It’s pretty much been joked about and addressed that the Timberwolves have a lot of white guys on the team. Whatever, if you can play you can play. I’ve seen a lot of white guys play basketball. No, the thing that is strange for me is that there are so many Europeans on the roster.
The Wolves just signed Andrei Kirilenko and Andrei Shved, adding them to Nikola Pekovic and Ricky Rubio for a 4 player European contingent, Compare that to the Wild who have two Europeans on the roster (though it will be bumped to 4 when Mikael Granlund and Jonas Brodin come over).
This is mind blowing for two reasons. The roster in hockey is twice the size of an NBA roster, so there are more opportunities to add a Russian (or whatever) to the roster. Second, watch the Olympics. The American basketball team is so far beyond the rest of the world. The American hockey team is rarely one of the best in the world, and even Canada struggles against Sweden, Finland, Russia, and the rest of Europe. There is more hockey talent in Europe, is what I am driving at, but the basketball talent in the world is largely American.
It’s a fascinating trend, and it seems like an interesting “Moneyball” strategy, finding talent in places other people aren’t looking. We’ll see if it works, I suppose.
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