WARSAW, Poland – San Francisco native Kendall Smith, since ending his college career in 2018, has played basketball for pay in Czechia, Belgium, Russia, and Greece, as well as with several minor league teams in North America.
“The biggest challenge playing overseas would be understanding your job and role for the specific team you’re playing for and trying to maximize that,” according to Smith, a product of Deer Valley High in Antioch who played college ball at UNLV and Cal State Northridge.
“Sometimes you think maybe you should or could do more but there will be a rhythm and specific flow your coach is looking for every game and the best you excel in your role, the better things will go for you as a player,” adds Smith, who was playing this season with a team in Athens, Greece before joining a club in China in early December. He scored 20 points in his third game in China, on Dec. 11.
Smith, 29, is hardly alone in learning how to adapt.
The 6-foot-3 guard is one of dozens of NorCal products who dreamt of playing in the NBA but now find themselves thousands of miles away from their Bay Area roots – but making a living at something they love.
There are certainly challenges along the way – like the time Joshua Patton found himself in Ukraine.
The native of Manteca, just south of Stockton, was playing in 2021 with BIPA Odessa in southwestern Ukraine. While heading to a road game, he saw reports on his phone from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv about Russian military action near where BIPA was playing.
“I was freaking out,” said Patton, who is now playing in Poland. “I was on the phone with my agent. Me and the other American on the team were freaking out. We were about 20 miles” from Russian-occupied territory.
The Russian military had annexed part of southern Ukraine in 2014. Even with that backdrop, Patton decided to begin his pro hoop career in February of 2021 in Ukraine – nearly a year after his successful college career ended at Sacramento State. Patton and his team, in the end, were safe during that 2021 road trip. After the season ended, his next stop was more tranquil Lisbon, Portugal and since then Patton has also played in Israel, Turkey, and Cyprus. The Russian military then did a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“It was my first time living in Europe and I got to Odessa in late February to finish off the season and try to help a team that was in eighth place win more games,” Patton added. “Over the next 3.5 months the other American, Randy Haynes (a Virginia native who played at Old Dominion), and I led our team BIPA Odessa all the way to the championship while dealing with poor playing conditions and late payments. We won the championship, and I was finals MVP and Randy got the league MVP.
“Odessa was a nice city and had some nice restaurants which some locals took me to. Over my 3.5 months there in Ukraine, I dealt with some racism which I had not really expected since it was my first time living overseas.”
LEARNING TO ADAPT
Smith, who played AAU ball for the Oakland Soldiers, first joined the Greek Basketball League in December of 2022. Among the famous sites he has been to is the Louvre in Paris.
Several former Cal Bears have played overseas this season, according to EuroBasket.com, including David Karvish (Spain), Justin Cobbs (Turkey), Richard Solomon (China), Jalen Cone (Spain), Fardaws Aimaq (Hungary), Lars Thiemann (Germany), Marcus Lee (Australia), and Grant Anticevich, who is also from Down Under and has been playing there.
Jerome Randle, who ended his playing days with the Bears in 2010, went on to complete in Turkey, Israel, Ukraine, Belgium, Australia, Lithuania, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, and Africa. He ended his career in Tunisia in 2023.
“I can just feel that I’m mentally fatigued with everything that comes with basketball. Once I’m on the court, I feel at home, I feel safe,” he told Sports Illustrated in 2023 just before he retired. “Once I come off the court, man, I’ve got to get up and do the same thing. I’m there. I’m in that space now where I feel like it’s probably time.”
Since playing four years with Cal, Karvish has played for pay since 2015 in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Turkey.
Top American players in Poland can make at least $150,000 per season, according to a source. In leagues such as Spain, France and Italy, former Division I players with NBA-level skills can make at least $500,000 per season, according to published reports.
And nearly all former Division I players in Europe, no matter the country, are usually provided a free apartment by the club and their own car. Sometimes two American teammates will share a car – such as the case with the team in Szeged, Hungary this season.
Los Angeles native Cobbs, who had 28 points and eight assists in a recent game, has also performed in Croatia, France, Germany, Poland, and Russia. Solomon, teammates at Cal with Cobbs, has seen action in France, Japan, Russia, and Turkey.
A rookie pro who began his college career at Virginia Tech, Cone scored 32 points in his first two games after joining the league in Spain. Thiemann is playing in his native Germany after a solid career with the Bears, before ending his college career last season with Loyola Marymount.
“It’s great being back in Germany and playing for Bonn, especially because it’s close to home and my family can watch some games in person again,” Thiemann wrote in December. “I do miss the California weather, however.”
A 7-foot-1 reserve center, Thiemann came off the bench Dec. 14 and played eight minutes and had two points against Bamberg – which played here in Warsaw in December in Euro Cup play.
“The style of basketball is different in Europe, where here it’s often more team basketball and more structured basketball, rather than just individual talent of the players,” he wrote. “With the game being more structured, decisions have to be made quicker, compared to college basketball, where you have more time to run plays and find open shots.”
Cone had 24 points in a game in early December for Menorca, an island that belongs to Spain and has a population of about 90,000. Anticevich ended his college career with Cal in 2022 and has also played in New Zealand and Germany.
MAKING A LIVING
Others playing overseas include Cameron Oliver, a native of Oakland who is now in Australia after playing in China, Spain, Israel, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The Grant Union High (Sacramento) product ended his college career at Nevada in 2018.
Those who have gone from The Farm at Stanford to pro ranks include current ballers Anthony Brown (Turkey), Oscar Da Silva (Germany), Roscoe Allen (Japan), Josh Sharma (Turkey), Jaiden Delaire (United Kingdom), and Isaac White, who has played several years in his native Australia. Da Silva, who also played in the Spanish league, was named to the German squad for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Delaire, after playing at Stanford, ended his college career at San Diego and played in the G League for Maine before joining a team in London.
While former Cardinal Brook Lopez has had a long career in the NBA, those from the same school have also been able to keep their hoop dreams alive.
Brown, who had 22 points in a recent contest, was drafted by the Lakers in the second round in 2015 out of Stanford and appeared in 41 games with the Lakers, New Orleans, and Minnesota through 2018. Since then, he has also played as a pro in Spain, France, Israel, Russia, and Serbia – and that is not an uncommon career arc for some Americans who got a taste of the NBA.
Allen was born in Budapest to an American father and Hungarian mother, went to high school in Las Vegas, played in Spain and has now been a key player in Japan for several years.
Sharma began his pro career overseas in Belgium, then went to the United Kingdom, moved on to Spain and then played in Lublin – in southeast Poland near the Ukraine border – before his current stop in Turkey.
While Stanford product Chasson Randle has played in the NBA G League this year for the Iowa Wolves, some of his former college teammates are able to make more money overseas – if they are willing to be away from family, deal with some coaches who may not speak English well and experience stares from natives who may not be used to seeing a very tall person, or many people of color, in their city.
The U.S. and Europe connections work both ways. The Cardinal roster this season includes players from Turkey and France while Golden Bears player Andrej Stojakovic is the son of former NBA All-Star Peja, who was born in the former Yugoslavia. The Cal roster also includes players from Montenegro and Mali. Cal assistant coach Amorrow Morgan played three years in Europe, including Germany.
Smith, one of the top 100 high schoolers in the country as a senior at Deer Valley, dreamed of playing for pay early on.
“I always knew I wanted to be a pro,” he wrote. “But the blessing I’ve received and all the beautiful places I’ve got to experience I would have never thought it would amount to this much and it’s something I’m forever grateful and grateful God allowed me to experience it.”
Editor’s note: Virginia native David Driver, the former sports editor of papers in Baltimore and Virginia, lived three years in Hungary and now lives in Poland. He is the author of “Hoop Dreams in Europe: American Basketball Players Building Careers Overseas.” Driver has interviewed American basketball players in 16 countries in Europe and can be reached at daytondavid.com and davidsdriver@aol.com.