The most recent player to leave the NBA to relocate overseas is Kemba Walker.
The French basketball team confirmed on Friday that the point guard had completed his move to Monaco. The Dallas Mavericks have lost their star player, who has agreed to a one-year contract to play in France in 2023–2024.
Before moving to France, Walker had played his whole professional career in the NBA. The Charlotte Hornets selected the 33-year-old with the ninth overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.
He has now gone on to have a stellar career that has seen him selected as an NBA All-Star four times. Walker has also played for Charlotte, the Boston Celtics, the New York Knicks, and the
After playing in the NBA, Walker is the most recent player to relocate overseas. He now stands beside a long list of the best players to have ever played in a country other than the United States during their storied careers.
Here, Mirror Sport examines five of the NBA’s top names who chose to play overseas.
In 1999, Magic Johnson—possibly one of the greatest players in NBA history—decided to sign with the Swedish basketball team Boras Basket. The team was renamed the “Magic M7 Boras” during the one season that Johnson was a member.
Previously, Johnson had been a member of the Los Angeles Lakers throughout his whole NBA career. One of the biggest talents the sport had seen since Bill Russell and the Celtics in the 1960s, along with Larry Bird, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1979 draft.
The legendary Lakers player first announced his retirement from basketball in 1991 following an HIV test result. Years later, Johnson made an incredible comeback, joining the Lakers again as a coach and player.
Following the conclusion of the basketball game He moved back to Sweden in 1999, having previously left in 1996. Johnson officially ended his playing career in 2000, having started over twenty years earlier.
One of the top players in the NBA in the late 1990s and early 2000s was Allen Iverson, the first choice in the 1996 NBA Draft. The point guard was vying for championships with players like Kobe Bryant.
Throughout the course of his career, Iverson became an 11-time NBA All-Star after being selected by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1996 NBA Draft. After two years in the City of Brotherly Love, he played for the Denver Nuggets.
After that, Iverson had brief spells with the Memphis Grizzlies and the Detroit Pistons before joining the Sixers again in 2009. However, his stay in Philadelphia was brief because he was off to Europe for his next adventure.
