In Macedonia, Pero Antic is better than NBA legends and overshadows the West

The Atlanta Hawks are in the thick of a playoff battle with the Indiana Pacers. Due to Al Horford’s injury, Pero Antic has played a big role in Atlanta’s gameplan. The NBA’s first Macedonian player, Antic is a superb version of that trumped-up basketball cliché: the sweet-shooting big man. The wrinkle with Antic is that he’s also brawny as hell, has some amazing tattoos and looks exactly like Carlos Boozer.

Macedonian journalist Darko Starkovski shared his story on Antic’s NBA impact. SB Nation does not currently employ a Macedonian translator, so we relied on Google Translate. The result is pretty amazing.

Let’s POWER RANK this thing.

1. The caption to the photo: “Antic overshadow the West in duels against Indiana.” Yes, Antic did overshadow David West. But it’s true that Atlanta’s epic beatdown of Indiana on Sunday -- led in part by Antic -- overshadowed the entire Western Conference playoffs, too! Also, I am too busy at this very moment thinking about Antic to consider anything else going on in Western culture.

2. That headline! I mean, it’s true. The story goes on to describe that Antic performed better this season than NBA legends Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant and, ahem: “Andrea Bargnani of New York and many other players to season known from antiquity.” Known from antiquity! I’m going to assume the translation is more like “all-time greats.”

3. The publication’s sports categories are football (soccer to most of us), basketball, HANDBALL and other sports. I love Macedonia already.

4. The story makes a point to note that Antic was much better than fellow rookie and No. 1 pick Anthony Bennett this season.

5. That photo. Fadeaway. Tongue out. Overshadowing the West.

Thanks again to Darko for sharing this magic. And thanks to Google Translate for entertaining us endlessly.