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Behold the globalization of the NBA. If you haven't heard of Serge Ibaka yet, just you wait. In 2011, you might be able to start determining the value of the 24th pick in the 2008 NBA draft.

There's no denying the geographical diversity the league has embraced and created. There's no doubt this is a symbiotic relationship worth pursuing.

But before we proclaim an imminent takeover or even an expanded foreign presence, we must talk Khryapa. As in Viktor Khryapa, the Russian forward who was picked 22nd overall in 2004 and who has played about 10 percent of his two teams' regular-season minutes in a career that has been entirely forgettable.

That 2004 draft gave us Sasha Vujacic, an important if peripheral piece of this past season's L.A. Lakers. It also gave us Pavel Podkolzine, whose NBA career consisted of six games even though it started with three years of guaranteed money courtesy of the Utah Jazz.

With the exception of a few impact players, the league's fascination with overseas talent has not been as productive as the more traditional method of procurement, the drafting of U.S. collegians.

That's especially true in the second round. In 2002-07, NBA teams selected 51 players who had entered the draft from teams based outside the United States. Seventeen of them (33 percent) have played at least one game in the NBA. U.S. collegians, on the other hand, have made it more than twice that often (73 percent.)

The reason is the NBA Developmental League, an outfit with franchises in Sioux Falls, S.D., and McAllen, Texas, among other locales. It's a common starting point for second-round draftees, a basketball halfway house that keeps a dream alive. Americans will tolerate assignment to remote outposts if it means affiliation with an NBA team and the chance to remain on these shores.

For most foreign players, leaving professional stability and homeland behind is hard enough regardless of destination. So you can probably understand why some would select Belarus over Bismarck.

What's harder to understand is why the league's teams haven't kicked the habit. The newest NBA myth is the idea that today's draftee will triumphantly arrive in the league one day after developing his game further in the basketball backwater he calls home.

It doesn't happen. At least not often enough to justify the expense of foreign scouting. In 2002-06, 28 foreign players taken in the second round were stashed somewhere other than the NBA in the season immediately following their selection. Only six of them have played a minute in the league. And in the case of one, Slavko Vranes of the New Jersey Nets via Belgrade, we're literally talking about three minutes.

NBA executives know this. In fact, you have to wonder if some of them draft so-called projects with no intention of seeing them again. The aforementioned Mr. Ibaka is from the Congo, and he played last season for something called CB L'Hopitalet in Spain. Call me crazy, but I wouldn't be all that keen on drafting a guy -- in the first round, no less -- whose team sounds like a place to treat injuries. Nor would I be wowed by the 11.8 points per game he averaged last season.

If he never shows up in the uniform of the Seattle SuperSonics or their unworthy, probable successors in Oklahoma City, Ibaka won't count against their salary cap. What a country.

And this brings us to Kyle Hines. The former UNCG star is undersized by conventional standards and is no lock to make it, but he's precisely the sort of player whose opportunities are getting squeezed out. More than 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in college and virtually unstoppable low-post play in one predraft tuneup event did not compel any of the NBA's 30 general managers to call his name last week.

Hines is trying to hook on with somebody's NBA Summer League team. At least he'll give it a shot.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels @news-record.com