By George Efkarpides & Dionysis Aravantinos / info@eurohoops.net
In recent times, more and more European players join the NBA and this year, a record-breaking 74 European players will be playing in the NBA.
The NBA has been attracted to international players, who seem to have unique talents, and are ready to conquer the basketball world.
Last season, many European players had dazzling campaigns with their respective teams. Others are considered to be ‘rising stars’ and players like Giannis Antetokounmpo have already established themselves as top-10 players in the league.
An exciting season is just around the corner and eurohoops.net has ranked the top 30 Europeans for the upcoming year.
The criteria for this year’s rankings are: The quality of the player, his role on the team and what is expected from him this upcoming season. Moreover, the playing time we anticipate he will get by his coach in combination with what he has been able to achieve in his NBA career so far. That’s why no rookies made the list with just two exceptions.
Notable Mentions: Some of the following have not even played a single minute in the NBA, some of them are role players who average 10-15 minutes per game in fair teams, and the others like Bender, Papagiannis are sophomores in the NBA, who did not have great rookie seasons.
Still, those are the players who just missed the cut: Marco Belinelli, Timofey Mozgov, Juan Hernangomez, Lauri Markkanen, Kosta Koufos, Paul Zipser, Nemanja Bjelica, Cedi Osman, Furkan Korkmaz, Joffrey Lauvergne, Daniel Theis, Zaza Pachulia, Omri Caspi, Dragan Bender, Tomas Satoransky, Thabo Sefolosha.
30. Bogdan Bogdanovic (Sacramento Kings / Serbia)
Year of Birth: 1992
Height: 198cm (6-6)
Position: G
At 24-years of age, Bogdan Bogdanovic is now entering his prime and the timing couldn’t be any better. His first year in the NBA with the Sacramento Kings is just around the corner. His great shooting skills, handles and experience in Europe over the last years with Fenerbahce have given him the confidence which he will try to also use in a totally different environment, the NBA. As he has stated himself, the NBA’s game is faster than Europe’s and he will have have to make quicker decisions; Bogdanovic will need to work on his decision-making offensively and his spacing defensively.
In the 2017 EuroBasket, he led Serbia to the championship game but eventually could not get the job done against Slovenia. His talent is unquestionable but is he ready for this biggest change in his basketball career? We trust that he is. The fact that he is number 30 in this list has strictly to do with him being an NBA rookie.