D’Angelo Russell has expressed interest in playing for Lithuania national team
In a move that feels like a mad libs headline, D’Angelo Russell is reportedly open to playing for the Lithuania national basketball team.
D’Angelo Russell is reportedly interested in playing basketball for the Lithuania national team.
As much as that reads like a Mad Libs, it is, in fact, a real news story.
Rokas Pakenas from 15min reported as such on Friday, and it’s about as weird a story as you’re going to hear today. According to Pakenas, the literal President of Lithuania was made aware of the idea by the parents of Bulls rookie Matas Buzelis during a recent visit to the Presidential Palace.
Again, not a Mad Libs.
Now, how would this even be possible? Well, Russell’s partner, Laura Ivaniukas, is of Lithuanian descent. That, then, would be his path to becoming a naturalized citizen, making him eligible to play for Lithuania.
The goal of all of this is for D’Lo to play in the 2028 Olympics, which will take place in Los Angeles.
This is apparently not even news to Mindaugas Balciunas, the President of the Lithuania Basketball Federation, who had a statement on D’Lo as well.
“Russell’s situation is not news for me, we’ve talked about it with his representatives, but we currently have Ignas Brazeikis, so the position of a naturalized player is taken.”
As Balciunas pointed out, Lithuania already has a naturalized citizen on their roster and FIBA rules state you can only have one per team. Brazeikis has been part of Lithuania’s program since 2022. While Russell is a better player than Brazeikis, loyalty likely means something here.
In his defense, Russell clearly isn’t going to be part of Team USA in his career. If his goal is to play in the Olympics, it makes sense why he would want to play for Lithuania to accomplish that dream.
While all of this would be an interesting and fun story, there are a lot of obstacles still in the way. But it’s certainly something to monitor to see if all of this can produce any more Mad Libs-esque headlines and stories.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.