By Stefan Djordjevic/ sdjordjevic@eurohoops.net
NBA has always been the staple of basketball with its huge talent pool, faster, ‘spacier’, and more athletic style of play that has been impacting the game worldwide.
However, European basketball, with all its differences, improved over time and it has been obvious in recent years that it’s a close second when it comes to the level of play if the two can at all be compared.
There has been an influx of European stars in the NBA that are taking over the spotlight but the comparison can also be made in the opposite way, taking a look into the success (or not) of the NBA players that tried their luck on the other side of the ocean.
An NBA player coming to Europe is usually coupled with big expectations and high pressure to perform but that hasn’t always worked out that way and the adjustment was much harder than it seemed initially, leading to quite a few premature departures.
Eurohoops scoured the list of those players and picked out five (recent and a bit older examples) that failed to meet the high expectations that came with their names.
Recent cases
Kenneth Faried
After Nikola Milutinov got injured, CSKA Moscow searched for a replacement on the market and decided on adding Kenneth Faried to the team with a short-term contract.
Two months was the initial agreement with the option to continue until the end of the season. However, with CSKA slowly consolidating its squad and Milutinov returning, Faried lost his place on the team and the sides parted ways.
And the former NBAer’s slow start in his debut season in Europe didn’t help the case. Faried played a total of 11 games but wasn’t able to score in five of them while his best was six points. He did add some rebounding presence but still slipped into a backup role with limited minutes as he struggled to adjust.
Faried played for eight years in the NBA, seven of those with the Denver Nuggets while he also wore the jerseys of the Brooklyn Nets and the Houston Rockets. He averaged 13 points and eight rebounds in the 2018-19 season with the Rockets, his last so far in the league.
Ron Baker
Another ‘failed’ attempt by CSKA Moscow to bring in some impact from the NBA, although Ron Baker’s career was somewhat of a specific case. The American played professionally for just four years in total and his career was quite underwhelming, especially considering the expectations.
Baker played for the New York Knicks from 2016 until 2018 but his path was already challenged early on by injuries. A broken left orbital bone, right shoulder surgery. His final stint in the league with the Washington Wizards was short-lived, appearing in four games.
His role was shy in the NBA and although it was expected he might have a breakthrough in Europe, that didn’t happen and he showed up, passed through, and left in a similar fashion. He averaged 2.6 points over 27 Euroleague games.
He retired at the age of 28 after undergoing hip surgery and wishing to move on from basketball, stepping into health care as his future field.
Thon Maker
After two Euroleague players, an example of an attempt to blow up the Basketball Champions League. Thon Maker accumulated five years of NBA experience with the Milwaukee Bucks, Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers. But it wasn’t enough for him to be dominant in Europe. Far from it.
Hapoel Jerusalem brought him in, along with Anthony Bennett and Sean Kilpatrick, with goal and hopes of using the NBA talent to get the team over the hump. However, it didn’t work out that way. Hapoel has struggled for a long while and barely managed to secure a spot in the BCL play-in with a late surge but it remains to be seen if they get past the initial stage.
Maker, to say the least, didn’t impress and the team parted ways with him on December 12th. In BCL, he averaged 2.8 points and 3.5 rebounds in 14 minutes.
A couple of throwbacks
Jason Kapono
For those who don’t remember, Jason Kapono was the first player to lead the NBA in three-point field goal percentage for two consecutive seasons, and he also won the Three-Point Contest twice. In 2006, he got the championship with the Miami Heat.
Some would say that Kapono’s career went downstream after the two years with Miami and that those were his time years. But much was expected from an NBA champion and one of the best three-point shooters when he came to Panathinaikos in 2012.
However, although he produced 7.4 points on 46% shooting from deep in 15 minutes, and had a few explosive displays in the Greek league, it seemed Kapono couldn’t adjust to the European style and parted ways with the club prematurely. In fact, the player himself asked for a way out as he wasn’t happy with the role on the team and the playing time.
Tony Delk
Another Panathinaikos example and a bit of a bigger throwback than Kapono. After a decade in the NBA with eight teams, Tony Delk moved to Europe and joined PAO back in 2006.
Delk started off really strong. As the team’s leading scorer as the Greens went undefeated through 11 games. However, he was perhaps the prime example of the trouble American players had (have) in adjusting the new system. His efficiency and playing time started to dwindle and he parted ways with the team in May the following year.
In the last five of his game with the squad, he didn’t log any points in four of them. He played very limited time in there of those. Nonetheless, despite leaving on bad terms, Delk went down in history as one of the few players to have won both the NCAA and Euroleague titles.
The team also won two titles in Greece (Cup, League) but Delk left the team after the Euroleague Final Four (where he played seven minutes in the semis) and wasn’t a part of the success.