New International Precedents

With the recent news of Chris Kaman aligning himself with the German National Team, The BearDown started thinking...What? In case you don't feel like following the link I'll sum it up. The 7 foot Clipper Center who's Great Grandparents were German has received German citizenship and will be playing with the German team this summer in Beijing. This leads me to wonder, what type of precedent does this set. Will we see other NBA-ers playing for adopted nations. I mean, I understand and am on board with the NBA becoming the International Basketball Association. Stern already said he wants to add a Euro division. Though the European game is a little soft, the addition of quality players is a plus. But receiving citizenship to play in the Olympics?

I mean Dirk playing for Germany, fine, Tony playing for France, I'm on board. Wally playing for Spain or Thabo playing for Switzerland make perfect sense. But they've all been there before, already have citizenship or at the very least a living relative who was at one time a citizen. But Kaman's Great Grandparents were German. People he likely hasn't even met before. Has he even stepped foot in Das Rhineland yet or did he take the citizenship test the same way 4Real is graduating from Northern Arizona University from Tucson?

If you want you can make an argument for Emeka Okafor playing for Nigeria. At least his parents are from Nigeria. But he was born in Houston, TX. But American role players never considered for the US Olympic team gaining dual citizenship to play for a different country that they have some connection to. Will Andre Iguodala (born in Illinois) be joining Emeka on the Nigeria squad? Is Josh McRoberts (born in Indiana) going to play for the Scottish National Team? Is Raef LaFrentz (born in Iowa) going to team up with Kaman and Dirk playing for the German squad? Will Nick Fazekas (born in Colorado) be joining fellow American born Kosta Koufos on the Greek team? Will Sam Cassell play for Saturn? The possibilities are endless.