Naturalised players in National Teams

[Black Urum]

Since the talks have started about naturalised players [url="http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1765&hl="]in this thread[/url] I thought we could talk it over in a separate topic.



What do you think about naturalised players (mostly Americans) playing for foreign National Teams?



I'm somewhere in between, I'm pro when it's a player who plays or played in a certain league for some years and if there is a limit of 1 or 2 naturalised players per a 12 men roster.



Some National Teams need this for various reasons. For example Russia needs a PG because there isn't a world class local Russian PG, other nations such as Bulgaria need some to take their game to the next level.



What do you think?



PS: Vote in the poll too.

[suricata]

Actually i don't mind players of foreign origin playing for the country they grew up in (D.Sakota, Demond Greene). Or players with some native heritage to do so (Nick Calathes for greece for example). Or even total foreigners that spent many years and do speak the native language at decent level. But hiring total foreigners (mercenaries) in trade for a passport, like many balkan countries are doing, that i am against...

[rikhardur]

I'm for naturalised players when there's actually a valid reason behind it. By valid I mean a player who spent many years in a country's league, has some kind of attachment to that country (through ancestry, for instance), owes much to the local basketball community, etc.. I'm totally against naturalising a player just to fill in a weak position or strenghten a national team (even more in the case of passports issued without the player even setting foot in the country, that's ridiculous). That's why I think replacing Holden with McCarthy in the case of Russia is total nonsense. Has the heritage of Bazarevich, Karasev, Kudelin and others been simply thrown down the drain? It seems so.

[TalkBasket]

I agree with the posts above. National teams are not clubs and they should consist of local players. Players must have some blood ties with the country in case they come from another country. I can understand clubs when they try to get a passport for a player in order to avoid limitations of foreigners in the team but giving passports to random players who have never been in the country and would probably couldn't even guess the flag of it, is not right in my opinion. This is also a part of a wider discussion - what should be the requirements to get a citizenship in general.

[zwbgr]

I bet Bulgaria and FYROM don't agree with you guys <img src='http://www.talkbasket.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[Black Urum]

You probably mean FYROM because Greece (hence Macedonia) doesn't have 1 single naturalised player.



Nor cefurs like Slovenia.