Boris Stankovic, Who Paved Way for N.B.A.’s ‘Dream Team,’ Dies at 94

The meeting prompted discussions that led to the first McDonald’s Open in 1987, when the Milwaukee Bucks, Tracer Milano of Italy and the Soviet Union’s national team held a three-team round robin in Milwaukee sponsored by that fast-food chain. The tournament was expanded the next year to a four-team round robin in Spain, featuring the Boston Celtics, Scavolini Pesaro of Italy, Yugoslavia’s national team and Real Madrid, the host team.

Mr. Stankovic told N.B.A. officials about his vision of having the best players in the world participate in major FIBA events, Mr. Granik said. “It wasn’t ready to happen yet,” he said, “but he wanted to start working toward that.”

He added, “We were kind of surprised by all this, coming from him, because we’d always been told that they don’t want N.B.A. players in their events — they want to keep their world separate.”

In April 1989, by a vote of 56-13, FIBA ratified the proposal to allow professionals from the around the globe to participate in tournaments previously restricted to amateurs.

“We see this as our triumphant entry into the 21st century,” Mr. Stankovic said at the time.

Mr. Granik said that N.B.A. officials had not — as some critics contend to this day — privately urged Mr. Stankovic to change the rules in the wake of the United States’s uncharacteristic failure to win gold or even silver with a team of collegians at the Seoul Olympics in South Korea in 1988.

“It was nothing that David and I lobbied for,” Mr. Granik said, referring to Mr. Stern, who died in January. “People don’t believe that now, but we were very, very ambivalent about it at the time.”

In pushing to embrace professionals, Mr. Stankovic had not only been seeking to raise the level of FIBA play globally and legitimize his organization; he had also hoped to ensure that European stars — who would soon start migrating to the N.B.A. — would continue to be eligible to represent their countries on the international stage.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/sports/basketball/boris-stankovic-dead.html