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Oscar Schmidt played overseas as a Brazilian star, despite overtures over three years from the then-New Jersey Nets to leave his professional team -- and the national team -- to play in the NBA in the 1970s and 80s.

Schmidt will be inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame on Sunday, and he says he would have been one of the best players in NBA history had he entered the league.

“Yes,” Schmidt said. “Anytime. It was easier, because in the NBA at that time it was one-on-one, always. One-on-one, I’m free. If it comes to two players guarding me, maybe.

“I would be one of the best 10 ever.

“There was not a price [the Nets could have offered]. There was national team. That’s it. The national team doesn’t have a price. It’s proud. It’s what you live for. And today, people don’t like to play for the national team. That’s very sad for me.”

Schmidt was asked what he would have averaged in the NBA and said, “One point a minute. Twenty minutes, 20 points. Forty minutes, maybe 60.”

Via Scott Howard-Cooper/NBA.com

Islander wrote:Yes, Oscar would have been one of the 10 best players in the history of the NBA.

“I know my limitations, my defects,” he said “but I could never play 10 minutes a game. [The] NBA is great if you are a star. But if not, you get moved around. My friend (Georgi) Glouchkov played a year in Phoenix. He tells me bad stories about [the] NBA. The guards [did not] like him, they don’t pass him the ball. I would not like that. I could not stand that.”

More than any other basketball player in the world, he is the reason for the Dream Team. He is the sharpshooter who riddled U.S. hoop egos. He was the player who truly humbled our fresh-faced all-Americans.

In Indianapolis, on a lazy summer afternoon in 1987, in the finals of the Pan-American Games, Oscar Schmidt brought the Brazilians back from the dead. He burned every imaginable United States defense and upset Team USA to win the Pan-Am gold.

It was the beginning of a precipitous decline for U.S. teams in international basketball.

"Worldwide, he's as special an offensive player as anybody knows," Sonic Coach George Karl said. "And he's done it over a long period of time. He averages huge numbers everywhere he goes, against double-teams, box-and-ones, zone defenses.

"He's real clever. He doesn't have any blazing speed, great size or one-on-one moves. He just knows how to get open, how to freeze you a little bit, and he has a great release of the ball.

"He could have played in the NBA if someone had been patient with him. He wouldn't get the respect from the referees that he gets in international basketball. But we see the way (New Jersey's) Drazen Petrovic is progressing. If Oscar had been given a similar opportunity when he was younger, he could have made some noise."

Islander wrote:You guys never saw him play and most who claim to are lying.

Oscar Schmidt never played in the NBA. He played in Europe and for his native Brazil in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. Retiring in 2003 after 28 years in professional basketball.

The guy scored 46 points in the Pan Am games and single-handedly beat a U.S. team of future NBA all-stars. He's the greatest shooter in the history of the game at any level. He averaged 42.3 points in the Olympics when no NBA player averaged 20.

He's Kobe Bryant's idol and favorite basketball player ever.

I saw the guy play. He would have averaged 35-40 points in the NBA. Yes, Oscar would have been one of the 10 best players in the history of the NBA.

A true Hall of Famer.

Islander wrote:You guys never saw him play and most who claim to are lying.

vege wrote:You guys never watched him play, he was a monster, he is a legend. If half crap Brazilian players like Nenê and Varejão are starters in the NBA I can't even imagine what Oscar would have done.

Calling him and idiot and saying he was scared to come to the NBA is really pathetic.

You want a top player that never played defense Nanogeek? Dirk Nowitzki and Oscar was 100 times the player Dirk is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0pDfmleirw

Islander wrote:You guys never saw him play and most who claim to are lying.

Oscar Schmidt never played in the NBA. He played in Europe and for his native Brazil in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. Retiring in 2003 after 28 years in professional basketball.

The guy scored 46 points in the Pan Am games and single-handedly beat a U.S. team of future NBA all-stars. He's the greatest shooter in the history of the game at any level. He averaged 42.3 points in the Olympics when no NBA player averaged 20.

He's Kobe Bryant's idol and favorite basketball player ever.

I saw the guy play. He would have averaged 35-40 points in the NBA. Yes, Oscar would have been one of the 10 best players in the history of the NBA.

A true Hall of Famer.

Islander wrote:You guys never saw him play and most who claim to are lying.

Oscar Schmidt never played in the NBA. He played in Europe and for his native Brazil in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. Retiring in 2003 after 28 years in professional basketball.

The guy scored 46 points in the Pan Am games and single-handedly beat a U.S. team of future NBA all-stars. He's the greatest shooter in the history of the game at any level. He averaged 42.3 points in the Olympics when no NBA player averaged 20.

He's Kobe Bryant's idol and favorite basketball player ever.

I saw the guy play. He would have averaged 35-40 points in the NBA. Yes, Oscar would have been one of the 10 best players in the history of the NBA.

A true Hall of Famer.

Islander wrote:From reading these posts, the ignorance continues.

Oscar was a forward and a much better shooter/scorer than Dirk Nowitski was.

Who was Oscar? Takes Dirk's best ppg. average in his prime (26 ppg.) and add 10 points to it.

That's Oscar (say 36 ppg) in the NBA.