only team with no international players?

[Fencer reregistered]

One could make the stronger statement that most of the other really good teams have IMPORTANT international players. E.g.,

Cleveland -- Ilgauskas
LA -- Gasol
Orlando -- Turkoglu
Denver -- Nene
Houston -- Yao
San Antonio -- Ginoboli

And that's just one each, or I could have mentioned Parker, Scola, et al.

Nowitski, Nash, and Okur say Hi as well.

International players don't seem too important on Portland or Atlanta, but on the whole international players seem to be important to a LOT of teams.

[GuyClinch]

^^^ There might be good international players but GMs seem pretty bad at picking them. The key to finding good players is pitting them against NBA level competition. If GMs could take the potential draftees and then scrimmage them against NBA players the failure rate would fall WAY down.

With overseas guys your talking about guys who are playing a different game with different rules - and it just doesn't translate to NBA success as often as you would expect.

[ParticleMan]

We went thru a stretch where Euro guys were just plain overrated. Just because they were 6-10 and could shoot 3's everyone loved them, despite the fact that they couldn't bench press a small rodent and had the lateral quickness of a shrub. Also, Ainge tends to draft guys who are plus defenders/rebounders, which hasn't historically been a strongsuit of the Euros. But I think it's more about value. Who knows, as the tide turns, maybe we'll see some Euro guys on our roster in the next few years. Half Erden, for starters.

[theman]

Perhaps the only team still in the play offs.

However:
As best as I can tell

76ers, Clippers, and TWolves

don't have any international players either.

dalembert is canadian, plays for team canada, clippers have kaman he plays for germany since last year. now i dont think celtics need international players at this moment, there are lot of good players especially in europe or argentina but most sucks in NBA, they are superior with fiba rules,in NBA they totally lack the physical skills and the speed.

Dalembert is actually Hiatian, sorry about that one.

Kaman though is very much an American being born in Michigan.

[sully00]

I don't think the Celtics have had an international scouting success since Darius Songaila. (Edit: He wasn't one either. He went to college in the US.)

That said, their domestic scouting and drafting have been very successful under Ainge.

I disagree I think that he has a lot of success not drafting some icic that can't play.

There are good Euros but there are trademarks to their game that are rather non Celtic, slow ass guards who can't defend and tootsie bigs who don't bang in the paint.

Obviously the game over there is evolving as it does here and we will see more bangers, I think Marc Gasol is a very good sign. At the same time I can't imagine a bigger difference in the versions of the game than big man play, if the money is close those guys may just as well stay were they are I can't imagine Perk enjoying playing their brand of ball.

Speaking of Perk he is from Texas that is kind of like another country.

[Fencer reregistered]

despite the fact that they couldn't bench press a small rodent and had the lateral quickness of a shrub.

LOL!!!

[chakdaddy]

Kris Clack over Ginobili, ugh

[francishsu]

Remember this guy?