of everything that was going on. And they’re traveling around the country, watching guys play games to see if there are any new prospects. Obviously, we were concerned about keeping them away from any places that might be volatile. When they came back to Kiev, we switched hotels for them.
The crisis has led to the removal of Ukraine as the host nation for EuroBasket 2015 and the dissolution of two clubs that had national team players, Azovmash and Donetsk, both of which were located in the conflict zone.
Fratello doesn’t want to get too political, but he is concerned about the suffering and the families of some of his players, who live in disputed areas. ‘
“Since we came back this July, we’ve only talked about this situation two times– once the first day and then about three– four weeks later,” Fratello said. “We know they’re following every day. We know their families are being affected. It doesn’t make sense to bring it up every day. This is what gives them comfort, playing basketball.
“Twenty-four years ago, the Ukraine became an independent country. So this generation may not understand what it’s all about. Some of them aren’t even 24 years old. But they’re representing a country that is struggling right now. There are political decisions. There’s a war going on and people are being killed.
“There are doctors, lawyers, journalists over there. What these kids do– they are basketball players so they have to go out and do the best they can. Every success matters a lot to each of these players. It means a lot more than just a win in the competition. The success on the court has a great soothing effect on their morale. It peps them up.”
Fratello only has one player with current NBA experience– Kravtsov, who played for Phoenix. With former Hawks’ second round pick Sergiy Gladyr out with an injury, the best they could hope for was to be competitive. Ukraine finished 2-3 with wins over Turkey and and Dominican Republic, getting the most from a roster that had only one dependable double figure scorer, guard Pooh Jeter. Jeter, an transplanted American who played for Portland University and and spent a year with the NBA Sacramento Kings in 2011. Jeter was eligible to play for the Ukraine because he played a year in that country’s national league and was able to declare himself a naturalized citizen…
Fratello also added 17-year old Sviatosiav Mukhailiuk, a three point shooter who lit it up during practices at the Nike Hoop Summit and will enroll at Kansas as soon as this competition ends. But Mukhailuk is not ready to carry this team yet, and Fratello did not have enough dominant veteran stars to beat New Zealand close the gap with Euro powers like Spain, Lithuania and France.
But Fratello knows what can happen when countries take basketball seriously. He has been a witness to history.
When Fratello was coaching the Hawks, Atlanta was looking to add a new infllux of international talent to their roster. The Hawks were one of the first NBA teams willing to draft Lithuanian center Arvydas Sabonis in 1985 (although they lost his rights a year later to Portland) and the 6-foot-10 Volkov in 1986, even though they weren’t’t yet allowed to play in the United States. By 1987, Volkov, was in Los Angeles with a few other Soviet players, running summer league fast breaks with the Hawks rookies.
The Hawks’ visionary owner, Ted Turner followed that up by sent his team on a 13-day road trip for three games against the Soviets before the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, as an extension of his Goodwill Games, which began in 1986. By 1989, the Iron Curtain had lifted and Volkov was in Atlanta; Marciulionis was in Oakland, Calif., with the Golden State Warriors; and the NBA was in the business of breaking down international barriers. Volkov, who stayed in Atlanta for three years, told Fratello that the Soviet players’ confidence soared after the series, giving them the motivation to defeat a group of American college stars in the 1988 Olympics winning the Olympic gold medal.
The game set the stage for NBA players to participate in the 1992 Barcelona Games and create a new standard for other countries.
