Curtley
Years ago

Nigeria naturalised players

How does this work? Every man n his dog who will never play for the USA want to play for Nigeria now n they're allowed to. Why are Boomers supposedly only able to choose 'Gday' Matisse or Bryce Cotton?

From the article it suggests Morris AND Dindwiddle are eligible as well as guys with Nigerian heritage and/or passports.

www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/31097946/denver-nuggets-morris-commits-play-nigeria-internationally%3fplatform=amp

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Anonymous  
Years ago

Yeah absolute bs. 15 guys who were born in the USA.

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Anonymous  
Years ago

Okafor visited Nigeria a couple of times lol. If FIBA allow this, it'll open the floodgates for anyone.

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Hanging Round  
Years ago

Yep and all are 21 years old

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Alpha  
Years ago

Lol, the way the news gets around - it should be interpreted properly and it is clearly stated in the article:

Brown provided further confirmation to ESPN but said the process was still some way from being complete and could well fall apart.

Huge difference between intention and being allowed. The rules are clear - 1 (ONE) naturalized player per team so unless they are born Nigerians, their heritage won't matter if they were born in the USA and spent all their lives there.

Okafor represented USA at FIBA sanctioned tournaments so he doesn't clearly qualify. It's all wishful thinking.

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Anonymous  
Years ago

Then you have Anthony Randolph not too many years ago -

The situation surrounding Anthony Randolph, now an American-Slovenian, during the last European Championships is a great example. Randolph had never set foot in Slovenia, played a game with a Slovenian team, had a specific love for the country, or had any Slovenian heritage, but he still got a Slovenian passport and became eligible to play for the team. Slovenia needed a big man to strengthen the team, and they liked what they saw in Randolph and decided to recruit him. And on top of that, when naturalizing him at first wasn't possible, they got someone to change to law of the country, so it was.

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Zodiac  
Years ago

Why are people suddenly acting like this is a new thing, this nudge nudge wink wink stuff has been going on with naturalising players for a long time.

Look at our old Ukranian mate Jerome Randle.

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RobT  
Years ago

and Ebi. He played for Nigeria 2 or 3 Olympics ago.

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Alpha  
Years ago

It's not an issue with a single player but the reference above was to multiple players. Recently the HC of Turkish NT quit because he wanted to play one naturalized player (can't remember the name) and the federation president requested Larkin to be included and he prevailed. Anyway nothing out of ordinary to have a naturalized player on the team, won't change order of things overall. Two and more will become an issue.

As far as I'm aware about Randolph, he was allowed a dual citizenship which didn't exist at that time, so the law got 'tweaked' :)

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Chillbaby  
Years ago

Dontaye Draper - ex-King who naturalised with Croatia another example

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Cram  
Years ago

The example above about Randolph is why they have the one naturalised player rule, as there's plenty of countries that would abuse the system if it were otherwise.

Its different from FIFA where having a grandparent qualifies you even if you're not a citizen, and the difference really is the USA. Having one country with so much depth of talent would destroy the integrity of any FIBA competition.

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Anonymous  
Years ago

Some of those yanks are taking the mickey and it wont happen!

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Anonymous  
Years ago

Half the blokes mentioned in the article are as Nigerian as you or I with most never having ever stepped foot in the country so we talking migrations well before Nigeria was even a country and do they even have records of where there ancestors actually come from? It could be anywhere on that west african coast

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metro & district  
Years ago

Nigeria has been an independent country since 1960 but was formed by the British in its current state since 1914!!!!

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Anonymous  
Years ago

Did they recruit for south beach maimi....perhaps the female boxing team could do with some new recruits...

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Anonymous  
Years ago

Andrey Blatche is another prominent one that springs to mind, the team literally had no guys over 6'5 so they went out and got someone who could fill their gap in the middle. Blatche never actually played in the Phillipines either.

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Tjamu  
Years ago

reminds me of when Australia was begging for Kyrie Irving lol.

was born in Melbourne and is completely American

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