The Turkish Airlines EuroLeague map

By Stelios Toromanidis/ info@eurohoops.net

During a 34-round regular season, you need to have many good players. And that’s why Turkish Airlines EuroLeague clubs have rosters with the best players they can find from all over the world. Of course, some countries stand out and have the most representatives in the competition. The 272 basketball players who take part in the competition come from 38 different countries, with ten of them standing out due to the number of their representatives.

There is no limit on the number of foreign players that can be included on a EuroLeague team’s roster, and, as a result, the clubs’ managements and coaching staffs have the freedom to pick whomever they want without any limitation about their passports.

Of the squads that are participating in this season’s competition, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul, Valencia Basket, Real Madrid, and KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz have the most excellent variety of nationalities, since their rosters of 16, 13, 14 and 15 players, respectively, come from nine different countries. Baksonia is the team with the fewest native-born players, with just two from Spain, with the other 12 players having a total of eight different origins. Baskonia‘s total of 12 “foreign” players is matched only by FC Bayern Munich.

Zenit St Petersburg, Panathinaikos OPAP Athens, Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade, and ALBA Berlin have an even distribution of native-born and foreign players, with Panathinaikos having the fewest nationalities, together with Zalgiris Kaunas and Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv.

The EuroLeague teams’ nationalities, in detail:

Europe is the continent with the most players in the league, followed by the USA

If we focus on the origin of the players who are in the EuroLeague, we will notice that 65.1% come from 26 different countries of the Old Continent, 30.1% from five countries of the American continent, while there are also players from countries in Africa, Oceania, and Asia.

The number of players from each of the five different continents that have representatives in the EuroLeague is the following.

The 272 players of the 18 clubs in this season’s competition come from 38 different countries.

Clarifications regarding the choice of nationality for the players:

1) Before we present in detail all the countries and their respective players, we should point out that we classify each player according to the national team he represents in big international competitions. In case a player does not compete in a national team, then the country he was born in or his ancestral homeland of origin is chosen as his nationality.

For example, Nikola Mirotic may have been born in Montenegro, but we classify him as a Spaniard since that is the country’s national team he has chosen to represent.

2) In contrast, Luis Scola has both Argentinian and Spanish passports, but he has chosen to represent the national team of the country in which he was born, Argentina, in international competitions, so we classify him under Argentinian players.

3) There are some players, like Jaycee Carroll, who is American but who also has a passport from Azerbaijan, a country he has represented in a few games (in two, to be precise). Despite that, those games were held in EuroBasket qualifiers and not in any major competition. In this case, the player is classified as an American.

Here are, in detail, the countries that didn’t make the Top10.

Here are the ten countries that have the most representatives in the competition, in the form of a countdown.

10. Italy (11 players)

Even with only one EuroLeague team, AX Armani Exchange Milan, Italy is in 10th place with 11 players. Six of them play on teams in Spain, Turkey, Russia, and Germany and have an essential role in the rotations of those clubs.

9. Lithuania (12 players)

In ninth place, we come across Lithuania, with 12 representatives. Nine of them, or 75%, play for the country’s only representative in the competition, Zalgiris Kaunas. The rest are scattered across the Old Continent.

8. Turkey (13 players)

The Turks, who are represented by two teams in the EuroLeague this season, have 13 players in the competition, 12 of them playing for Anadolu Efes Istanbul and Fenerbahce. Many are very young players, but others like Dogus Balbay, Melih Mahmutoglu, Ali Muhammed, and Scottie Wilbekin are great solutions for their clubs… In fact, the last one is the only one who plays outside of Turkey. He and Muhammed are Americans who chose to play as naturalized players with the national team of Turkey, which is why they are included in the table above.

7. Germany (15 players)

Germany’s colony in the EuroLeague has grown as the country has two teams in the competition for the first time in years. Bayern and ALBA Berlin have the majority of Germans in the competition. Johannes Voigtmann joined defending champion CSKA Moscow in the off-season, while Tibor Pleiss continues with Efes, which was CSKA’s opponent in the EuroLeague Championship Game last season.

6. Greece (16 players)

Greek players are always high on the list, due in part to the permanent presence of Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, but also thanks to the preference of non-Greek teams that have a great appreciation for their talents. While 12 of the 16 are competing for the Greens (eight) and the Reds (four), four other top-class players compete in Fenerbahce (Kostas Sloukas), CSKA (Kosta Koufos), Maccabi (Tyler Dorsey) and Zvezda (Stratos Perperoglou).

5. France (17 players)

France has a EuroLeague team the first time since the 2015-2016 season, as LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne signed a two-year contract. French players are always among Europe’s elite, something that can be seen by the fact that nine of the total of 17 players belong to teams outside of France. Players like Nando de Colo, Fabien Causeur, Thomas Heurtel, Rodrigue Beaubois and Joffrey Lauvergne are among the EuroLeague’s finest.

4. Spain (17 players)

The reigning world champions are tied with the French for third place. What’s strange is that only one of the 17 Spanish players in the EuroLeague plays outside of Spain. The rest are divided among Spain’s four representatives in the competition. Of course, this means that Spanish teams have the power to hold on to their top players, but also to draw back many of the ones that, until recently, who were playing in the NBA, like Mirotic.

3. Serbia (18 players)

As has been the case historically, Serbian players are a big part of the EuroLeague community, both in many clubs and in many countries. With stars like Nikola Milutinov, Vasilije Micic, Nikola Kalinic, and Vladimir Lucic, Serbia has an excellent composition in the competition once again this season. The fact that 10 out of the 18 Serbs in the EuroLeague are playing outside of their country makes sense based on their quality.

2. Russia (21 players)

One place below the top spot is Russia, which has a more than a substantial number of 21 players in the EuroLeague, a result of the three Russian teams that take part in the competition. After all, none of them plays outside of Russia, with Alexey Shved being by far the most high-quality player for the Russians in the competition.