“Why don’t they take their ass-whuppin like people and go home? …. We’re gonna have a little revenge in our hearts, for ’72 and ’88, but David (Robinson) can’t say that, because he’s a Christian.”
-Charles Barkley The Dream Team
A friend of the blog (and a great follow on twitter Daniel Leroux) was apparently listening yesterday when I talked about questions because he sent me the following:
Question- would a 15-man World team along the rules of the ASG contest (first two years in the league, not born in the US) make the playoffs in the East?
This is yet another good question and it put me in mind of a graph I made a while back:
After a very sharp rise from the late 80’s (the Dream Team’s heyday) to about 2006, the share of player minutes going to non-US born players has reached a steady state at about 20% of all minutes played in the NBA.
What’s interesting is that equilibrium seems fair given the productivity levels of the players.
Thru 1995, it was fair to say that the international players coming into the NBA game were more productive than the average NBA player. From 1996 on, I think it’s fair to say that the population of international players is statistically indistinct in terms of production from US born players.
20% of the NBA Jobs going to international players looks right.
This is even more unrelated
Let’s get to the actual question though. Would a team of Young non US born players make the playoffs in the East or would they fare like the Angola Knickerbockers? And what would such a team even look like?
Let’s get a list of all the non USA players up first (interactive version here).
The All World senior squad (soccer geeks will get that reference) is a tall monstrosity that would be a likely #1 seed. The PG is manned by your choice of Spurs and Goran Dragic. Your choice of Giannis, Thabo, Manu, Mirotic and Deng at the three. And all the skilled bigs and elite rim protection you could ever possibly want.
The Freshman/Sophmore squad is intensely more interesting:
The easiest decision is at the big man spots. Rudy Gobert, Dieng, Steven Adams and Alex Len would quite possibly be the top big man rotation right now in the NBA. The Three is solid with Mirotic and Giannis. Guards is more interesting Schroder has shown himself to be a capable PG with Roberson and Mathew Dellavedova getting the other guard slots. My last three slots would go to Wiggins, Exum and Staukas.
The roster/depth chart for the Young all World team looks like so:
Starters: Dennis Schroder, Andre Roberson, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Mirotic, Rudy Gobert
Bench: Mathew Dellavedova, Andrew Wiggins, Dante Exum, Alex Len, Gorgui Dieng, Steven Adams, Nick Staukas
I love this roster. So much length, size and skill. This is not only a playoff team in the East, it might be a top four seed.
-Arturo
Arturo's Silly Little Stats v2.0 
Andrew Sutton
01/28/2015
I think that the influx of international talent has a lot to do with the previous bias against them (perception of not being athletic and weak mentality) and FIBA rules(three point length aside) are much closer to the NBA rules than NCAA rules(shot clock, three point length, halves instead of quarters). I have a theory about halves vs quarters, does halves diminish the fatigue and/or help with continuity of players more than quarters?
Arturo Galletti
01/28/2015
My personal experience leads me to think that the coaching and practice restrictions on US players play a huge role. A 20 yr old FIBA players end up being way more skilled than their us counterparts simply on account of more reps.
The counter influence is that the best prospective FIBA athletes end up in FIFA.
Andrew Sutton
01/28/2015
So FIBA smalls end up being FIFA talls? That’s interesting. Soccer is much more lucrative so the decision to switch sports is sound seeing as the NBA is slowly bridging the global gap plus the other leagues aren’t as lucrative either. The Euroleague and CBA could be bigger if they didn’t have the domestic restrictions and expanded to the US. Also bring back the Vancouver Grizzlies, Seattle Supersonics and add a Chicago team to the western conference. A Mexico team would be fun too. Move Memphis and New Orleans to the East. Makes no sense to me why the NBA is so small. Probably because New Orleans and Memphis even have a team. Sigh ***climbs off soap box***
Arturo Galletti
01/29/2015
Ahem:
http://wagesofwins.com/2011/10/31/could-your-city-give-a-sports-team-a-good-home/
Welcome brother!
Andrew Sutton
01/29/2015
When I found out the blog, I went back and read every post. So of course I have read that.
Arturo Galletti
01/29/2015
You’ll make me blush
rmummery
01/30/2015
Mr. Galletti: I think that Andre Roberson’s Ugandan nationality is RealGM typo. While his biography on nba.com, which is strikingly similar to the pre-college component of his biography from his days at the University of Colorado, mentions that his father played basketball overseas for eleven years, Roberson was born in Texas during the month of December, and I cannot find corroboration for foreign nationalities or a globetrotting childhood. Eurobasket.com is very much on top of player nationalities, including small Eastern European countries selling Americans citizenship in exchange for a spot on the national team or the strange dual citizenships of athletes from the former Yugoslavia, and it makes no mention of Roberson having any foreign nationalities. In all, I cannot corroborate Roberson’s foreign nationality. I have been following your work for the past couple years, and I hope that this helps.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with any of the website mentioned above besides avid readership of RealGM and Eurobasket.com. Furthermore, my feelings will not be hurt if this post is not published.
Arturo Galletti
01/30/2015
Rmummery,
We embrace imperfection here! Good catch.
I’d take him out, have Wiggins start and add Karasev to the team
rmummery
01/30/2015
Thank you very much, Mr. Galletti. On the subject of international players, I remember that, when you were working on your European Wins Produced data, you mentioned that there were a lot of quality players in the Turkish League, and wondered how it compared statistically. Well, eurobasket.com has data going back several years for a wide array of leagues all over the world, including lots of box score data. Furthermore, http://www.in-the-game.org has position data for the Euroleague; I noticed that you listed Alex Tyus, for example, as a power forward, even though he plays almost completely center for Maccabi Tel Aviv, a fact corroborated by both the statistics and the dreaded eye test. When you have some time, I think it would be really cool if you could check this out, if only so that I can determine whether the Belgian League (home of former WoW darling Jesse Sanders) is truly better than the Polish League!
Andrew Sutton
01/30/2015
Roberson didn’t even make the team but he should have been on the US team though. A lot of this all star debate is trifling.
Andrew Sutton
01/30/2015
My Wiltside thirst is becoming too real…he is on pace to break the single quarter rebound record held by Nate Thurman. This guy has a jumper too. OMG OMG OMG
Andrew Sutton
01/31/2015
Sacramento had Wiltside on a rookie contract of 4 years for $3.8 mil. Riley smartly signed him for two years but that could comeback to bite them if he can play this way with an uptick in minutes and sample size. 2016 doe…they won’t be able to afford him unless they trade someone. This guy is keeping them relevant by himself.
Andrew Sutton
01/31/2015
Last Wiltside comment…something tells me that Miami is holding him back similar to Anthony Davis in college. Davis had this limited offensive game reputation. After reading that bleacher report article, all I can think is about what he said in pre-draft interviews, which is where he got this immature label.
http://m.espn.go.com/nba/story?storyId=5214271&insider=&wjb=
From Chad Ford:
A number of teams reported to me that their interviews with Whiteside were rocky. I can understand why. In the 15 minutes or so I spent with him one-on-one he projected a confidence that bordered on naïve arrogance. He compared himself to everyone from Dwight Howard to Hakeem Olajuwon (with whom he spent a week training), complained about where I had him on my mock draft (No. 14 to the Rockets) and was insulted that our scouting report didn’t have more on his 3-point shooting ability.
Whiteside clearly believes he has the stuff to be great … but my interview with him was eerily similar to the one I had with Tyrus Thomas a few years ago. Thomas tried to convince me he was a perimeter player, complained he wasn’t ranked No. 1 and generally seemed clueless about the rest of the players in the draft.
Like BRUHHHHHHHH if he can shoot, let him shoot. Now he has “tone” down his comparisons to that of Alonzo Mourning. I think he might one of those rare individuals who knows his abilities or he is super confident(which is great for athletes last time I thought smh).
Andrew Sutton
02/01/2015
Nike Hoop Summit is an allstar game featuring high school seniors and U19 international players. The US teams have beaten the world (Oh the world has got to hate that) 12-5.
To me its the best all star game, for a couple of reasons. FIBA rules, the defense is better that the other games, and you are a fan of looking towards the future to see the next great thing( or just current young players), which I am, then this is for you. I know you love the draft so this should fun to watch.
Few Notes from the video:
Young Dirk, who gets compared to Detlef Schrempf, which isn’t that far off (I think it was a coincidence that they finally made a comparison. When I watch him, I wonder if Giannis can be like this and Dirk has been playing the wrong position his whole career. That one moment with him on the break reminds me of Giannis minus the two dribble long strides.
Scola with the whiskers at 18 makes me to check that birth certificate.
Game features a two sport athlete,Ronald Curry, who went on play in the NFL. He was Michael Vick’s best rival in high school. Interesting how one gets to play QB in the NFL and the other gets relegated to receiver duty. I guess the league had reached its black qb quota. (If you don’t understand white supremacy the rest will confuse you)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Curry
The game features two other draft picks. Both of the high school senior variety. Why is there a age limit again? Rashad Lewis makes a few plays. Al Harrington was the number one high school player in high school(If you want to get into recruiting beware player rankings akin to draft boards, both are basically guess and YAY points biased)
Box Score:
http://basketball.realgm.com/highschool/nike_hoop_summit/Boxscore/1998