S6 Ep46: Meet North Korea's 7'9" Basketball Star (and the man who found him)

Tony Ronzone has scouted basketball in over 100 countries. He found Dirk Nowitzki before the NBA knew his name. He motivated Kobe Bryant to restore glory to USA basketball, and he once flew into North Korea on a USA passport, trying to sign a 7'9" player with a wheat deal.This week Mo and Coach Brendan Suhr sit down with Tony Ronzone - former Dallas Mavericks international director, three-time Olympic gold medal staff member with Team USA, and now an agent at The Team. Tony's career has taken him everywhere the game has ever been played, and his stories are unlike anything you'll hear on any other basketball podcast.If you ever wondered who the people behind the scenes actually are, the ones who built the modern NBA's international era before anyone was watching, this is that conversation. Listen or watch to the end: the North Korea story alone is worth it.Topics covered: How Tony helped Coach K and Jerry Colangelo rebuild USA Basketball after the 2004 Greece disaster The Kobe Bryant story: 13 clips of Barbosa scoring on him, and what happened the next day How Tony and Donnie Nelson scouted Dirk Nowitzki and engineered the trade to secure him at pick 6 Why you cannot evaluate European players using their stats Tony coaching the Chinese Olympic team and finding Yao Ming at 14 years old His trip inside North Korea to evaluate a 7'9" player named Michael Rhi Whether USA Basketball can still guarantee gold at the 2028 Olympics Why the NBA has become a copycat league with no sets and no counters Cam Thomas: what happened in Brooklyn and Milwaukee, and what comes next The 2025 draft names catching Tony's eye right now 🎧 Listen to the full Hoop Genius Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & all platforms.📺 Subscribe for new episodes 2x a week.This podcast is brought to you by NBA2K26:https://nba.2k.com/2k26/buy/