Import-Export Business : Basketball: Cal Lutheran polishes prospects from Australia and in exchange sends skilled performers to compete in that country’s professional leagues.

The bookshelf is lined with some fairly predictable entries, among them the “In Your Face Basketball Book” and “Up Your SAT.” Then there is the one titled “Australian Birds and Mammals.”

No surprise there, either. This is, after all, the office of Mike Dunlap, coach of the Cal Lutheran University men’s basketball team. For Dunlap, anything remotely connected with Australia has become a point of increasing interest. And with good reason.

In the two seasons he has been coach of the Kingsmen, Dunlap has formed, along with friends Brian Goorjian and Bruce Palmer, a loosely organized trade agreement: He ships out a polished product to Australia and, in return, receives a diamond in the rough.

Ostensibly, both sides come out ahead. Australian professional leagues receive an influx of U. S.-trained players and Cal Lutheran is sent athletes who can help the Kingsmen extricate themselves from the down under of small-college basketball.

“It’s kind of a glove-in-hand kind of thing,” Dunlap said. “They benefit from it and we benefit from it.”

The first swap was made in the summer of 1989, shortly after Dunlap was hired. Steve deLaveaga, Cal Lutheran’s all-time leading scorer, was on campus shooting baskets after having failed in an attempt to earn an invitation to the Lakers’ tryout camp.

Knowing that deLaveaga was disappointed and still interested in playing professionally, Dunlap offered to make a call to his buddy, Goorjian, coach of the East Side Spectors, a top-level professional team based in Melbourne.

Goorjian, whose father Ed had coached Dunlap during his playing days at Loyola Marymount, placed deLaveaga on the roster of Nunawading, a second-level Australian team, without ever having seen him play.

About the same time, Goorjian played the middle man in a transaction heading the opposite direction; one that sent Brendan Dillon, a raw, 6-foot-5 guard from Australia, to Cal Lutheran.

Months before, when Dunlap was still an assistant at USC, Goorjian had told him about a player who was “dying to come over to the States.”

“Brian said the kid couldn’t play for (USC), but that he’d be a good player at a lower division,” Dunlap said. “When I got the job (at Cal Lutheran) I still had that in the back of my mind.”

Dillon was among Cal Lutheran’s most improved players last season, averaging 8.8 points a game. Meanwhile, deLaveaga averaged 41 points a game, finished second in the league in assists and was selected co-most valuable player of the Southeastern Basketball Conference.

DeLaveaga reportedly will earn more than $30,000 this season in addition to a paid apartment and the use of a car.

Typically, second-level players make in the range of $15,000 to $25,000 to start, and first-level players make in the $65,000-$100,000 range.

DeLaveaga might be playing first-level ball in Australia this season if he played a position other than off-guard. “It’s the toughest position to make,” Goorjian said. “A lot of the Australians are about 6-2 and that’s the spot they play. If he was a center, or even a point guard, it would probably be different.

“As it is, if Wilt Chamberlain wanted to come over and I already had a seven-foot Aussie, I couldn’t take him.” Each team is allowed a maximum of two Americans.

Citing Dunlap’s top-notch instruction and the opportunity for talented athletes to play immediately, Goorjian describes Cal Lutheran’s program as “just perfect for what we’re looking for.”

“It amazed me how much Brendan Dillon developed in only a year there,” Goorjian said.

In Dunlap’s view, Dillon probably improved too much. Instead of returning to Cal Lutheran for his sophomore season, Dillon went home over the summer and signed with Nunawading.

“He intended to stay here a couple of years but he got homesick,” Dunlap said. “He’s a great kid, but he was only 18 and 20,000 miles from home.”

Dillon did, however, send along a replacement.

At the recommendation of Dillon, the latest Cal Lutheran import is Simon O’Donnell, a muscular 6-foot-6 power forward who leads the Kingsmen with a 7.3 rebounding average and is second in scoring at 17.6 points a game.

O’Donnell, a junior, is a globe-trotter of sorts, having first come to the United States at age 17 with hopes of improving his basketball skills and earning a college scholarship. He played first at South Tahoe High in South Lake Tahoe, then moved on to three junior colleges--in Salt Lake, Western Nebraska and Lassen (Calif.) before finally landing at Cal Lutheran.

O’Donnell attends Cal Lutheran on a foreign-students scholarship and seems intent on earning a degree in business before returning to Australia. This is welcome news to Dunlap, who was not pleased when Dillon left after only one season.

Dunlap considers recruiting Australians similar to taking in junior-college transfers. “Two years is OK, but one year is not a good deal with those guys,” he said. “It’s too disconcerting for our program.

“If we could keep somebody for three or four years, we would love it, and that’s what we’re pushing toward. As we get into this a little longer I think the kids will probably be a little more comfortable here.”

O’Donnell, who is reportedly headed for Palmer’s North Melbourne first-level team upon his return to Australia, seems to have settled in rather comfortably in Thousand Oaks.

“It’s a lot better than every place else I’ve been,” O’Donnell said of Cal Lutheran. “I’d never been in the snow before. This is a good area, not right in the city, but close. It’s more like home.”

In terms of basketball, O’Donnell said he would suggest Cal Lutheran to friends back in Australia, or anywhere else.

“Coach is a good coach and he’s prepared to spend time with anyone who is willing to put time into it,” he said. “Nothing can beat that.”

When O’Donnell does go back to Australia, he likely will bring an American Cal Lutheran teammate in tow.

Jeff deLaveaga, Steve’s brother and the leading scorer in the Southland among college-division players, already is looking at Australia as an alternative should he, like his brother, fail in an attempt to make an NBA team.

“If he’s at all interested, I’d get him over here in a minute,” Goorjian said of the Kingsmen guard. “If he wants it, he’s got a spot.”

And so it seems that the pipeline will continue to be as active as ever. Indeed, expect a new 6-5 swingman in the Cal Lutheran backcourt next season: Ruppert Sapwell, 18, from Melbourne. He is “a great athlete whose skills need to be refined,” Goorjian said.

Dunlap is confident that as word spreads it will become easier to recruit top Australian players. But he also seems cognizant that the majority of his attention belongs significantly closer to home.

“Obviously we feel there is a lot of talent in California. Australia is never going to be the central focus of our recruiting,” Dunlap said. Then he paused before adding, “but it sure is a nice addition.”