What Is The Best 10-Man Rotation Using NBA Players Of 10 Different Nationalities?

The NBA Africa game this past weekend was a great exhibition of the global talent of the NBA as the World team took on the Africa team in Johannesburg, South Africa. Players from 14 different nations competed in the game that celebrated the diversity of the NBA and the deep ties many have to African nations.

The game featured plenty of highlights and off the court the players and coaches involved helped build homes and work in the community. It also sparked an intriguing question from NBA player Nicolas Batum, from France, who asked his Twitter followers to come up with the best possible 10-man rotation — a full first and second unit — made up of players from 10 different nationalities.

It’s an interesting thought exercise and one we thought we’d take a little time on to try and come up with the best team possible. The process of creating the team has to start with figuring out the best players from each country, and then determining which belong in what positions.

The NBA kindly has a list, sorted by country, of all 113 international players that were in the league in 2016-17, which helps expedite this process. This is our list, broken down by country, of the top player (or few players, depending on the depth of the country) from each of the 40 countries outside of the United States that have an NBA player.

Argentina: Manu Ginobili (SG)
Australia: Ben Simmons (PG?) [Kyrie Irving is technically listed as well, but since he plays for Team USA we won’t consider him]
Austria: Jakob Poeltl (C)
Bahamas: Buddy Hield (SG)
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Jusuf Nurkic (C)
Brazil: Nene (C)
Cameroon: Joel Embiid (C)
Canada: Andrew Wiggins (SG/SF), Tristan Thompson (C/PF)
Cape Verde: Walter Tavares (C)
Congo: Serge Ibaka (C)
Croatia: Dario Saric (PF)
Czech Republic: Tomas Satoransky (SG)
Democratic Republic of Congo: Bismack Biyombo (C)
Dominican Republic: Karl-Anthony Towns (C), Al Horford (C) [Towns plays for the Dominican National Team]
France: Rudy Gobert (C), Evan Fournier (SG), Nicolas Batum (SF)
Georgia: Zaza Pachulia (C)
Germany: Dirk Nowitzki (PF), Dennis Schröder (PG)
Greece: Giannis Antetokounmpo (SF)
Haiti: Skal Labissiere (C)
Israel: Omri Casspi (SF)
Italy: Danilo Gallinari (SF)
Latvia: Kristaps Porzingis (PF)
Lithuania: Jonas Valanciunas (C), Domantas Sabonis (PF)
Mali: Cheick Diallo (PF)
Montenegro: Nikola Vucevic (C)
New Zealand: Steven Adams (C)
Nigeria: Festus Ezeli (C)
Poland: Marcin Gortat (C)
Puerto Rico: J.J. Barea (PG)
Russia: Timofey Mozgov (C)
Senegal: Gorgui Dieng (C)
Serbia: Nikola Jokic (C)
Slovenia: Goran Dragic (PG)
South Sudan: Luol Deng (SF), Thon Maker (PF)
Spain: Marc Gasol (C), Pau Gasol (PF), Ricky Rubio (PG)
Sweden: Jonas Jerebko (PF)
Switzerland: Clint Capela (C), Thabo Sefolosha (SF)
Turkey: Enes Kanter (PF)
Ukraine: Alex Len (C)
Venezuela: Greivis Vasquez (PG)
It doesn’t take long to realize that the biggest difficulty in this exercise will be filling out a backcourt, as the international pool is loaded with talent at center and power forward, with far less depth at the guard spots. Whenever you find one of these hypothetical “build the best team” situations I always find myself struggling with semantics like whether to make the best team for right now or the team I’d want for the next five years.

So, this team balances the two, with a look to the future, while also a nod to players that we know can produce over projecting players we haven’t seen — hence Ben Simmons being left off in favor of Ricky Rubio, which will probably be proven to be the wrong move within the next few years.

PG: Goran Dragic (Slovenia)
SG: Andrew Wiggins (Canada)
SF: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece)
PF: Kevin Durant (USA)
C: Joel Embiid (Cameroon)

PG: Ricky Rubio (Spain)
SG: Evan Fournier (France)
SF: Danilo Gallinari (Italy)
PF: Kristaps Porzingis (Latvia)
C: Karl-Anthony Towns (Dominican Republic)
Let’s start with the rationale behind the easier choices. Antetokounmpo was a lock, as was Dragic — for either the first or second team as the best international point guard at this moment, pending choice of a U.S. player. As noted above, the lack of depth at the guard and even small forward spot from the international ranks meant a strong starting caliber player like Andrew Wiggins and Danilo Gallinari from a country with little depth were almost guaranteed spots. Porzingis was also a pretty easy choice for the second power forward slot.

The rest of the selections were a bit tougher. Rubio lands a spot over the Gasol brothers from Spain simply due to depth at their positions compared to point guard. Evan Fournier also made the squad over fellow Frenchman Rudy Gobert for the same reason in what was a very tough decision to leave Gobert off the squad — I also took Fournier over Batum for this team’s desperate need for outside shooting.

Taking Embiid is an admitted risk, but if he is healthy, his abilities on both the offensive and defensive ends make him a perfect fit for this squad. Karl-Anthony Towns became an absolute monster on the offensive end last year and I believe he has the skills to be a top-10 player in the league, so he lands a spot over Gobert in order to bring Fournier onto the roster.

As for Kevin Durant as the representative for the United States, I am a firm believer in LeBron James still being the best basketball player in the world by a slim margin over Durant, but for this team, with Wiggins and Antetokounmpo, shooting is a significant need and Durant fits that need more than James does.

I’m sure you all will have issues with this squad, I’m not even sure I love it myself, but feel free to let us know who your 10-man, 10-nationality squad would be in the comments. As for Nicolas Batum, his team would look like this.