Note: Updated for Toni Kukoc’s 2021 Hall of Fame selection.
The modern NBA is a verifiable United Nations of players, with many of its brightest stars hailing from overseas: Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece, Luka Doncic from Slovenia, Joel Embiid from Cameroon, Rudy Gobert from France, just to name a few. However, their paths to basketball stardom were paved by the pioneering foreign players of the 1980s and early 1990s, such as Sarunas Marciulionis, Arvydas Sabonis (whose son Domantas is now an NBA star in his own right), Drazen Petrovic, Vlade Divac, etc. Notably, during the 1990s, Toni Kukoc from Croatia and German-born Detlef Schrempf were key components of championship-caliber teams for the Chicago Bulls and Seattle SuperSonics, respectively, and early prototypes for today’s long and versatile European players. As basketball becomes more and more of a global game, let us look back on the 1990s and ask:
Who was better – Toni Kukoc or Detlef Schrempf?
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