Scottie Pippen acknowledged the contributions of the Chicago Bulls’ international role players, Toni Kukoc and Luc Longley, in the team’s historic second three-peat. For him, having good foreign players in an NBA squad creates a dynamic that often culminates in a championship team.
With that in mind, Pippen has long been a big supporter of the influx of international talent into the NBA over the past two decades. That’s why he commended the San Antonio Spurs’ team, which won the 2014 NBA title.
Pippen believed that the Spurs had become the blueprint for success in the modern-day NBA by lacing their team with an international approach to the game. He implied that in the following years, championship teams would often be a perfect combination of elite American and foreign players.
“I think it helps the team,” Pippen told Slam in 2014. “I think international players are much more simple basketball players, whereas American players, we are more athletic basketball players. So it makes the transition easier when you don’t have a guy that’s so overwhelming and uses his athleticism all the time.”
“Just playing simple basketball — passing, moving — makes the game simpler. It simplifies the game,” he continued.
Pippen doesn’t put international players above Americans
As it turns out, Pippen was right. In the last ten years, every NBA championship team has had at least one international player on its roster. The previous all-American NBA team to ever win a title was the 2008 Boston Celtics.
Moreover, it’s hard not to recognize the rise of international talent in the league in recent years. Among those who benefited from this trend was former Dallas Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban, who decided to acquire the draft rights to Slovenian guard Luka Doncic after the Atlanta Hawks selected him in the 2018 Draft.
In fact, Cuban went as far as to insinuate that young international players are now way better than all-Americans.
“If we took our best kids and seven years before they are McDonald’s all-American, we sent them over to Slovenia to get an education, the league would be a thousand times better,” Cuban said. “They just learn how to play basketball while our guys learn how to dunk and put together mixtapes.”
Even though Pippen admires most international players, Cuban’s comment did not sit well with him.
“I felt like it was a smack in the face,” the Hall of Famer exclaimed in response to Cuban’s claim. “Definitely was a bit of a racial comment to a lot of the players who have played in this game. You obviously drafted a very talented player… Maybe not a once-in-a-lifetime player, but you’re not drafting players like that every year. You can draft as many European players as you want and put them all on one team. They’re not gonna be able to compete with the American players.”
7th straight season an international player has been named #KiaMVP!
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the 8th player born outside the U.S. to win the award. pic.twitter.com/tStDqbOJFh
— NBA (@NBA) May 23, 2025
Foreign players are dominating today’s NBA
Both Pippen and Cuban have a point. An array of international players have proven that they can play and even dominate on American soil.
At the same time, there have been a number of international players who have led their teams to an NBA title, specifically Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dirk Nowitzki. Other foreign players, meanwhile, turned out to be key role players of their respective championship teams.