The Invisible ManSelfishly, Greece has held Efthimios Rentzias hostageby Phil Taylor
He hardly seems like the central figure in an international tug-of-war, not with his tiny jug-handle ears and the slightly quizzical gaze that in Atlanta makes him look like an innocent abroad. Efthimios Rentzias, a 20-year-old center on the Greek national team, resembles the kind of raw-boned basketball prodigy we know in the U.S., the kind whose most difficult decision is which company he should allow to name a shoe after him. But the 6'11", 249-pound Rentzias isn't some college underclassman who wants to leave school early for the NBA. He is a budding national treasure, the heir to a Greek legend, who wants to leave his homeland for America. An entire country wants him to stay—badly enough, some suspect, that the coach and administrators of its national team have deliberately held him out of the Olympic basketball showcase.
NBA dreaming? A forlorn Rentzias is buried deep on the bench.
photograph by
On June 24 Rentzias was chosen by the Denver Nuggets with the 23rd pick of the NBA draft. He would probably have gone at least as high as 11th if not for the contract that binds him through January to PAOK, a Thessaloníki-based team in the Greek League. American coaches and scouts who have seen Rentzias play declare that he will be the next European player to make a major impact on the NBA. University of Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson, who coached the U.S. team that played against Rentzias's Greek squad in the junior world championships last summer, raves about him. "He was dominating," says Sampson, who watched Rentzias lead Greece to the junior title. "He's the closest thing to a complete player as I've seen in Europe. He's got a good body, great hands, he can really pass, and he can go outside and hit the 15-foot jump shot."
The Nuggets are working with Rentzias's American agent, Keith Glass, to arrange a buyout of his contract in hopes of bringing him to the U.S. in time for the start of training camp in October. But such a resolution appears to be a long shot. "You must understand, this is not so much about money," says Greece's Olympic basketball coach, Makis Dendrinos. "As Greeks, we want him to stay, even though we know he will probably be in the NBA someday. We have not so many great players as in America, you understand?"
But if Rentzias is a potential NBA All-Star, you would not know it from his statistics in Atlanta. Thus far, in Greece's six games, he has been a little-used reserve, playing just 68 minutes overall and scoring only 29 points. (Eliminated in the quarterfinals by Lithuania on Tuesday, Greece plays China in a classification game today.) His lack of on-court time has given rise to two theories: that the Greeks think they can somehow lessen Rentzias's attractiveness to the Nuggets by keeping him on the sidelines and that they are retaliating against him for having the temerity to say that he wants to play in the NBA. Dendrinos insists Rentzias is playing so little because of his lack of international experience and because he is the backup to storied center Panayotis Fassoulas, 33, Greece's best player ever. When Dendrinos says that Rentzias can be the Fassoulas of the next generation, it is the equivalent of an American coach's anointing a player as the next Michael Jordan.
One thing that is certain is that Rentzias's contract with PAOK cost him many NBA dollars. The Golden State Warriors, picking 11th overall, were poised to take him but decided not to, mainly because they were not sure when he would be available. Under the NBA's rookie salary cap, the difference between the contract of the 11th pick and the 23rd is substantial. Gary Trent of the Portland Trail Blazers was the 11th pick last season and earned $1.02 million; Travis Best of the Indiana Pacers was the 23rd choice and earned $579,000.
Money, however, doesn't seem to be the issue for Rentzias. He seems to be more interested in the challenge. "I do think about [the NBA]," he said last week through an interpreter. "I do want to go this year, but it is not easy." Then a teammate came up to him and indicated that it was time to leave. Rentzias spoke his only English words of the day to the reporters surrounding him, words that he will probably say someday soon to his nation. "It is time to go," he said. "I must go."
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