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By Stathis Trapezanlidis/ info@eurohoops.net
In the past few years many teams use naturalized players, which means players who have been born in another country and obtain the passport in order to be able to play with a national team. It’s a tendency taking place in recent years, but many might not be aware that such cases existed in the past as well, although at that time the players who played in the team of their “second home” had been playing in Europe and the domestic championship for many years. Eurohoops presents the top ten cases of Americans who have competed in the EuroBasket, based on their contribution and the final ranking of the team in the tournament.
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[lptitle title=”10. Travis Diener (Italy) – Eighth place 2013“]
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In the 2012-13 season the American point guard had a great season with Sassari and his federation gave him the Italian passport (his wife is Italian) in order to compete with the national team of Italy. Despite all this, the tournament didn’t turn out so well, Pianigiani’s ambitious team came up against Lithuania and was knocked out of the semifinals. Travis Diener had 3 points in 14 minutes per game.
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[lptitle title=”9. Kelly McCarty (Russia) – Seventh place 2009“]
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Kelly McCarty got the Russian passport and played in the 2009 EuroBasket in Poland. Even though he was already 34 years old he had a leading role in the team and he finished the tournament with 12.5 points in 33.5 minutes of playing time on average! Russia came up against Serbia in the quarterfinals and was knocked out early on in the knockout games, in the end finishing in seventh pace of the tournament.
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[lptitle title=”8. Crawford Palmer (France) – Sixth place 2001“]
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The American didn’t play in many tournaments with the French national team, but he was a core member of the 2001 team in Turkey when they finished in sixth place. He had his best game against Ukraine (89-86 loss) with 18 points and 10 rebounds. He finished the tournament with 9.5 points and 5.3 rebounds on average in 23 minutes of playing time.
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