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International Players in the NBA: Facts

Europeans and other international players in the NBA: the first, the best and the most unexpected paths to the league.

Italy Italian-born Canadian Hank Biasatti played for the Toronto Huskies on 1 November 1946, making him the first international player in the league's history. He later played Major League Baseball too.

14 Tom Meschery, born in Harbin in Manchuria, became the NBA's first foreign-born All-Star in 1963. The Warriors even put his number 14 into their logo for a few years.

167 In 1970 the Atlanta Hawks drafted Varese's Mexican star Manuel Raga with the 167th pick. He was the first player from a league outside the USA ever drafted by an NBA team.

1978 In 1978 Bahamas-born Mychal Thompson became the first foreign-born player taken first in the NBA draft. His son Klay later won four titles.

1985 In 1985 Bulgaria's Georgi Glouchkov became the first player from an Eastern Bloc country to play in the NBA. He appeared in 49 games for the Phoenix Suns.

1989 Šarūnas Marčiulionis joined the Golden State Warriors in 1989, one of the first players from the Soviet Union in the NBA.

30 Arvydas Sabonis played his first NBA game in November 1995, aged 30, nine years after he was drafted. Many say America never saw him at his peak.

1996 In 1996 Romania's Gheorghe Mureșan became the first non-American to win the NBA's Most Improved Player award.

1997 In 1997 Sacramento drafted Tariq Abdul-Wahad 11th, the first player raised in France to reach the NBA. He was born Olivier Saint-Jean.

2002 Serbian sharpshooter Peja Stojaković won the NBA three-point contest two years running, in 2002 and 2003.

2002 In 2002 Pau Gasol became the first foreign player to win NBA Rookie of the Year.

2004 In 2004 Mehmet Okur became the first Turkish NBA champion, with Detroit, and in 2007 the first Turkish All-Star.

4 In 2004 Yuta Tabuse, 1.75 m tall, became the first Japanese player in the NBA. He played four games for Phoenix and scored 7 points on debut.

2005 In 2005 Yao Ming received 2,558,278 fan votes for the All-Star Game, breaking Michael Jordan's record.

2007 In 2007 Dirk Nowitzki became the first European NBA MVP. Then his 67-win Mavericks lost in the first round to the eighth-seeded Warriors.

2011 Arvydas Sabonis entered the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011, and his national team teammate Šarūnas Marčiulionis joined him in 2014.

35 Argentina's Pablo Prigioni made his NBA debut for the Knicks in November 2012, aged 35, the oldest rookie in NBA history.

2013 In 2013 Marc Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies became the first European to be named NBA Defensive Player of the Year.

2014 On 26 November 2014 four-time EuroLeague champion Ettore Messina became the first European-born head coach in an NBA game, standing in for the Spurs' Gregg Popovich.

2015 At the 2015 All-Star Game Pau and Marc Gasol became the first brothers to start, and they jumped the opening tip against each other in New York.

2024 Some Knicks fans booed when Kristaps Porziņģis was drafted in 2015. In 2024 he became the first Latvian NBA champion, with Boston.

52 In 2015 Dallas drafted 2.18 m Satnam Singh 52nd, the first Indian ever picked in the NBA draft. He never played an NBA game.

61 In 2023-24 Domantas Sabonis recorded 61 double-doubles in a row, the longest streak since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976.

15 Joel Embiid only took up basketball at 15; he had wanted to be a volleyball player. In 2023 he became the second African-born NBA MVP, after Hakeem Olajuwon.

1-2 In 2024 two Frenchmen, Zaccharie Risacher and Alexandre Sarr, went first and second in the NBA draft. A year earlier their compatriot Victor Wembanyama had gone first.

6 Kobe Bryant lived in Italy from age 6 to 13, while his father Joe played for four Italian clubs. That is where Kobe learned to speak Italian.

2 Dutch-born Swen Nater is the only player to lead both the ABA and the NBA in rebounding. In college he was Bill Walton's backup and never started a game.

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