Non American players to lead their teams

[denial]

I'm (wildly) excited about the lottery and draft.
I don't watch college or overseas ball.
All of my pre-draft scouting is basically done by reading realgm forums.

So, all this talk of Doncic vs Ayton had me pondering the following topic.

Who are, if any, the non American players to be the unequivocal leaders of great NBA teams (preferably to the finals)?
I am no NBA historian, and I'm probably missing someone super obvious, but all that comes to mind for me is:
Parker/Ginoboli: both have been amazing but neither were the "main guy" on their championship teams.
Sabonis: I barely remember seeing him play. I remember thinking he went hard. But iirc he was the #2 or #3 guy on that blazers team.

Just about to post this and Vlade Divac popped in my head. He was pretty dominant on that Kings team but, like the others, played second fiddle to Weber iirc.
I love Pau even though some people hate on him fairly hard. But again, never the main guy.

Kobe is kinda international.

Yao? He was paired with TMac but he was pretty dominant for one or two of those seasons.

Hakeem or Minute?

Every year I hear about these great international prospects who are supposed to be future NBA greats. For us I remember when we drafted Bogdonavic he was supposed to be some future superstar. I remember someone on this board going nuts over that Australian center (forget his name EDIT: Andrew Bogut) saying he'd be a future HOF center.

But I kinda wonder if the American is the better choice by default, all other things being equal (or even if you just cannot decide between two players, like Doncic and Ayton)?

Also, I dont know if its better to ask about "non americans" or specifically Europeans. Because based on my quick list above, I wonder if the non Euros were more successful/impactful (Hakeem, Yao, etc)? I'm sure I'm overlooking some fairly obvious big names that I'm just not thinking about.

To summarize: please name some non American (or maybe focus on Europeans specifically) NBA players who were the #1 option on great teams and offer your thoughts on how this might affect our thoughts on Doncic vs Ayton.

From what I am reading, it seems like this draft is stacked and we are going to win big (draft-wise) no matter what. And now that we have a good coach (according to what I've read here), I expect these high picks to start yielding quite a bit more, quite a bit earlier. I am so optimistic. It's actually a fun time to be a Suns fan.

[Saberestar]

Dirk Nowitzki.

[bwgood77]

Dirk Nowitzki. Both Gasols when in Memphis were the main guys pretty much, especially Pau, though they were never contenders.

[denial]

Ah yes, Dirk! I knew there would be some glaringly obvious name I hadn't thought of.

[denial]

Dirk Nowitzki. Both Gasols when in Memphis were the main guys pretty much, especially Pau, though they were never contenders.

Yeah those Memphis teams don't really meet the standard of great.
I think Dallas meets the standard for me. They weren't a dynasty per se, but they were really good for a long time through many variables with Dirk being the single constant.

Think of the great players that lead their teams to finals. Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, Steph, Lebron, Duncan, Bird, Magic, Barkley, Nash, AI, etc.. Dirk fits on this list. I want Pau to fit on this list, but I don't think he does.

EDIT: I said "lead their teams to finals" and I listed Nash. The PTSD of being a Suns fan can affect our memories and cloud our version of "reality".

[bigfoot]

Nash (MVPx2), Duncan (MVPx2), Hakeem (MVP), Dirk (MVP), and Yao are all examples of high quality foreign born players who played their high school years outside of the US. Some came to the US for college and others did not. A lot of promising foreign players have moved to the U.S. to play high school ball too (e.g., Horford, Embiid).

Twenty years ago the NBA was made up of about 7% international players and now its closer to 30%. I imagine the list will grow with players like the Greek Freak, Zinger, Markkanen, and Doncic. I would not discount drafting an international player first overall just because the list isn't long. Personally, the foreign born players are more skilled and better shooters than most of one-and-done players we've seen lately.

[Bogyo]

Parker on the Spurs in Timmys last couple years was the main guy - with Manu behind him.

[jcsunsfan]

Tim Duncan. US Virgin Islands. Not sure if that counts or not.

[saintEscaton]

Drazen Petrovic, Aryvdas Sabonis, Peja Stojakovic,Patrick Ewing, Ronaldo Blackman(before Dirk), Andrei Kirlienko(during defensive peak) Nikola Jokic(this season), Goran Dragic(this season)

[Bogyo]

Drazen Petrovic, Aryvdas Sabonis, Peja Stojakovic,Patrick Ewing, Ronaldo Blackman(before Dirk), Andrei Kirlienko(during defensive peak) Nikola Jokic(this season), Goran Dragic(this season)

Plus imagine Sabonis if he came over 5-10 years earlier, and not shot himself in the knee while he was drunk (as per usual for him during those times). He would have whooped some major azz in the NBA.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Ayton is a non-American so you'd have to argue for Bagley over Ayton or Doncic.

[GMATCallahan]

Olajuwon and Nowitzki meet the criteria the best; they were MVP players and elite scorers who led their teams to championships (two championships in Olajuwon's case) and multiple NBA Finals appearances. Frankly, I have wondered for at least a decade whether Olajuwon at his peak might have been better than Jordan at his peak (consider defensive value, even though Jordan might have constituted the greatest defensive guard in history), providing a reminder of how trivial and myopic the "Jordan versus LeBron" debate happens to be. One could arguably claim "neither" and debate, say, "Kareem versus Hakeem" instead, but one has to understand the game of basketball—especially on the defensive end—in order to do so. And given that the basketball media generally covers the game like a reality show, that kind of understanding rarely comes across.

Duncan is technically an American, not a foreign-born or foreign-raised player, but his non-continental upbringing differed significantly from that of most American players. Hence in a looser sense he qualifies, and he would be up there with Olajuwon and Nowitzki. (Duncan was, of course, a greater total player than Nowitzki, again largely for defensive reasons.)

Ewing was born in Jamaica and spent the first dozen years of his life there, but he spent his teenage years in the US, so he only partly qualifies to me. Nash qualifies, especially since the NBA had never really featured a Canadian player before (Rick Fox had been born there yet grew up in the Bahamas), even though Canada is decidedly non-exotic as far as ‘foreignness’ is concerned. But Nash would reside a rung below Olajuwon, Nowitzki, and Duncan in the sense that he never played in an NBA Finals, let alone won a championship, although he may have done so had the NBA not infamously suspended Stoudemire and Diaw in 2007. Then again, Nash still possessed a chance to lead the Suns over the top in that Western Conference Semifinals series versus San Antonio, but he failed to score 20 points in either Game Five or Game Six, two contests that the Suns lost by a combined total of just 11 points.

Kobe Bryant, as the son of an African-American NBA player and as someone who attended high school in the US, does not truly qualify in my view. Yao Ming qualifies, but he never played in a conference finals and only advanced past the First Round once.

The rest of the players listed in this thread ranged from very good shooters/scorers to good complementary players or defensive role players (such as Manute Bol), but no one who could really claim the mantle. If Drazen Petrovic had not perished in that car accident in 1993 at the age of twenty-eight, he might have rivaled Reggie Miller for the next few years.

To the larger point, foreign players have shown themselves to be perfectly capable. As with American players, matters ultimately come down to judging the individual, not the type.

[juanc]

Guys let's not concentrate on the past, but let's look at how it looks now.

Giannis was the leader of the Bucks who made the playoffs
Porzingis would have led the Knicks to the playoffs if he wouldn't be injured
Dragič led the Heat to the playoffs
Jokič almost led the nuggets to the PO
Utah wouldn't be the same team without 3 international starters(Gobert, Ingles, Rubio)
Šarič plays an important role in the 76ers and I'm sure that every team would love to have him on their roster
Lauri is probably the best player on the Bulls roster

I think that the gap between international and the us players has closed a bit in recent years and I think there will be more international players in the NBA in the future.
Lebron, Wade and Bosh knew eachother and they wanted a ring and they made it. Now imagine if Gobert, Giannis and Porzingis would chose to form a superteam. they would have been contenders without a doubt

[GMATCallahan]

The question really pertains not to whether a player is foreign-born or foreign-raised, but whether teams have first observed him in an American basketball context (namely the NCAA). For instance, Hakeem Olajuwon, Detlef Schrempf, Dikembe Mutombo, Tim Duncan, and Steve Nash (plus Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons for one year apiece) had all excelled in US college basketball, thus rendering their foreign (or quasi-foreign) backgrounds largely moot. (There were some questions regarding Nash because he played in a minor conference at Santa Clara, but he had displayed his ability against non-conference competition, especially in the NCAA tournament.)

If a guy is foreign-born and foreign-raised and has not played in the NCAA, many teams will harbor more questions. These questions will be reduced if the player is a seasoned twenty-something (or even thirty-something) professional and a veteran of international competition—Vlade Divac, Sarunas Marciulionis, Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja, Toni Kukoc, Arvydas Sabonis, Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola. Conversely, if the foreign player is young and largely unproven, some teams will hesitate, as in the case of Tony Parker, fearing the busts that later occurred with Nikolaz Tskitishvili and Darko Milicic. In other words, when in doubt, some franchises have fallen back on the familiar, trusting the American or NCAA product as opposed to the pure import. The truth, however, is probably that the bust rate is similar with American or NCAA players, yet people pay more attention to the foreign busts because clubs selected them in favor of something much more familiar. In effect, when you appear to take a greater risk, you will receive greater criticism should the reward fail to materialize.

[GMATCallahan]

Guys let's not concentrate on the past, but let's look at how it looks now.

Giannis was the leader of the Bucks who made the playoffs
Porzingis would have led the Knicks to the playoffs if he wouldn't be injured
Dragič led the Heat to the playoffs
Jokič almost led the nuggets to the PO
Utah wouldn't be the same team without 3 international starters(Gobert, Ingles, Rubio)
Šarič plays an important role in the 76ers and I'm sure that every team would love to have him on their roster
Lauri is probably the best player on the Bulls roster

I think that the gap between international and the us players has closed a bit in recent years and I think there will be more international players in the NBA in the future.
Lebron, Wade and Bosh knew eachother and they wanted a ring and they made it. Now imagine if Gobert, Giannis and Porzingis would chose to form a superteam. they would have been contenders without a doubt

Actually, the Knicks were just 23-32 after Porzingis had played his final game on February 6, meaning that they almost certainly would not have reached the playoffs regardless.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/porzikr01/gamelog/2018

https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201802060NYK.html

That said, I concur with your overall point about the efficacy of international players in the contemporary NBA.