José Alvarado is a star for Puerto Rico.
The 2024 Paris Olympics begin soon and 12 teams will compete for a shot at a gold medal.
While the United States have a loaded roster and are the early favorites in the tournament, there are several other countries that have a serious chance at defeating Team USA. Some of those competing were actually born stateside but will represent a different flag during the Olympics.
FIBA allows teams to have one naturalized player who didn’t have citizenship of that country by age 16 (e.g. Spain’s Lorenzo Brown, Greece’s Thomas Walkup, Japan’s Josh Hawkinson) on their roster as well as those who have duel citizenship. But there are notable exceptions for Puerto Rico (the “grandfather” rule) and South Sudan (because it is such a new country).
There were far more U.S.-born players on non-American teams during the 2023 FIBA World Cup (e.g. Karl-Anthony Towns, Jordan Clarkson, Kyle Anderson, etc.) but there are still a few worth knowing.
Let’s run through some of the notable names you’ll see on other rosters.
The order is sorted by combined minutes played in the NBA, 2023 FIBA World Cup, and the 2024 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament. Other names to consider include Isaiah Piñeiro (Puerto Rico), Hugh Watanabe (Japan), and Nick Weiler-Babb (Germany).
