Sheffield eventually clinched the league title on a last-second, game-winning jump-shot. That it would be the high-water mark of the BBL wouldn’t have crossed the minds of any of the 11,000 in attendance that day. Nor would it have occurred to those watching at home, live on Sky Sports. Or the sponsors who had thrown their weight behind the league – Budweiser took naming rights that year, but were joined by Playboy and Peugeot – in the expectation of Britain going basketball mad in the new millennium.

And despite it all, British basketball has produced talent beyond its means. Steve Bucknall became the first British NBA player when he suited-up for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1989. Since then, Luol Deng started his career with the Brixton Topcats in London before becoming a two-time NBA All-Star, while Joel Freeland, John Amaechi, and Pops Mensah-Bonsu all had respectable careers in the US. Johannah Leedham, now playing in the WBBL, had a wildly successful career in US college basketball, becoming the NCAA Division II all-time leading scorer.

In 2022 there are British players starring across the European leagues. Sixty-seven Britons are playing in the NCAA’s Division I, the elite level of US college basketball. Yet, these talents all have one thing in common: they had to leave in order to succeed. British basketball has, as Neter puts it, “massive problems with basketball infrastructure that doesn’t allow talent to be nurtured ... by every single objective measure it is massively underfunded.”

For him, the difference is clear. “If you look at any other league,” he says, “the best teams have the best homegrown talent.” British basketball has for decades struggled to retain its top talent and develop them in its domestic leagues. Van Oostrum is just one of hundreds who felt his career was best served abroad. “The talent has always been there,” he adds, “but the way of playing basketball is just not up to par with the rest of Europe.”

Source: The Guardian

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