American Whites in Euroleague

The Euroleague competition is made up of 24 teams: 5 Spanish, 4 Italian, 3 Greek, 2 Turkish, 2 French, and 1 each from Croatia, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Each team has a majority of players from its home country on its 15 man roster. However, many players, even stars, play for clubs that do not represent their home country. There is an average of 3 Americans on each club.

You would think that for a continent that is overwhelmingly white, the European basketball leagues would be more friendly to American white basketball players. In fact, that is not true. American whites are rare in the Euroleague.

There are a grand total of 9 American whites in the whole league, and two of them actually play for other countries officially (Ireland and Scotland), and I am including one guy who is probably biracial. I am not including the one white Canadian.

The only ones you would probably recognize are Pat Burke and Casey Jacobsen. The others: Shuan Stonerook, Jared Homan, Adam Chubb, Jobey Thomas, Joey Beard, Drake Diener, and Robert Archibald. That is it, in the whole Euroleague competition. There are 74 total Americans on the Euroleague teams, meaning that whites represent just 12% of the American ballplayers. That sounds low, but it is about equal to the ratio of white to black Americans in the NBA.

However, there are many other Americans playing for other European clubs. However, there are so many clubs in the many different national leagues, it would be a major research project to track them all. To wit:

There are a host of basketball leagues in Europe, clubs organized as part of national leagues, such as a German league, a Polish league, an Italian league, and so on. The Euroleague is the top tier interleague, continent-wide competition, a league for the best of the best, the champions of the national leagues.

Thus, for example, the Italian league has 16 teams, 4 of which also play in the Euroleague. The Spanish league has 17 teams, of which 5 play in Euroleague. The German league has 18 teams, only 1 of which is in the Euroleague.

The Euroleague teams play games in their national league, as well as Euroleague games in between their national league games. The seasons are simultaneous.

The second-level continental competition is called the Eurocup, which consists of 32 teams. The third-level is the EuroChallenge, also consisting of 32 teams. Obviously, the situation is complex, and there are a ton of pro-basketball players in Europe, way more than in America.