Which EuroLeague team has the most local players? / News - Basketnews.com

Crvena Zvezda is the most "local" team in the 2022-23 EuroLeague. All 18 EuroLeague teams feature at least five non-local players.

Credit: Srdjan Stevanovic/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images, IMAGO/Seskim Photo-Scanpix Credit Srdjan Stevanovic/Euroleague Basketball via Getty Images, IMAGO/Seskim Photo-Scanpix

BasketNews continue to dive into 2022-23 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season rosters. Following the article about players' nationalities, this time, we take a look at teams with the most/least local players in the league.

Important notes:

As per official data, some injured players are not yet registered, such as Anthony Randolph or Awudu Abass. However, these players are added to the analysis based on provision rosters data. The word "local" means a player has blood ties to the country, not a naturalized athlete.

According to Darius Garuolis' data, all 18 EuroLeague teams feature at least five non-local players. Only five squads have less than nine foreigners.

Crvena Zvezda (11), Zalgiris (10), and ALBA (10) have the highest number of local athletes on their rosters.

Meanwhile, Baskonia have only Daniel Diez as their local player, who has played 17 minutes and 33 seconds in total this season. That amounts to just 1.7% of local players' minutes following the finish of EuroLeague Round 5.

No surprise that Zvezda are leading in such a category. The Serbian powerhouse is the only team that relied on their local players for more than 50% of the playing time (56.6%). ASVEL are second in this classification (49.2%), while Zalgiris are third (42.1%).

On the other side, both Turkish clubs are close to Baskonia. Fenerbahce and Anadolu Efes' local athletes played less than 7% of the total playing time.

Is it a bad trend? Not really, in the case of winning the continental league. For example, in 2017, Fenerbahce became EuroLeague champions, with local players competing for only 4.4% of all possible minutes.

CSKA Moscow stand second here, with 9.1% of locals' playing time in the 2008 first-place season.

18 EuroLeague teams' numbers

EuroLeague team Local players Non-local players % of local players' minutes/Round 5 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade 11 6 56.6% Zalgiris Kaunas 10 5 42.1% ALBA Berlin 10 9 30.0% LDCL ASVEL Villeurbanne 8 8 49.2% Panathinaikos Athens 8 8 29.1% Valencia Basket 8 10 31.5% EA7 Emporio Armani Milan 7 9 21.6% AS Monaco 6 7 24.5% Olympiacos Piraeus 6 9 27.3% FC Bayern Munich 6 9 20.4% Anadolu Efes Istanbul 6 10 6.2% Virtus Segafredo Bologna 6 11 25.0% Real Madrid 6 12 20.3% Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade 5 10 11.9% Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv 5 11 9.3% Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul 5 11 5.1% FC Barcelona 5 13 9.9% Cazoo Vitoria Baskonia-Gasteiz 1 15 1.7% Like what we are doing? Support us by becoming BN+ member.