From New Zealand to Cuba. All nationalities represented in the Euroleague!
Andrey Antson November 28, 2023, 23:15 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
Which countries are most and least represented in the main European tournament?
The Euroleague, in its format, is a global tournament in which players from different parts of the world compete. Currently, the tournament includes basketball players from six continents (depending on which continental model you follow, of course).
The developing globalization also affects sport: we can increasingly find high-level professional athletes from countries that seemed completely distant from one sport or another. The Euroleague has several “exotic” countries of this type. In total, athletes from 38 countries compete in the competition. We have calculated which countries are more common and which are less common, and we want to share the results of the mini-research.
Very important: in the Euroleague there are many naturalized players or with dual nationality. When choosing which nation to classify this or that basketball player, we start from the first and main citizenship that the athletes had. So, for example, we classify Thomas Walkup as American and not Greek. The same goes for Joel Bolomboy. We give preference to the player’s place of birth.
First of all, it is worth drawing a picture of which countries have the largest number of basketball players in the Euroleague. Nine countries stand out in particular.
The 9 most common nationalities among Euroleague players
Kemba Walker and Tony Parker
Photo: Laurent Coust/Getty Images
1. United States 902. France222. Serbia224. Germany215. Greece205. Spain207. Italy178. Lithuania169. Turkey13
The first thing that stands out is the absolutely dominant presence of American players in the Euroleague, and their participation is only increasing. Last year there were only 81 American representatives, and now there are 90. The Euroleague is becoming an increasingly attractive destination for those countless Americans who couldn’t get into the NBA, or couldn’t establish themselves there, or want to play a couple of parties. more years at the end of his career at a high level.
Surprisingly, the opposite process is happening in the NBA: the proportion of American players is decreasing and more and more top players from outside North America are becoming more prominent in the league.
The strangest nationalities in the Euroleague
Tornike Shengelia
Photo: Luca Sgamellotti/Getty Images
So the most interesting thing for us personally was to find the most “exotic” nations imaginable in European basketball. There are up to 12 countries that have a single representative in the Euroleague. Let’s list them, indicating the players.
AlbaniaErcan Osmani (Anadolu Efes)BelarusRoman Sorkin (Maccabi Tel Aviv)HungaryAdam Hanga (Red Star)GhanaYacouba Ouattara (Monaco)GeorgiaTornike Shengelia (Virtus Bologna)IranMohammad Amini (Monaco)Cape VerdeWalter Tavares (Real Madrid)CyprusErten Gazi (Anadolu Efes)CubaHasiel River or (Maccabi Tel Aviv)New ZealandYanni Wetzel (Alba)SloveniaGiga Samar (Alba)SwedenMarcus Eriksson (Alba)
If any national basketball fan knows that in the Euroleague there are representatives from Cape Verde, Georgia and Belarus, the presence of countries like Cuba and Iran is really surprising. Another surprise is that one of the strongest teams in the world, Slovenia, only has one player in the Euroleague.
For convenience, we list the remaining countries that fall between the first and second list: Senegal (8), Croatia (6), Argentina (5), Bosnia and Herzegovina (5), Canada (4), Israel (4), Brazil (3), Czech Republic (3), Montenegro (3), Nigeria (3), Denmark (2), Estonia (2), Latvia (2), Poland (2) and Republic of the Congo (2).
