Basketball Betting: Team GB could spring surprises at Eurobasket

Basketball / Ralph Ellis / 04 March 2009 / Leave a Comment

Concern over the influx of foreign players is not only an issue in the English Premier League. There are also concerns that the introduction of European talent to the NBA will lead to American players losing out. Ralph Ellis explains why this might be a good thing for UK basketball...

It's a big issue. Foreign players, coming over on top money, taking up the key positions and blocking the development of local talent. How do the kids ever get the chance to show how good they can be unless something is done about it?

We've heard that discussion plenty of times, but we're not talking Premier League football here. We're talking basketball and the latest developments in the NBA where there's concern over a gradual increase in the number of European players moving in.

There are Brits among them too, with Pops Mensah-Bonsu signing for the San Antonio Spurs in the last week to join Luol Deng, who agreed a five-year contract last summer with the Chicago Bulls worth a guaranteed 71 million dollars.

Both of them will be back over here in the summer to play for the Great Britain team in the European Championships and according to top Spanish star Rudy Fernandez our team could be one of the surprise packages.

On the face of it they should have no chance - yesterday's draw for the Eurobasket tournament in Poland put Chris Finch's GB team in a group with World Champions Spain, plus Serbia and Slovenia. But then again nobody expected the team to even qualify for the finals and Finch's plan is to mirror the stunning success of the GB cycling team at the Olympics through similar good preparation mixed with a few emerging world stars. The ultimate aim is to have a competitive team in place for the 2012 Olympics.

Fernandez, whose own debut NBA season with Portland Trail Blazers has been a stunning success so far, tells this morning's papers: "I think Britain can be a great team. Everyone knows the names of Mensah-Bonsu and Deng, but they also have Ben Gordon and Robert Archibald who I played with at Badalona and I know they have good quality. We see them as potential winners of the tournament and not just the group.

"Last year Britain played very well in qualifying and the team may be stronger again. Everybody speaks about Great Britain as a favourite." However, while Fernandez might see Britain as a favourite, there's no doubt Spain will be the favourite when the tournament comes around in September.

Meanwhile Mensah-Bonsu's Spurs are doing far better than the side with the same name he supports back in London! They are currently [4.1] to win the Western Conference, second favourites behind LA Lakers [1.7]. And they could be good value at [2.24] to strengthen their challenge by beating Dallas Mavericks tomorrow.

Five things you might not know about Rudy Fernandez

1. Born in Mallorca in 1985, his sister Marta is also a basketball player - she played in the Women's NBA in 2007 for Los Angeles Sparks

2. He was the 2006 Europe Young Player of the Year

3. He played in Spain for Joventut where he had a 97 per cent record of scoring free throws

4. He wore a black number ten shirt underneath his Portland shirt in his NBA debut and revealed it after scoring as a tribute to former Spanish player Fernando Martin, the first Spanish player to appear in the NBA, who was killed in a car accident. But the American TV commentators didn't know who he was referring to

5. At home in Spain he plays acoustic guitar and sings with a local band