The end of the NBA’s American empire: how the 1986 draft changed basketball for ever

European players had long been dismissed as a risk by NBA teams. But two picks by the Portland Trail Blazers helped usher in the league’s international eraNBA commissioner David Stern walked to the podium at the Felt Forum in Madison Square Garden on 17 June 1986. “For the last pick of the first round of the NBA draft … America’s game,” Stern said with a hint of a smile, “the Portland Trail Blazers select Arvydas Sabonis of the Soviet Union.”Boos rained down from the crowd. TBS hosts Bob Neal and Larry Donald burst into laughter. One Portland journalist said if Sabonis ever played in the NBA he’d jump off the Broadway Bridge. (Sabonis had actually been drafted by the Atlanta Hawks the previous year but it was voided because he was not yet 21.) Portland doubled down two rounds later, select