Born and raised in America, I don’t really have an outsider’s perspective on leaving my home country for another place, another culture, another world. I only know patriotism in reference to the good ol’ USA, not an adoptive pot I’ve melted into or otherwise. Developing a patriotism for a new place in my adulthood is a concept out of my grasp.

But basketball players do it all the time. Sometimes they’re born on one continent and move at a very young age where they develop their hoops skills. Sometimes they come to America to play for the NBA, eventually gaining U.S. citizenship. Other times, guys flee their home country to play for a national team despite them ever having learned the country’s official language. Read More »

If you watched Team USA beating Russia over the weekend, you saw J.R. Holden have his moments where he was giving guys like Deron Williams and Kobe buckets, finishing with 17 points against the best collection of guards on the globe.

Holden’s story has been well-covered, including by our own Andrew Katz in Dime #42 (“World Game”): the Pittsburgh native and former Bucknell star was a standout pro overseas when he was approached about playing on Russia’s national team, and following an official stamp of approval from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, took over as the national squad’s point guard. Holden drained the title-winning shot in the EuroBasket 2007 championship game, and QB’s Russia into the ’08 Olympics as their second-best player behind Andrei Kirilenko. Read More »