At a time when bigger is definitely better in America, when you can get an order of french fries as big as a trash dumpster, when people order a Venti Latte with enough caffeine in it to keep awake an entire ward of narcoleptics, the factory that produces big men for the NBA seems to have closed.

	The Lakers, Hornets and now Kings have enjoyed success with European Vlade Divac.

You know, like one of those .com companies that seem to be doing so well one day, and then all of a sudden it feels like one of those windowless buildings in downtown Detroit, a million dollars worth of stock options not worth the Web site its printed on.

Look around the league, and teams are desperate for somebody to fill the void in the middle. Next year, there are two kids who are coming out of high school, and they could be among the top four picks in the draft because they are post players.

There are no Shaquille O'Neals on the horizon, no Tim Duncans, not a player out there who would make a coach like, say, Rick Pitino lament for the next 438 years that he did not get the No. 1 draft pick to make him look like a genius.

And so, increasingly over the past decade, teams have turned to Europe, searching far and wide in small towns in Serbia that recently have been the sites of ethnic cleansing, in cities where the cops are more corrupt than the mafia, in outposts where the letters of the alphabet are as familiar and decipherable as Sanskrit.

Look around the league, watch a draft, and you'll notice that not only has the NBA marketed the league as an international attraction but also the players literally have become international attractions.

Arvydas Sabonis. Vlade Divac. Aleksandar Radojevic. Vladimir Stepania. Rik Smits. Vitaly Potapenko. Stanislav Medvedenko. Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Dragan Tarlac. Dirk Nowitzki. Zan Tabak. Radoslav Nesterovic. Toni Kukoc. Predrag Stojakovic.

And more often than not, they play the center position.

"There are more skilled big men coming out of Europe, with good shots and footwork, than we see coming out of the U.S. in a given year," said Seattle SuperSonics general manager Wally Walker, who took Stepania with his first-round selection in 1999. "We are talking about guys 6-10 and up. They are often not as athletic, but because they are coached fundamentals, they get a chance to play in our league."

	Nowitzki

	Potapenko

	Sabonis

In 1990, not one European player was taken in the first round of the draft. This past season, four were selected in the first round, and another four were taken in the second.

Hidayet Turkoglu was the first chosen, by Sacramento, with the 16th pick. He is not a post player, but more of a versatile forward. Then it was three straight centers: Dalibor Bagaric by the Bulls (24th), Jake Tsakalidis by the Suns (25th) and Primor Brezec by the Pacers (27th).

		It's not just recognizing talent. It's having contacts to find players. It's having friends and acquaintances to usher scouts in and out of areas that can be politically tumultuous. It's figuring out which countries to visit on which trips because the games are played so infrequently in Europe, sometimes once a week. It's being able to understand a European team's finances and knowing whether a team will allow an NBA franchise to buy out a player's contract.

It continues a trend that began back in the mid-1980s, when the Portland Trail Blazers took a chance by using one of their first-round picks on Sabonis. They had to wait a decade for him to arrive, but he remains one of the best big men in the league.

While Sabonis was one of the first taken, Vlade Divac and Rik Smits sort of set the trend, beginning their play in the late-'80s. Smits retired this year after being a key cog in the Pacers' run to the championship, and Divac still plays for the Kings -- who, incidentally, have three Europeans on their team.

Back then, there were only a few NBA scouts touring Europe, looking for players who could compete in the NBA. Now, every team commits time and money to scouring the continent for talent.

In Seattle, for example, executive vice president of basketball operations Billy McKinney and lead scout Dave Pendergraft each spend about two months in Europe, particularly Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Spain and Italy, which, in general, have the best talent.

Walker visits once or twice a year for major tournaments. In all, the Sonics estimated they spend at least $100,000 on scouting overseas, whether they choose a player or not. That is probably among the upper end of teams committed to Europe, but some teams spend more. McKinney said it's not just recognizing talent. It's having contacts to find players. It's having friends and acquaintances to usher scouts in and out of areas that can be politically tumultuous. It's figuring out which countries to visit on which trips because the games are played so infrequently in Europe, sometimes once a week. It's being able to understand a European team's finances and knowing whether a team will allow an NBA franchise to buy out a player's contract.

But certainly it pays off if a teams lands a player like Sabonis or Divac or Smits or, the Suns are hoping, Tsakalidis.

Without question, the implementation of these players into the NBA has changed the game some, from the power of Shaq to a more finesse game. Because so many European players are good outside shooters, their presence in the NBA has, to a degree, taken away some teams' inside games, or at least shifted the responsibility of the interior scoring to the power forward.

In Sacramento, for instance, Chris Webber works mostly inside, while Divac -- although he does have a variety of post moves -- stands on the perimeter and hits shots.

"You see very few big men coming out of anywhere," Walker said. "So when you play with European guys, they are mostly face-up jump shooters. So it takes away the post-up game, and you see a lot of teams are going without a post game, at least offensively."

The interesting thing, of course, is that eventually Europe's supply of big men will dry up, as well. Scouts are exploring other regions. Which is why China's 7-5 Yao Ming will be such a hot commodity next summer, and why the Sonics this year brought in Ruben Wolkowyski, a 6-10, 270-pound center from Argentina.

Just think what the game will be like then.

Frank Hughes covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.