Foreign NBA Players: In recent years, the NBA has truly grown into a worldwide league. International big men have taken home the last five MVP awards. Additionally, at least four of the league’s top players are foreigners. While promoting the league’s current stars is crucial, it’s also important to pay tribute to the famous foreign NBA players who paved the way for the current crop of international stars.
The Top 20 Foreign NBA Players in History
Check out the greatest foreign NBA players of all time below:
1) Hakeem Olajuwon
As of this writing, Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon is one of the greatest foreign NBA players. Someday, someone like Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, or Luka Doncic could exceed him, but because Olajuwon was a monster, people should be extremely cautious to say that. In Lagos, Nigeria, Olajuwon was a well-known football player when he was younger and began playing basketball at the age of 15. When he was 22 years old, he was selected first overall in the 1984 NBA Draught, beating out Michael Jordan, and it was still the “right” choice under the rules of the game at the time.
In 1994–1995 and 1995–1996, Olajuwon guided the Houston Rockets to back-to-back NBA championships. He is one of just three NBA players to have won both the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards in the same calendar year.
2) Dirk Nowitzki
3) Giannis Antetokounmpo
4) Nikola Jokic
Nikola Jokic is now the best player in the NBA and arguably has been for the previous three seasons as well, despite the fact that he was unable to accomplish the extremely uncommon MVP three-peat this season. The large Serbian has had three consecutive regular-season averages of 26 PPG, 12.2 RPG, and 8.7 APG while shooting an insanely effective 59-37-83 per cent from the field. In and of himself, he is an outstanding offence. Whether he has Jamal Murray or not, he can be powerful. The Joker always seems to provide himself or his teammates with fantastic looks and opportunities when the Nuggets most need them, regardless of who else is on the court with him.
He has a chance to displace Hakeem and Dirk at the top of this list, along with Giannis, Joel Embiid, and Luka Doncic, if they can add to their collection of championship rings and continue their dominant performance for another half-decade.
5) Steve Nash
6) Tony Parker
Tony Parker was one of the NBA’s top paint scorers for the bulk of his heyday despite being only 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds. He showed outstanding touch on layups, floaters, and other shots near the basket and was lightning-quick. Parker averaged 18.4 PPG and 6.3 APG from 2005 to 2014; he is frequently the second, third, or even fourth person cited when people discuss the Spurs dynasty of the 2000s. Parker was frequently the team’s go-to scorer, especially as Tim Duncan became a bit older.
7) Pau Gasol
During his NBA career, Pau Gasol excelled as a backup. The Spanish big man was a guaranteed 18-10 with strong defence every single night, regardless of who was on his side, the coach, or how good or horrible the squad was. From his 21st season as a rookie until his 35th season, he averaged 18.2 PPG, 9.5 RPG, and 1.7 BPG. He was revived by the move to the Lakers and Kobe Bryant’s guidance as his career was beginning to falter on a bad club in Memphis. He developed into a playoff killer with the Lakers and performed so admirably in the 2010 NBA Finals that he definitely should have been awarded Finals MVP.
8) Joel Embiid
Joel Embiid, the current NBA MVP, and Hakeem Olajuwon have remarkably similar basketball trajectories. They both played football as children and didn’t start playing basketball until they were 15 years old. Both immigrated to the country and enrolled in college, where they made startlingly quick improvements. And despite some early-career injuries, Embiid’s game has virtually always resembled a slightly bigger, contemporary Olajuwon. He needs to win the entire dang thing next, which I predict he will accomplish at least once before everything is said and done.
9) Manu Ginobili
Manu Ginobili should be at the top of any list of the greatest men in history. Despite being one of the league’s top offensive guards, the Argentine spent most of his time with the Spurs on the bench. He was James Harden before James Harden, which, regrettably, also involves flopping. Ginobili is the second-best second-round selection in league history, exactly behind Nikola Jokic.
10) Luka Doncic
11) Yao Ming
Unfortunately, Yao Ming only played in eight NBA seasons due to foot problems near the conclusion of his career. Yao, a 7-foot-6, 310-pound athlete from Shanghai, China, was the only all-star-calibre player from Asia in the NBA. He was also far harder than anybody anticipated when he first entered the league. Other Hall of Fame players like Shaq and subsequently his colleague Tracy McGrady rapidly came to admire him. During their time in Houston, if McGrady and Yao had been able to maintain their health at the same time, they may have challenged for the championship. Yao’s finest season as an individual came in 2006–07 when he averaged 25 PPG, 9.4 RPG, and 2 BPG.
12) Dikembe Mutombo
Dikembe Mutombo was a legendary shot blocker in the NBA. The huge guy from the Democratic Republic of the Congo really averaged 3.6 BPG between 1992 and 2000. He also received four accolades for Defensive Player of the Year. But from 1992 through 2002, he averaged 12.3 PPG and 12.3 RPG, proving that he was more than simply a rim defender. Additionally, remarkably, Mutombo competed in the NBA up until the age of 42!
13) Marc Gasol
Marc Gasol, Pau’s younger brother, was never expected to be a terrific athlete. He was really included in his brother’s trade to the Lakers. The talent assessors, however, misjudged his sophisticated skill set, sense of the game, and motivation to become in shape. Gasol had a stellar defence from 2009 to 2019, averaging 15 PPG, 7.7 RPG, and 3.4 APG.
14) Rudy Gobert
The much-criticised but unquestionably influential Rudy Gobert is one of the other outstanding foreign NBA Players with a defensive mindset. One of the top defensive players in the NBA over the past ten years has been the French big man, who measures 7 feet 1 inches tall with a wingspan of 7 feet 9 inches. The Jazz built their whole defence around him since he was such a skilled rim protector. In addition, he gained some proficiency as a roll man and has three seasons in a row in which he has led the NBA in field goal percentage.
15) Peja Stojakovic
Peja Stojakovic was born too early and would have totally crushed it in today’s NBA, despite having a great NBA career. The 6-foot-10, elite-shooting small forward from Croatia has a deep shooting stroke and a 13-year career three-point percentage of 40.1 percent. He’s never made more than 554 threes in a season, which would have matched him for 14th place this past year and put him 177 spots back from the league leader. He earned a spot on the Second Team All-NBA in his greatest season, 2003–04, averaging 24.2 points per game, 6.3 rebounds, with shooting splits of 48–43–93.
16) Drazen Petrovic
Drazen Petrovic’s career statistics don’t compare to those of the other players since he, unfortunately, passed away in a car accident in the middle of his peak, but he is sometimes acknowledged for serving as an example for many of the great foreign NBA players that followed him from Europe to the NBA. Petrovic, a fellow Croatian who played in the NBA, struggled at first in Portland, behind a number of talented guards, but his career took off with the Nets in 1991–1992 and 1992–1993 (his final season). He shot splits of 51-45-84 for 21.4 PPG in those two seasons on average. He will always be remembered as a global superstar with one of the best “what if” careers in NBA history.
17) Arvydas Sabonis
Arvydas Sabonis made a positive influence on the Blazers despite entering the NBA at the age of 31 and averaged 13.1 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. But why is he on this list, exactly? Well, before he travelled through Lithuania and Spain to the NBA, Sabonis, a 7-foot-3, 279-pound Lithuanian, was a statistical and anecdotal monster. He had sustained a number of injuries by the time he entered the NBA, and he was a shell of the player he once was. His statistics from Spain are available to us (here), and they are undoubtedly outstanding. Additionally, there are also clips of him competing against elite American players where he resembles a bigger, more athletic Marc Gasol.
Even though we will never know how amazing he might have been had he joined the NBA in his early 20s, he deserves some acknowledgement anyway.
18) Toni Kukoc
Toni Kukoc, another talented player from Croatia, is included on this list thanks to his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame and his contribution to the Bulls’ second three-peat in the 1990s. Between 1994 and 2001, the 6-foot-10 Kukoc averaged 13.6 PPG, 4.7 RPG, and 4.1 APG. He could do a little bit of everything well. He was also the recipient of the Sixth Man of the Year honour during the 1995–96 Bulls’ 72–win campaign. He is another player whose style of play would have worked well in the basketball played today.
19) Vlade Divac
Vlade Divac, a brilliant centre from Serbia who stands 7 feet 1 inches tall, had a very unique career. Sadly, he was never able to win a title. He played with the legendary Magic Johnson for his first few seasons, but when the club fell to Michael Jordan in the 1991 NBA Finals, Johnson was forced to retire due to HIV infection. The Lakers then traded Divac for Kobe soon after signing Shaq, meaning he missed the team’s three-peat.
In truth, he and the incredible 2001–2002 Kings squad came close to ending the Lakers’ mini-dynasty but were defeated in the Western Conference Finals in seven games in a terrible back-and-forth series that may have been slightly manipulated. None of this should be seen as a slight to Divac, who between 1991 and 2002 averaged 12.6 PPG, 8.8 RPG, and 3.1 APG while keeping his teams competitive. He may have had a few rings to go with that Hall of Fame jacket with a few bounces or breaks.
20) Detlef Schrempf
