Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns announced on Instagram that he will compete for the Dominican Republic in next month’s FIBA World Cup, Chris Hine of The Star Tribune relays.
As Hine notes, Towns’ late mother was from the Caribbean country. The national team’s preliminary roster, which includes Towns, features a handful of other players with varying levels of NBA experience, including Al Horford, Chris Duarte, Lester Quinones and Justin Minaya.
Towns last competed for the senior national team in 2013 during the AmeriCup tournament, according to FIBA. The president of the Dominican basketball federation previously expressed optimism that Towns would suit up for the World Cup, which begins August 25.
Here are some more international notes:
- Former NBA forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is in the process of obtaining Jordanian citizenship in order to play for Jordan’s national team at the World Cup, according to Cesare Milanti of Eurohoops.net. Hollis-Jefferson, 28, played for the Nets, Raptors and Trail Blazers over the course of his six NBA seasons, holding career averages of 9.0 points and 5.5 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game.
- Antonius Cleveland has inked a two-year deal with Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, per a team press release (hat tip to Sportando). Cleveland split last season playing for teams in Australia and Israel. The 29-year-old holds 28 games of NBA experience over two seasons with the Mavericks and Hawks.
- John Holland, who spent 14 months and played 25 games with the Cavaliers from 2017-18, has signed with Israel’s Hapoel Tel Aviv, the team announced in a press release. The 34-year-old swingman is a well-traveled veteran, having played for teams in France, Spain, Turkey, Russia and most recently Serbia (Crvena Zvedza) over the course of his career.
American citizens playing for other countries should lose the citizenship.
Yup, you sure captured the spirit of FIBA.
Clearly, I don’t agree with mr. colon cancer above, but am I right that a player can just randomly pick any country it wants, apply for citizenship, get accepted, and then that’s all it takes for them to be able to play for them in the FIBA Tournament?
Wouldn’t that mean there wouldn’t be anything stopping some country from just “enticing” players to come play for them?
Or is there some limit that I’m not aware of like in the KBO for baseball that states you’re only allowed so many foreign born players on your roster?
I think it used to be you could only have 2 naturalized citizens, but I cant really remember. There was a thing with Anthony Randolph a few years back with that
I was curious so I did some research.
In FIBA competitions, a national team can have no more than one player on its roster who acquired that country’s nationality by any means after reaching age 16. If they claimed dual citizenship before 16 then there’s no limit. So in theory a country could recruit a bunch of kids and grant them citizenship before they turned 16 so they’d be eligible. Qatar in fact has done so. The following article covers this.
link to google.com
Anthony Randolph is a good example as he is an American citizen that was born in Germany to military parents. He played for U.S. National team in 2015 in the Pan America games but now plays for the Slovenia team as a naturalized citizen.
In KAT’s case he does have ties, his mother is Dominican and he started playing for The Dominican Republic’s national team in 2012 when he was 16.
Awesome, great stuff!! Thank you for all the info..
Awesome Towns can’t stay on the floor for the team paying him ridiculous $$$$ and now he’s gonna play for the Dominican Republic????? If he gets hurt he should forfeit his years salary.
Anyone want to start a team from Antarctica? I have a hair maybe with my family roots from there I wish so I need to play for them. Yet nobody will represent USA. Just give it back to the college seniors and tell all these millionaires to just go home and spend your money