By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
It is the most wonderful time of the year if you are a basketball fan. As much as we love European hoops – the name of the site probably gives that away – there is no doubt that the NBA is the best league in the world. This is where all ballers, no matter where they come from, aspire to play – and the season has just gotten underway.
What has been very interesting to note in recent years, is the number of European players starting to play in the NBA. It is not a novelty for a top team to have one or two players from this continent on the roster – and some of the best players in the league now come from outside of the US. If you are looking into NBA best bets you need to be considering everyone now, no matter where they come from.
As we get ready to enjoy the immense skill of European players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Dončić, and Victor Wembanyama this year, we thought we would celebrate some of the best players that paved the way for the current crop of Euro stars. Here are some of our personal favorites.
Toni Kukoč
One of the first really big European NBA stars, Kukoč was already a three-time EuroLeague winner before he tried his hand at the big league. Growing up in Croatia, he excelled in a number of sports as a youth but went on to prove conclusively that he chose well in deciding on basketball for a career.
Kukoč is best remembered for his time with the Chicago Bulls and was lucky enough to play during the Michael Jordan era. But, as his NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award in 1996 shows, he more than played his role in winning three championships there. An amazingly well-liked player, he was one of the first to prove that Europe knew how to play too.
Rik Smits
At 7ft-4, the “Dunking Dutchman” was never going to be able to hide on the court. But there was no need to during his 12-year NBA career, spent entirely as an Indiana Pacer, The fact that he enjoyed postseason time in the vast majority of those years shows just how much he contributed to the league in his time.
Smits first pitched up in the US to play college ball at Marist and did so well in the four years on the program there that he was selected by the Pacers with the second overall pick of the 1988 Draft. Only Reggie Miller was considered more important to the Pacers than Smits at the time and he was named as an NBA All-Star In 1998.
Detlef Schrempf
This German-American athlete was another of the first Europeans to enter the US basketball fan’s consciousness and was actually the first from the continent ever to be named as an NBA All-Star. He went on to repeat that achievement two more times in his career, as well as winning the Sixth Man Award in back-to-back years in the early 1990s.
Schrempf initially moved to the US to play high school basketball before excelling at college. His talent saw him become the 8th overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks. It was with Seattle that Schrempf became the first German ever to play in the NBA Finals – and he spent some time as an assistant coach there after retiring.
Peja Stojaković
Another legendary player from the former Yugoslavia, this Serbian small forward moved to Greece as a teenager because of war in his home country. It was there he honed his basketball skills before the Sacramento Kings took him as the 14th overall pick in the 1996 Draft. He didn’t actually play in the US until 1998, however.
Stojaković took a few more years to acclimatize to the league but was named as an All-Star in 2002. He repeated that trick the next two years thanks mainly to his incredible three-point shot percentage. After 13 years in the big league, Stojaković retired in 2011 as an NBA champion with the Mavs.
Pau Gasol
One of the greatest European NBA players of all time, Gasol started as he meant to go on, winning the Rookie of the Year Award in 2002 while at the Memphis Grizzlies. He was the first non-American ever to claim the prize. But that wasn’t the end of his achievements, in what ended up being a glittering career.
Gasol bookended his pro career at his hometown FC Barcelona ball club. But it was in the NBA where he really shone, winning back-to-back championships with the Lakers at the beginning of the 2000s. A hugely liked player by all fans in the league, Gasol will be remembered as one of the best ever.
There will be even more Europeans pulling on NBA jerseys this season – Source: Unsplash
Tony Parker
Born in Belgium but raised in France, Tony Parker was the son of a pro baller who played college basketball in the US before embarking on a career in Europe. Parker obviously inherited the family genes and was able to play the majority of his career in the NBA, mostly in San Antonio.
As a point guard in the greatest Spurs team of all time, Parker was one of the fastest on the court and inspired his team to four championships and was named as the Finals MVP in 2007. Parker ended his playing career as a Charlotte Hornet but remained involved in the sport, becoming a majority owner of his first-ever team back in Paris, France.