NBA Power Rankings: Dirk Nowitzki and 25 Best European Players in NBA History
It seems that since the early 1990s, there has been an influx of European talent into the NBA, and if you look a some of the best European players, most of them started around or after 1990.
From Arvydas Sabonis to Dirk Nowitzki, the flooding of the league with European players has definitely changed the game.
It has introduced quite a few three-point shooting, defense stretching big men into the game, which called for quicker, more athletic defenders, leading to the NBA we know and love today.
The European game clashing with the American game has made for quite an interesting decade and has made for some of the best American players playing alongside some of the best European players.
It has basically become a dream come true, because the European style of play is so drastically different than the American style, and we have gotten to see the fruits of the two styles coming together.
Some of the best European players could stack up with some of the best American players, but they still have a long way to go.
So without further ado, here I have a list of the top 25 European players in the history of the NBA, so let's take a tour around the continent, shall we?
25. Boris Diaw
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Boris Diaw broke into the league back in 2003 and made a name for himself with his stellar scoring ability by 2005.
By 2006, he was one of the best thee-point shooters in the league and was making a name for himself in the high paced Phoenix Suns offense.
He is currently continuing to show off his ability to score with the Charlotte Bobcats.
24. Mickael Pietrus
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Where Boris Diaw is an excellent shooter, Mickael Pietrus is a stupendous defender.
For the entirety of his career, he has made a name for himself guarding players anywhere on the floor with his ability to both steal the ball and block a shot.
He leaves shorter, faster guards quivering from his shot-blocking skills and taller, slower guards shaking due to his stealing abilities.
23. Sarunas Marciulionis
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Sarunas Marciulionis broke onto the scene with the Golden State Warriors back in 1989 and immediately made an impact as a scorer.
It took him a while to adjust to the NBA three-point line, but once he did, his abilities expanded to include the long ball, which probably extended his career.
He made more than 80 percent of his career three-pointers in the last thee years of his career, so it seems that defenders figured him out, but he adjusted his game accordingly.
22. Jose Calderon
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Jose Calderon is one of my favorite point guards to watch in the NBA today.
He mixes a Steve Nash-like ability to pass the ball with an uncanny ability to go on long streaks where he looks like he is clueless.
It's fun to see him work is way into, and out of. a funk, and when he is on a roll, he looks like one of the best guards in the game.
21. Ben Gordon
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Ben Gordon was once a hot commodity in the NBA, but now he seems more like a stat stuffer on a horrible Pistons team.
With the Bulls, Gordon was their leading scorer for a few years, but fell out of favor two years ago when they decided to let him walk in free agency.
He signed with the Pistons for gobs of money and is filling out the stat sheet, but not filling in the win column quite enough.
20. James Donaldson
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James Donaldson is a one of the most forgotten big men in NBA history.
One of the first British players to come over and be effective, Donaldson had only four double digit scoring years in his career, but made up for it with blocking shots and grabbing boards.
His defense fluctuated from terrific to terrible at times, but I'm sure it was interesting for players of the era to hear some trash talk in an English accent.
19. Mehmet Okur
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Mehmet Okur is a defensive stalwart for the Utah Jazz and can shut down nearly any big man that he puts his mind to.
Okur, a double-double machine, has a career average of 17 points and nine rebounds to go along with a good three-point shot and a unique ability to score overall.
An injury derailed his season this year, but I would expect him to bounce back next year with no problems.
18. Hedo Turkoglu
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Hedo Turkoglu is a guy that can only seem to be productive in an Orlando Magic uniform.
He was a decent role player for the Sacramento Kings back in the day, but once he signed with the Magic, his numbers took off.
Then Toronto overpaid severely to bring him to Canada, where he promptly pooped the bed, got traded to Phoenix and then back to Orlando where, surprise, he started producing again.
17. Gheorghe Muresan
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Gheorghe Muresan holds the NBA record for most times having his name misspelled and was a blocking machine in his short NBA career.
Muresan, in all of his hugeness, only played four full seasons in the NBA due to problems that all men his size would have, but he was a defensive monster during that time.
Throw a ball up around the rim, and Muresan could block it, and if not, he could rebound it.
16. Shawn Bradley
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Shawn Bradley is kind of a running joke in the NBA, as there wasn't a player that couldn't dunk over the whitest man in the world.
But Bradley, a German-American, was actually decent for the majority of his NBA career, despite the number of posterizations he attracted.
He had no talent, no skill and no flashiness, but by golly he was tall, and in the NBA, that's just enough to get by on.
15. Dino Radja
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Dino Radja was a short-lived center for the Boston Celtics in the early 1990s, but in his short career he was quite a good player.
After three and a half seasons with the Celtics averaging 17 points and eight rebounds a game, Radja was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, but failed the physical necessary to have the trade go through.
He promptly returned to Europe, winning two Greek Championships with Panathinaikos BC before returning to Croatia.
14. Andrei Kirilenko
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AK47 was a stat stuffer for the first half of his career and looked like the guy with the best chance of nabbing that ever elusive quadruple-double.
Since then, he has been shaky, but has still been able to put up some numbers, putting up 12 points a game on his career.
The most impressive thing about the Russian is the fact that he led the NBA in blocks in 2004-05, despite standing just 6'9".
13. Andrea Bargnani
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Andrea Bargnani was an Italian phenom back in 2006, and he has steadily improved ever since he was drafted with the number one pick by the Raptors.
His most recent season was his best, averaging 21 points and five rebounds a game, and he is inching ever closer to being an all-star.
Bargnani is also getting closer and closer to being a potential 40-50-90 guy, as his percentages this year were 44 from the field, 35 for three and 82 from the free throw line.
12. Swen Nater
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Swen Nater was what we in the business call a "team ho", as he played on nine different teams in 10 years.
He had more teams than Shawn Kemp has kids, but he was still a great basketball player and one of the first great Euro players.
Nater finished his career averaging 12 points and 11 rebounds a game to go along with some good Dutch defense.
11. Rik Smits
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Rik Smits had a mullet for the better part of his career in Indiana, and his name was Rik, so he fit in rather well with the local crowd.
Other than that, Smits never averaged fewer than 10 points a game and only once averaged fewer than five rebounds a game.
Smits was a vital part of the Pacers for over a decade and seems to be one of the more overlooked Europeans to play in the NBA.
10. Toni Kukoc
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Toni Kukoc is probably the man whose career was helped out the most by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, but he was a good player nonetheless.
Two years after Jordan retired and Pippen got traded, Kukoc took a rather large plunge statistically, although he was one of the most important players on the 1999 Bulls that won just a handful of games.
9. Detlef Schrempf
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Besides having one of the most fun names in the history of the NBA, Detlef Schrempf was a great three-point shooter and a terrific scorer in general.
Schrempf had a decade-long streak where he averaged at least 15 points per game and ended his career averaging 14 points per game.
He was a part of some very good Supersonics teams in his days that just couldn't break through to the next level; otherwise, we might remember him for something more.
8. Peja Stojakovic
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Peja Stojakovic is one of the greatest three-point shooters in NBA history.
There was a point when Stojakovic was on the Sacramento Kings that I thought he could go on to break Reggie Miller's (now Ray Allen's) all-time three-point record.
Nonetheless, Stojakovic is currently at 1760 three-pointers made, good for fourth in NBA history, and has a career three-point percentage of 40 percent.
Not too shabby.
7. Vlade Divac
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Vlade Divac had an excellent career and is one of the longest lasting European players ever, giving teams consistent scoring and stout defense.
Besides being a member of some amazing, yet disappointing, Sacramento Kings teams, Divac was good for two other things.
For one, he gave us the best flops known to man. He was the originator of selling contact, and his flops are legendary.
Secondly, he was the man that netted the Lakers Kobe Bryant, so it could be said that he is the most valuable European player in that sense.
6. Zydruas Ilgauskas
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I couldn't bear to put Big Z in a picture with him in a Heat uniform here, so please forgive me for that. He belongs in a Cavs uni.
At the very least, Zydrunas is going on to have his number retired by the Cavs, and if you ask him, that would be more than enough to make him happy.
Derailed early in his career by foot injuries, it looked grim for Z early, but he plowed through, played on some crummy Cavs teams that would send anyone into a deep depression and got to the LeBron era in Cleveland relatively happy.
For 11 years, Z averaged over 10 points a game and was a good defender early on because of his height, and as he began to slow down, Big Z developed a three-point shot that would send the crowd into a frenzy.
5. Arvydas Sabonis
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Sabonis was supposed to be the ultimate stretch European player.
He absolutely ripped apart Europe for eight years, compiling eight European Player of the Year Awards in the process.
Then signing with Portland in 1995, Sabonis won the Rookie of the Year Award averaging 14 points and eight rebounds.
His best year came in the 1997-98 season where he averaged 16 and 10, but ultimately, his body couldn't handle the game anymore, and he wore down quickly in the NBA.
4. Drazen Petrovic
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Drazen Petrovic is the ultimate "what if" player.
At a time when the only European players coming over and being effective were big men, Petrovic came over at a mere 6'5" and dominated.
His first two years saw him work his way off the bench and into the starting lineup, and, given the chance to start at the two-guard spot for the Nets, Petrovic averaged 20 points in 1991-92 and 22 points the following season.
During the 1993 offseason, Petrovic died as the passenger in a car accident in Germany, taking away what could have been the best European player in the history of the game from the NBA.
Petrovic was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2002 and remains the only European Hall of Famer.
3. Tony Parker
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Tony Parker is the best French player of all-time; that is a given.
The little Frenchman can get into the lane and score like nobody's business and is one of the more exciting and sneaky players in the NBA.
Besides that, he is a defensive nuisance and has only averaged fewer than 10 points and five assists once, which was his rookie campaign.
2. Pau Gasol
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Pau Gasol has come on in recent years as the best offensive big man in the NBA, and really, he hasn't averaged fewer than 15 points a game in his whole career.
His past two seasons were easily his best, averaging 18 and 11 and 18 and 10 in the past two years, bringing his career average up to 18 points and nine rebounds a game.
1. Dirk Nowitzki
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Dirk Nowitzki and I share a place of birth, an awesome head of hair and a killer basketball game.
Ok, so I'm not a native German, and his game is probably just a bit better than mine, but I still have the hair, and really, what more matters?
Nowitzki came into the league as a wunderkind, and by the third year of his career, he was dropping 20 points a game like it was nobody's business, never looking back.
Dirk has averaged at least 20 a game since 2000 and has hit 25 points a game five times in his career.
Every year, he is a threat to shoot 40-50-90 percentages from the field, for three and free throw line, respectively.
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