Britain (and England in particular) are starting to place some good big men prospects abroad. Joel Freeland was a first round draft pick of the Blazers back in 2006, who is slowly making a name for himself in the powerhouse Spanish ACB. Another Blazers draft pick, Dante Cunningham, has also worked out for the British team, although he doesn't have the pre-requisite passport yet. Former Hornets forward Sean Banks is also eligible for a British passport, and supposedly in the process of getting one. And other British big man prospects that you may have heard of include Dan Clark (Estudiantes Madrid, ACB), Justin Robinson (Rider), Eric Boateng (just graduated from Arizona State University) and Matthew Bryan-Amaning (University of Washington).
There's some established talent out there, too. Luol Deng, you know about. One-time NBA big man Robert Archibald is also playing in the ACB to a high level, even if he is Scottish. Former NBA draft pick Andy Betts - a man able to make the CV boosting claim that he was once traded for Peja Stojakovic - is still plying his trade in the Greek first division with Aris, a Euroleague team this year. Ex-Raptors forward Pops Mensah-Bonsu is a stalwart of the national team, and finally found the NBA employment last season that he should have had for the last few years. Michael Olowokandi has a British passport (although we don't want him), as has Steve Nash (whom we sadly can't have). And worse case scenario, there's always Providence's Randall Hanke.
Olowokandi is a tough one to find. He turned 35 last week and has not played since playing for the Celtics for the minimum in 2006-07. After that, there's pretty much nothing. The only thing we know is that Olowokandi was in St Louis last month, and we know this because he said so on his official Facebook fan page, a fan page with four times fewer fans than this one. It appears there's still time to win the competition.
Note: Non-US teams that the player
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split inJapan.
In the event where more than one agent is listed, this is because the
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Ben Gordon finally commits to Great Britain national team
