Brownlee cut above the rest

There are at least 10 naturalized players not born in the countries they represent with no blood line in the four FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments that end today in Latvia, Greece, Puerto Rico and Spain. This excludes those with no lineage but were born in the countries they play for, like Greece’s Giannis and Kostas Antetokounmpo (Nigerian heritage), Italy’s Awudu Abbas (Ghana/Nigerian heritage) and Spain’s Usman Garuba (Nigerian heritage).

Under FIBA rules, a country may enlist one naturalized player. In the four OQTs, Ivory Coast stands out as a team with two US-born players with no heritage 6-10 Patrick Tape born in Charlotte, North Carolina and 6-8 Deon Thompson, born in Torrance, California. Tape started playing for Ivory Coast in 2022 when he was 24 and Thompson in 2019 when he was 31. Neither could’ve received their Ivory Coast passport before turning 16. One of them had to be classified as a local for both to be eligible at the same time.

The other naturalized players are the Philippines’ Justin Brownlee, Spain’s Lorenzo Brown, Georgia’s Joe Thomasson, Croatia’s Jaleen Smith, Slovenia’s Josh Nebo, Montenegro’s Kendrick Perry, Bahrain’s Wayne Chism, Poland’s AJ Slaughter, Lebanon’s Omari Spellman, Cameroon’s Jeremiah Hill and Greece’s Thomas Walkup. Foreign-born players with blood lineage are classified as locals if they received passports before turning 16 or are recognized as exceptions to the FIBA rule of jus soli. These players include Egypt’s New York-born Patrick Gardner whose mother is Egyptian, New Zealand’s Sydney-born Jordan Ngatai and Finland’s San Francisco-born Jacob Grandison whose mother is Finnish.

Brownlee, 36, is by far the top naturalized player in the four OQTs. He went undrafted in the NBA in 2011 after playing at St. John’s University then displayed his skills in three consecutive NBA Summer Leagues, twice with the New York Knicks and once with the Charlotte Hornets. Brownlee joined the PBA in 2016 and has since picked up six conference championships. In the two-game OQT group stage, Brownlee averaged 27 points, 8.5 rebounds and 8.5 assists, shooting .438 from three and 100 percent from the line, nine-of-nine free throws.

Spellman, 26, was Atlanta’s first-round draft pick in 2018 and played for the Hawks and Golden State in two NBA seasons. He became a Lebanese naturalized citizen last year. In the OQT group stage, Spellman averaged 17.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists. Brown, 33, played for Philadelphia, Minnesota, Phoenix and Toronto in five NBA seasons and averaged 8.0 points in the OQT group stage. Hill, 28, saw action in Kazakhstan, Russia, Spain, France and Israel before receiving his Cameroon passport last year. In the OQT group stage, Hill averaged 16 points, 4.5 rebounds and 8.0 assists. Walkup, 31, played in Germany and Lithuania then landed in Greece where he joined the national squad for last year’s FIBA World Cup, averaging 12.8 points. He hit at a 10.5 clip in the OQT group stage. Perry, 31, barnstormed Australia, Hungary, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Greece, Spain and was issued a Montenegrin passport in 2022.