Oscar Schmidt never played in the NBA, but his career in the sport is linked to some of the stars of the North American basketball league. The Brazilian, who died on Friday (17) at the age of 68, chose not to play for the New Jersey Nets beyond a few friendly matches, but he experienced remarkable moments, in order, with Kobe Bryant, David Robinson and Larry Bird.
In 1984, when he was excelling at Caserta, in Italy, he was chosen by the Nets in the Draft, the NBA’s player recruitment system. He participated in five pre-season duels, but did not like what he called “absurd coldness”. “It was an incredible charge. I didn’t feel good at all,” he said.
According to the rules at the time, playing in the United States league would also prevent him from playing for the Brazilian national team. Until 1989, participation in the North American championship took away the athlete’s “amateur” status and competition between countries. “And the national team was the most important thing in my life,” he said.
At that time, the Potiguar was already well established in the Italian league, in which he scored seven times between his spells at Caserta (1982 to 1990) and Pavia (1990 to 1993). He faced several times the American Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, who played for four different teams in Italy from 1983 to 1991.
Joe often went to matches accompanied by a little boy named Kobe, who was impressed by the Brazilian’s ability to score. That boy would also become one of the greatest scorers in the history of basketball – and one of the best players of all time –, without forgetting Oscar.
“When I was growing up in Italy, he was the man. He scored 35, 40 points per game. I didn’t even know him as Oscar. I always called him La Bomba,” said Bryant, on a visit to Brazil in 2013. Whenever asked about Schmidt, the American, who died in a helicopter accident in 2020, he was reverent.
Vain, the Brazilian delighted in the ace’s praise, whom he even named as “the greatest of all”. “When he saw me, he opened a smile, his look changed. You can’t fool the eye. Kobe had a great affection for me, and I, for him”, he told UOL in 2020, missing the “little boy who entered the court, kept throwing the ball and didn’t want to leave”.
“La Bomba” was still playing in Italy when he went to defend Brazil at the 1987 Pan American Games, held in Indianapolis, one of the most traditional basketball cities in the United States. In the final against the home team, he scored 46 points on his way to a result so unlikely that the organization didn’t even have the Brazilian anthem to play: 120 to 115.
“Being champion at their home ground, scoring 120 points, was the greatest joy of my career”, said the team’s number 14, who faced David Robinson that day, then a young 22-year-old center. Precisely because of the ban on NBA athletes in international tournaments, the North American team was made up of university students.
Some of that team would have long careers in the league, like winger Rex Chapman, but none built a trajectory as successful as that of Robinson, two-time champion with the San Antonio Spurs. He was also part of the “Dream Team”, when the ban fell, and was a two-time Olympic Games champion.
“I had heard stories that he had a very large reach [para arremessos do perímetro]. And everything I had heard was true. We had athletic guys, capable defenders. That’s how good he was,” Robinson said, 26 years after the defeat at Market Square Arena.
Due to the importance of the 1987 victory and Robinson’s resume, Oscar even said that he would ask him to be his best man at the induction ceremony into the Naismith Hall of Fame, in Springfield, the most prestigious in basketball. He ended up opting for someone of even greater stature in the sport, Larry Bird, three-time champion with the Boston Celtics and three times voted the best in the NBA.
“Oscar was one of the great scorers of our time. It was difficult to stop him, you couldn’t just guard him individually. The way he moved to get free created any shot he wanted. The guy scored more than 49,000 points in his career. He’s one of the best in the history of basketball, and I couldn’t be happier for him,” he said.
Schmidt’s presentation video in Springfield, in 2013, also had phrases from Robinson and Kobe. But, sponsored by Bird, the Brazilian changed the opinion previously presented and identified him as “the guy”, decisive despite his unathletic size by NBA standards. “My guy doesn’t run, he doesn’t jump. This is Larry Bird, the best player of all time.”
It wasn’t about Bird, however, that night, on which Oscar received his great recognition. Very moved, he gave a lot of thanks, especially to his wife, Cristina. “This is the biggest prize you can dream of, being in your sport’s hall of fame. Everything I win now will be less than today.”
