The (Inter) National Basketball Association: How the NBA Ushered in a New Era of Basketball and Went Global

Description

For most of its existence, the National Basketball Association was a league filled with (almost) all American-born players. Players from overseas were looked at as lesser skilled and not worth the risk. Americans playing overseas were looked at as those who couldn't cut it in the NBA, now playing in, essentially, the minor leagues of basketball. B

Joel Gunderson is a freelance writer whose work has appeared on the Cauldron at Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, NBC Sports Northwest, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Pac-12 Network. He is a former finalist for the ONPA Sports Feature of the Year Award. The author of Boise State of Mind, Joel currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and three kids. Tyler Smith was a three-year starter on the men's basketball team at Penn State and was an Academic All-American. Following his graduation from Penn State, Smith played professional basketball in seven different countries and on four continents during his eleven-year career.