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joema
08/06/2009, 4:24 PM
Watched a bit of NBA last night on Setanta and it got me thinking...

Majority of the players are, obviously; yanks but there was a Spaniard; Gasol, playing for the Lakers, and a Turk, cant think of his name, playing for the Orlando Magic...

So...

Have any Irish players played in the NBA, does anyone know? And I don't mean American-Irish;)
pineapple stu
08/06/2009, 4:38 PM
Pat Burke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Burke)
joema
08/06/2009, 4:40 PM
Pat Burke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Burke)

Col. I remeber hearing his name now that you posted that. Is he the only one, do you know?
pineapple stu
09/06/2009, 9:28 AM
No idea. I've done First Aid duty at a few of the Ireland internationals, and from that limited exposure, I think he's by far the biggest name we have.
Aberdonian Stu
09/06/2009, 12:20 PM
Yeah he's the biggest name Ireland has. Most of the international team plays professionally in Europe from what I recall. We had a solid shot at qualifying for the European championships (called Eurobasket) a couple of years ago but missed out in a playoff. The last campaign wasn't great from what I recall, fell well short of making it.
Dodge
09/06/2009, 12:34 PM
Pat Burke is the only Irish born player to play in NBA. Marty Conlon (who was on the team that lost to Denmark in that play off) also played NBA

Loads and loads of europeans and South Americans in the NBA now. Orlanda have players from Turkey, France and Poland in the 8 or so that get game time during these big games. Lakers only have gasol (from barcelona) from europe but a guy from the Congo and another from China. Without checking I'd guess that nearly every team would have at least 2 non US players. German Dirk Nowitzki made the all NBA first team this year. Other recent europeans to do it include Frenchman Tony Parker.

Spanierd Rick Rubie is probably going to be second in the upcoming NBA draft too

Irish players general play in the second tier of European basketball with only Burke having aby real success. He's played for euro giants like Real madrid and Panathinaikos and last I heard was in the russian top divison