patman66 wrote:nate33 wrote:There needs to be more nuance in the distinction between who is an American basketball player and who in International. Joel Embiid started playing basketball at age 15 in Cameroon but moved to America at age 16. He played in American high schools and American colleges. Essentially, all of his development took place in America so he can hardly be considered an indictment of the American system of player development. He is effectively an American basketball player.
Even Giannis is debatable. He played 2 years in the Greek league, after which, he was still a pretty horrible player. In his first year in the NBA, he averaged just 6.8 points in 24 minutes a game with a TS% of .518. Nearly all of the basketball development that took him from a raw prospect to his MVP form took place in America.
Guys like Jokic and Luka are clearly "international" players because they learned the game overseas and came over here as fully developed players.
It is not just player development, but the values he has. Emblid might have started playing Ball in his teens but played other team sports before that. It is not their development as ball players but their development as team mates and people.
It's an interesting hypothesis, but I don't think the data supports it.
What I think we are seeing is that there are very few guys on the planet who are 6-11 or taller and have coordination. If you look carefully, you will see that the international representation is much higher among guys 6-11 or taller. Nearly all the top international players are really tall: Jokic, Giannis, Sabonis, Embiid, Markannen, Porzingis.
When you are so far out on the bell curve, it's really just a numbers game. There are only about 500 people in America who are 6-11 or taller. There are at least 10 times as many guys available in other developed or semi-developed parts of the world. You are far more likely to find 7-footers with the coordination and mindset to be professional athletes if you are drawing from a much bigger population pool.
As you get to shorter heights, the bell curve gets much fatter. There are 50,000 guys who are 6-8 in America alone. In a pool that big, there will be plenty of guys with coordination and mindset to be professional athletes. At those heights and below, it's no longer an issue of scarcity. The quality of the developmental system becomes more important. And at heights 6-8 and below, we see that Americans are still very well represented among the league's top players.