It can be difficult to find the right arc for a story. Harder still, when there isn’t an apparent beginning or an end.
Kyivan Stanislav Medvedenko is still the ember that inspired both
the title and ethos of an obscure microblog some 12 years ago. The content
was rarely about the undrafted former
Laker, but more a quest for something elusive and hard to pin down. Slava
had seemingly come out of nowhere—the Ukrainian pro leagues, actually—and
disappeared from view just as quickly once his NBA career had run its course. In truth,
there was no real mystery. The taciturn shot-chucker who blazed an erratic
orbit across our basketball firmament in the early 2000s, simply headed home to Kyiv.
The capital city is receiving 24/7 news coverage at the
moment, due to the Russian invasion. From the most available updates, Medvedenko is still in Kyiv, defending "the city from crimes against humanity." An exodus is clogging major roadways, with many leaving
and a lot more sticking it out as sirens wail and bombs fall. It’s a dire
situation that shares no commonality with whimsical hoops tales, apart from
sticking another pin in the notion of circular time.
As his former coach Phil Jackson was fond of quoting,
“Unceasing change turns the wheels of life. And so reality is shown in all its
many forms.”
Medvedenko is no stranger to war and political instability.
He was born in the village of Kiev Oblast in 1979, moved to Kyiv while still a
child, and was balling in local youth clubs when the country declared its
independence in 1990. He returned to the city in 2006 during an era of
escalating political upheaval and instability. The former Laker (and Atlanta
Hawk for all of 14 games) was working with the Ukrainian national team as well
as his own local basketball club in 2014, when pro-Russian forces seized key
parts of the capital, setting up the invasion of Luhansk and Donetsk, and the
ultimate annexation of Crimea by Vladimir Putin.
Veteran NBA coach and TV analyst Mike Fratello served as the
head coach for the Ukrainian national team from 2011 to 2014, with Medvedenko
shepherding the team’s U16/17 division. Fratello left during the height of the
turmoil in 2014.
“Obviously, it has escalated in the last five days,”
Fratello told Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer at the time. “Things have
gotten much worse. They closed the basketball federation offices last week. I
think that was the smart thing to do. A bullet doesn't know where it's going
when it leaves the gun."
Eight years later, the tanks are rolling once again. This
time, the prognosis is infinitely grimmer with ballistic missile strikes reported in Kyiv Thursday
night. An uglier part of circular stories.
Medvedenko turned to grassroots politics and activism in
recent years, heading up a small non-profit in his Mykilska-Slobidka
neighborhood in Kyiv’s left bank. His causes have been local, entrenched in multiple
battles against corrupt land developers. In one notable case he was able to
thwart the construction of several waterfront skyscrapers. A basketball court
and skate park were built by the non-profit instead.
“It’s an accomplishment of our organization that we stopped
further construction projects,” Medvedenko told the Kyiv Post. “There would
have been not two, but 10 buildings. Everything you see here would’ve been gone.”
The backup center and power forward, and two-time NBA champion
for the Los Angeles Lakers, also ran for Ukraine's parliament in 2019 and for Kyiv’s city council in 2020. A member of the small
progressive Voice party, Medvedenko didn’t win either of those particular battles.
When the Pro-Russian Opposition Platform came calling with a plum offer, Slava gave them a hard pass.
“For me, a democratic pro-Western party is a must,”
Medvedenko said. “My decision to take a part in politics is a weighted
approach. It’s an opportunity to do something good for the city.”
After his failed city council bid, Medvedenko continued
pushing initiatives with his non-profit, including the building of a community
center where kids can learn English, play sports and chart their own paths
forward.
For now, dreams of democracy, safety and self-realization
are on hold in a fragile country that is largely standing and fighting alone.
It’s a long way from the bright lights of the NBA. It’s not quite so far,
geographically speaking, from allied nations who sit and watch, decrying the
brutality of a madman who is looking to rewrite Russian history.
The pragmatic truth is that boots on the ground from the
United States and other NATO members would spark the next world war. The
alternative, is economic sanctions. The decision may be a “weighted approach”
to borrow a phrase from Slava. But it sure as hell doesn’t feel right in the
moment, as images of heartbreak and destruction flicker across our screens.
How do you end a story about a 12-year allegorical search
for a quixotic power forward, and a country that has been contested, divided
and torn since the Middle Ages? Unceasing change has been an oft-repeated
bookmark and device, words that feel increasingly inconsequential and distant as Friday’s
early morning hours arrive in a place under martial law, on the far side of
the globe.
Hoping for safety and eventual autonomy for you and yours, Slava. In the meantime, we’ll keep these faint lights on at an eponymously named blog, over the hills and far away.
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