Soviet Basketball Star Is in a New World

On the afternoon of Oct. 17 Sarunas Marciulionis was scheduled to pick out a new Mercedes-Benz, the ultimate proof of just how liberating perestroika and glasnost can be. He was to take the Nimitz freeway to the dealership.

He changed his mind at the last second. A Golden State Warriors trainer had been after him to check out some soreness in his back, so he went for an examination instead. As he walked into the waiting room, the Loma Prieta earthquake shook the Bay Area. In the doctor’s office, only the instruments and cabinets shook. But a mile stretch of the Nimitz upper level crashed onto the lower level, killing more than 50 people.

Marciulionis went back home and tried to watch basketball film. Part of his cramming, since coming from Lithuania to the United States and the National Basketball Association three months ago, is film study with Donnie Nelson, the coach’s son, Warriors’ scout and man most responsible for his being here.

There was no use trying to study. Marciulionis kept staring at the television pictures of the smashed Nimitz, thinking how he would have been trapped, and perhaps dead, had he kept to his plans.

He turned to Nelson and said, “I was supposed to be on that road, and if I was under there I’d want someone to come help me.” Marciulionis put on some Warriors sweats, handed Nelson a pair and headed for the car.

Marciulionis (pronounced Marsh-a-LOAN-is) already speaks English well enough not to need an interpreter and understands almost everything. “I ask the fireman, ‘Can I bring things to you? Can I carry rocks away, move rubbish?’ They said no.

“I know I could have been on that freeway,” he said. “I never felt anything like this before, the people crying and suffering. I just wanted to be in the place with these people.”

Marciulionis has not been eased into his new life in the United States or the NBA. He has been in an earthquake, bought a house in Alameda and a Mercedes 300. He has played against Magic Johnson, learned to speak a new language and realized a dream.

His wife, Inga, is still not used to seeing meat in the grocery stores on a daily basis. In Lithuania, as in any other Soviet republic, meat might be available one day, then not again for weeks. Sometimes when Nelson goes grocery shopping with Inga, she’ll say, “Donnie, we don’t have to buy meat today, but let’s just look at it.”

Marciulionis wakes up every day not knowing what to make of all this, his house in the suburbs, his $1.1 million yearly salary -- even if various Soviet agencies do receive more than 50 percent off the top -- all the choices in meats and shoes, cars and music. He is 25 years old, 6 feet 5, 195 pounds, the hero of the 1988 Olympic gold medal team and probably the most talented of the half-dozen or so new foreign players who were on rosters when the NBA season began last week.

He was the object of an international recruiting battle between the Warriors and Atlanta Hawks. And the result is, Marciulionis’s life is changing in ways that make him dizzy.

“I don’t understand this money, it is not for my mind,” he said. “What does it mean, the number of dollars? I wanted to play basketball and make my own choices. That is what I wanted. The first American basketball players I hear of were (Wilt) Chamberlain and (Bill) Russell. Did I dream then (of the NBA)? No. It was too far away. I wanted to run a basketball school for kids.”

Chances are Marciulionis would have led a relatively cushy life in Vilnius, Lithuania’s Indiana, where he was a hero of Larry Bird proportions because he played at home for his club team, Statybe, rather than the more prestigious national team.

He has a degree from the University of Vilnius in journalism and a few perks that accompany the status of being a national resource. Life, all in all, wouldn’t have been so bad. But Marciulionis played in 1984 against Donnie Nelson in Europe and made an impression.

Nelson followed Marciulionis’s career for the next two years, and then began to recruit him. He followed him around the world, and ultimately to Seoul for the Olympics. The young Soviet had another shadow, however: Stan Kasten of the Atlanta Hawks.

“It wasn’t just a bloodthirsty recruiting mission,” Nelson said. “I knew he was like a man imprisoned. He didn’t have a chance to play against the best. It was tough for him; you know you’re one of the best athletes, you’ve beat the Americans to win the gold medal in Seoul. It became very personal. I wanted for him to have a chance to express himself with the best in his sport.

“There’s something inside him, a certain drive, that makes him work super hard. It’s insatiable, like a Pete Rose mentality. First time I played against him I saw it. He was wild, didn’t have much of an outside shot, but I could feel that drive every time he cut to the basket. He just punished you.”

While Kasten worked officials in Moscow, with all of Ted Turner’s resources, he wasn’t in Marciulionis’s apartment, sleeping on a sofa. That’s where Nelson was. During the day, he worked the other angle, conducting coaching clinics and lobbying local officials.

“The Hawks had Ted Turner, the Goodwill Games, TBS,” Nelson said. “We had nothing but my dad’s reputation and our friendship. They could have blown us out of the water.”

The word was Marciulionis had been “promised” to the Hawks by the powers that be in Moscow, and he in fact signed a contract with Atlanta, said to be worth about $300,000 a year. But as Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms began to take hold, the Soviet republics, including Lithuania, began to exert some degree of autonomy.

“Halfway through the Olympics,” Nelson said, “Sarunas came to me and said, ‘It looks like I’m going to be given a choice.’ Without the reforms, Sarunas wouldn’t be here.”

The big surprise now is that Marciulionis is playing so well. In the season opener against the Phoenix Suns, he scored 19 points. The next game, against the Rockets, he hit five of nine shots and finished with 16 points, and his game jersey went to the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. Tuesday against the Clippers, he had 18 points, making all 10 of his free throws. He had 11 Thursday night in a loss to the Lakers. He hasn’t played more than 26 minutes in any game.

“We’re all shocked,” Donnie Nelson said. “We thought the first year would be a throwaway year. The average rookie needs until the end of that first year.”

Nelson said Marciulionis’s game is “riddled wth small, bad habits,” most of which have to do with defense and standing around (instead of moving and cutting) after throwing a pass. Some of those mistakes he can cover with athleticism, as Coach John Thompson and the U.S. Olympic team found out a year ago.

“I play against a lot of teams from U.S. But that team, they don’t play improvisational,” Marciulionis said of Thompson’s squad. “They played like they were trained -- no one-on-one play. Our coach (Aleksandr Gomelsky) told us, ‘Above all, don’t let them fast-break dunk. If they do that, their arms turn into wings.’ ”

Communication remains a problem for Marciulionis. He understands, but he’s uncomfortable shouting out instructions, partially because he is overly conscious of his heavy accent. Guard Winston Garland recalled a practice session when Don Nelson insisted Marciulionis call out “front” in a low-post defense exercise.

“He wouldn’t say it at first,” Garland said. “Finally, after the coaches insisted, he screamed, ‘Frrrrrront.’ There’s a tendency, though, to make it hard on yourself. ... He’s physical in practice. He uses his hands a lot because he’s still getting used to the pace of the NBA game.

“But I try to imagine myself in his shoes, being in Lithuania by myself, trying to learn a language, play a professional sport. After five seconds, I cut those thoughts out immediately.”

The Warriors’ locker room -- with Manute Bol from the Sudan and Uwe Blab from West Germany -- is like therapy for him. But it can’t help his comfort level on the court.

“I feel nervous,” Marciulionis said. “My defense is soft. I lose my man a lot. Big problem. In Europe the game is not so fast.”

Blab is his constant companion, pointing out this nuance or that. “The language part is especially tough,” Blab said. “Being a foreigner, I know which words are easy and which are difficult. As far as basketball, the NBA is different from any basketball anywhere. I can’t explain that to him in any language. He just has to live it.”