Russia was – emphasis on was, the past tense – a great place for Americans to continue their pro basketball careers.
“In light of all that’s happened in the last few months, wow. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of surreal, to be honest. You know, I don’t think a lot of Americans are going to be going to Russia anytime soon. I think that’s probably putting it mildly,” said David Driver, the author of Hoop Dreams in Europe: American Basketball Players Building Careers Overseas.
Driver, a native of Bridgewater and alum of Eastern Mennonite University, spent a week in Russia in 2018 to interview Eric McCollum, the older brother of New Orleans Pelicans star CJ McCollum, for the book.
McCollum starred in Russia for four years before deciding last week to sign with a team in Turkey.
Things changed for Americans in Russia after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that began in February, and then the politically-motivated detention of Brittney Greiner, a top American basketball star.
The Greiner story will almost certainly cut off the pipeline of U.S. players taking up roots in Russia.
The flow of talent from the States elsewhere in Europe is a decades-old phenomenon, as Driver chronicles in his book.
Driver fell into the topic when he found himself overseas after his wife, Liz, landed a job teaching at a university in Hungary.
After dropping his daughters off at school, “I had my mornings free,” he said, and eurobasket.com became his friend.
There were maybe 20 American guys playing in Hungary in 2003, and Driver started tracking them down and pitched stories to American magazines and newspapers.
“The first one, I think, was for Appalachian State’s alumni magazine. There was a guy who was an all-Southern Conference player, Chad McClendon. He was one of the first stories,” Driver recalled.
The stories of the men and women who play overseas seem to have a common theme, from Driver’s book.
“I’ll start at the lower end, a person that simply wants to play one or two more years. They’ve got their college degree, they probably were really good academically, they can come back to the States and start a 9-to-5 job. They just want to prolong that as long as they can,” Driver said.
Then you have men and women who need to make a living. They may have children already at the age of 22 or 23, their spouse or partner may not go with them to Europe.
“This is kind of stereotypical, but for a lot of them, that’s their career, they have to find a job, and what happens is, and I equate it to minor league baseball in the States, what happens in Europe is that maybe your first job is in Romania or Austria or Hungary, which happens a lot, and you try to move your way up, and you basically try to move your way up to the west,” Driver said.
The better leagues, and thus better money, is west.
“You want to get to Italy, France, Spain or Germany. The further west you go, generally, the competition is better, and the pay is better, and the clubs take care of you better, that’s a very generalized statement. But I think there’s a lot of truth there,” Driver said.
You think when you hear that a player from your favorite team ends up overseas that things didn’t work out for them, but that’s not at all the case.
“Just to let people know, generally, very generally, if you’re an American, or North American, and you head to Europe, you generally have an apartment that is paid for, you may or may not have a car that is paid for, and you probably get a meal allowance, so your costs are very few, like maybe your phone, your Netflix. So, you can really do a good job of putting away your money. And a lot of times it’s tax-free in most countries, especially when we were in Hungary. So if you’re really prudent with your money, and you play 10 years, so you make $100,000 a year and you play 10 years, do the math,” Driver said.
“I kind of laugh when I hear sports talk radio, you know, a guy doesn’t get drafted in the first two rounds, that well, he’s off to Europe, send us a postcard, and it’s looked down upon. They don’t realize that these guys and women can make a very nice career,” Driver said. “Now, maybe they don’t get the publicity that they would in the States. I mean, some of the arenas in Hungary and other countries only hold 1,000 or 2,000 people, so it’s a big change in a lot of ways. But you’re getting to see a different culture, you’re getting to see places that you probably would have never been able to see. So, I think you know, if you look at it as more than just basketball, what a great opportunity for people.”
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Chris Graham
