With Eurobasket 2015 set to begin in less than a week, the largest and most competitive regional basketball championship leading up to the Rio Olympics in 2016 features a long list of big European names familiar to NBA fans.
(Join thousands of other Eurobasket fans in our forum)
With nearly 60 current, future and past NBA players, the European basketball tournament that happens every two years is very much like the “NBA Summer Playoffs” due to the championship’s large NBA footprint. With more than more than 55 players with NBA ties out of the 288 available roster spots, there’s a 20% chance you’ve seen (or will see) this Eurobasket player in the NBA.
Here’s a list of all the NBA players participating in this year’s Eurobasket:
| COUNTRY | PLAYER | NBA TEAM |
|---|---|---|
| CROATIA | Bojan Bogdanovic | Brooklyn Nets |
| CROATIA | Mario Hezonja | Orlando Magic |
| CROATIA | Damjan Rudez | Minnesota Timberwolves |
| CROATIA | Dario Saric | Philadephia 76ers |
| FRANCE | Nicolas Batum | Charlotte Hornets |
| FRANCE | Boris Diaw | San Antonio Spurs |
| FRANCE | Evan Fournier | Orlando Magic |
| FRANCE | Rudy Gobert | Utah Jazz |
| FRANCE | Joffrey Lauvergne | Denver Nuggets |
| FRANCE | Tony Parker | San Antonio Spurs |
| GERMANY | Dirk Nowitzki | Dallas Mavericks |
| GERMANY | Tibor Pleiss | Utah Jazz |
| GERMANY | Dennis Schroeder | Atlanta Hawks |
| GREECE | Giannis Antetokounmpo | Milwaukee Bucks |
| GREECE | Kosta Koufos | Sacramento Kings |
| GREECE | Kostas Papanikolaou | Denver Nuggets |
| GREECE | Nick Calathes | Memphis Grizzlies |
| ITALY | Andrea Bargnani | Brooklyn Nets |
| ITALY | Marco Belinelli | Sacramento Kings |
| ITALY | Danilo Gallinari | Denver Nuggets |
| ISRAEL | Omri Casspi | Sacramento Kings |
| LITHUANIA | Jonas Valanciunas | Toronto Raptors |
| POLAND | Marcin Gortat | Washington Wizards |
| GEORGIA | Zaza Pachulia | Dallas Mavericks |
| SERBIA | Nemanja Bjelica | Minnesota Timberwolves |
| SERBIA | Bogdan Bogdanovic | Phoenix Suns |
| SERBIA | Nikola Milutinov | San Antonio Spurs |
| SPAIN | Pau Gasol | Chicago Bulls |
| SPAIN | Nikola Mirotic | Chicago Bulls |
| SPAIN | Victor Claver | Portland Trailblazers |
| TURKEY | Furkan Aldemir | Philadelphia 76ers |
| TURKEY | Ersan Ilyasova | Detroit Pistons |
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Obviously the list could be much larger. It doesn’t include the NBA players skipping the tournament (for various reasons) Marc Gasol, Ricky Rubio, Jose Calderon and Serge Ibaka of Spain, Hedo Turkoglu (Turkey), Aleksey Shved and Timofey Mozgov of Russia.
Not to mention Goran Dragic (Slovenia), lottery pick Kristaps Porzingas (Latvia), Alexis Ajinca (France), Donatas Motiejunas (Lithuania), Boban Marjanović (Serbia) and Alex Len (Ukraine).
There’s also a long list of Eurobasket players that previously played in the NBA or their rights are owned by NBA teams, but no longer on a roster such as Kyrylo Fesenko (Ukraine) France’s Nando de Colo, Lior Eliyahu (Israel) and Russia’s Sergey Monya.
Spain has a load of former NBA players on their national team roster including Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Llull and Sergio Rodriguez. Talk everything Eurobasket 2015 in our tournament forum.
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