American Limit on Overseas Teams

Almost every professional basketball league outside of the U.S. has a limit on the number of Americans it can have on each team. There are pros and cons for these teams to increase and decrease the allotted number. For example, the top league in Germany (BBL) had no limit on the number of Americans that were allowed on each team last season. This is good for the league as far as increasing the level of play and competition. Also, this helped increase the level of athleticism which helps to sell tickets (be honest, it's better to watch a team full of Lebron James' over a team full of John Stocktons). The lower level you go to the lower number of Americans are permitted. Some low level leagues have rules on how many Euros have to be on the court at one time and have maximums of how many Americans can play together at once (this makes coaching a lot more difficult as you can imagine). So, why did the BBL lower the number down to 8, which is still much higher than most leagues?

If you are an American you are probably thinking, "Yeah, what the hell, that's not fair at all, THERE IS NO LIMIT ON FOREIGNERS IN THE NBA!" Now think about it from a European basketball enthusiast's point of view. Basketball is not very popular at all over there. They need to protect their players and keep them employed. They don't have the great system that we have here in the U.S. as far as player development. For us, we start playing at a competitive level in the 6th or 7th grade in middle school. The best athletes in the U.S. might excel at basketball and choose it as their sport of choice. The best athletes in Europe might excel at basketball, but will probably choose soccer as their sport of choice, or not even give basketball a chance. Anyways, putting a limit on Americans give Euros more motivation to choose basketball and help protect basketball in there country (In all seriousness, the best athletes in Denmark play HANDBALL! I know crazy!).

If you have looked into European ball you have probably noticed that some players are listed as Bosmans. These are players with dual citizenship. I highly recommend doing this if you can. I know of NCAA division 1 players who had great college careers not able to sign a contract overseas and then see NAIA division 2 guys who didn't even start on their teams get signed and have long careers because they can get that dual citizenship (not saying that NAIA D2 players are not good, but if you compare a D1 killer to an NAIA bench player I think you would agree). I am not sure exactly what it takes to get a foreign passport, but I think you must be 1/4 of the nationality that you are trying to get the passport for. This means that your mom of dad is 1/2 and your grandparents are full. They might of had to have a passport from there as well. This is something you should research before you graduate college so you can have it and be as the agents say "Passport Ready!"

This topic goes way deeper, but I know you probably don't have time to read 100 pages, so post any questions you have and leave your opinion on what you think is the right number of Americans to have on a team overseas.