75 greatest international players ever: The HoopsHype list

After the great success of our HoopsHype75 list, which absolutely no one disagreed with at all, we decided to put together another one focusing on the 75 greatest international players ever. This is a far more difficult exercise than the Top 75 NBA …

After the great success of our HoopsHype75 list, which absolutely no one disagreed with at all, we decided to put together another one focusing on the 75 greatest international players ever.

This is a far more difficult exercise than the Top 75 NBA players list. In that one, it was all legends. Here, after the actual stars on top, you’re often splitting hairs when picking one role player ahead of another and, on top of that, you have to evaluate how to rate FIBA luminaries who didn’t pan out all that well in the NBA or didn’t play in the league at all.

Though we factored in FIBA accomplishments some, we put way more stock on what players did while competing against the very best (that is, in the NBA). And, of course, the focus is on what they achieved and not what they could have done if A, B or C had happened. Facts over speculation.

As with our NBA75 list, we compiled votes from our staff, removed the highest and lowest rank for each player and awarded points 75-1 for the rest.

It was fun to put together.

Let’s jump in.