Road Trippin’ PER Hollinger

BILBAO, SPAIN – Made it. After 16 hours, three flights, three countries, the world’s slowest rental car counter and one winding drive into town, I have just enough time to squeeze in a short nap before slurping some coffee into my jetlagged brain and head off to a game an hour’s drive away.

Welcome to the glamorous world of overseas scouting, where I’m on the first leg of an eight-day excursion around Europe in search of (hopefully) the next great Grizzlies import, something that has become an increasingly important task in the NBA over the past two decades. Few teams have benefited more than ours -- we’ve been fortunate enough to yield two All-Stars from a single household in Barcelona,…