American Players Playing Overseas

Over the past few years there have been a growing number of NBA players leaving the NBA to play overseas.  Players like Stephon Marbury, Josh Childress, Earl Boykins, Carlos Arroyo and a few others.  While some have come back to the NBA others, like Marbury, have stayed put and are having an enjoyable career.  The majority of the players that leave for overseas are either getting more money than they otherwise would in the NBA or they are not getting the attention from NBA teams in terms of free agency that they would like.

However, Ron Artest of the L.A. Lakers was recently quoted as saying, "They need to let more Americans play in the European leagues," Artest said. "There are only like two [Americans] to a team while Europeans can come to America [and play in the NBA] like the whole San Antonio Spurs team -- a whole American team can be full of Europeans. Europe has to be a little more fair to the American players.”  I think Artest brings up a great point and it’s something that should be looked into more.  The NBA is considered the best league in the world and produces the best talent in the world and some of the best talent just isn’t good enough for the NBA so they want to look at other places to continue their career.

There are a few reasons as to why this rule is in place where only 2 Americans are allowed on Euro League rosters.  In Europe, teams want to develop their players so they can play in FIBA or the Olympics.  National pride is much more prevalent than in the NBA and they feel that if this rule wasn’t in place than the more developed American players will probably take over the league.  Like I said pride is a big thing in Europe and European fans want to come to games and watch their fellow countryman play the game rather than a bunch of Americans.  Another reason is to protect the smaller clubs from the wealthy clubs who could potentially lure all the great Americans over to play for their team and create a competitive imbalance.

Ultimately, overseas leagues want to protect the heritage of international basketball and want to keep it international.  I understand where Artest is coming from because Americans have to try and get in to the best league in the world instead of overseas players who have a much easier chance of playing professional basketball. 

I don’t think the NBA should impose any rules about how many foreign born players you have on the league because to me, and I think a lot of other NBA fans as well, it doesn’t really matter where the player is from as long as he helps your team win the game.  It’s simply two different cultures with two different views on basketball.