For three days in 1989, Arturas Karnisovas waited in a Moscow apartment while the KGB decided his fate.
The 18-year-old Lithuanian had dreams of becoming the first player from the Soviet Union to play college basketball in the United States. But at the height of the Cold War, anybody who left his communist homeland required an escort to ensure that person would not defect.
“I’m like, ‘What are we waiting for?’” Karnisovas recalled in a conversation with The Denver Post. “They were trying to decide whether to let me go or not.”
Had the KGB not eventually relented and allowed him to travel freely overseas, Karnisovas would not occupy a top-floor Pepsi Center office today.