Greatest Euro-Warrios of All-Time: In Honor of Eurobasket 2009

With the completion of Eurobasket 2009 and a strong 5th place finish with Ronny Turiaf’s France team, I thought it would only be appropriate to recognize my all-time favorite Warriors from other countries. I am going to do this in the classic VH1 countdown style. And since I could only come up with about 11 total players even noteworthy, I’m going with my top 10. Here goes…

#10 – Jiri Welsch (Czech Republic), surprised he made the list??? Me too, but it was between him and Kosta Perovic. I think I made the right call
#9 – Mikael Pietrus (France), every time I hear his name I think, “No Pietrus, not another three in the corner!?!”
#8 – Eduardo Najera (Mexico), the guy hussled and had massive juevos, ’nuff said
#7 – Rony Seikaly (Lebanon), I think I liked him so much because he reminded me of Razor Ramon from the WWF
#6 – Marco Belinelli (Italy), solely based on his 40-whatever point performance in Summer League. Oh, if Summer League could be regular league (big sigh)
#5 – Zarco Caparkapa (Serbia), if he stayed one more season, I guarantee I would have bought his jersey
#4 – Manute Bol (Sudan), 7′7″ and the guy wouldn’t stand inside the 3 point line. He was pretty sweet though!
#3 – Ronny Turiaf (France), amazing that he made my top three. Guy goes all out every game – love it!
#2 – Andris Biedrins (Latvia), among my favorite Warriors in recent past. Great offensive rebounder, plays hard, has sweet hair
#1 – SARUNAS MARCIULIONIS (Lithuania), #13 was money! A truly underrated player in the Run-TMC years. Guy drove to the basket with reckless abandon. Been searching eBay for the replica jersey with no luck so far.

So… who am I missing? And Nikolas Skitishvili (spelling for sure) doesn’t count!

Tags: Andris Biedrins, Eduardo Najera, Jiri Welsch, Manute Bol, marco belinelli, Mikael Pietrus, Ronny Turiaf, Rony Seikaly, Sarunas Marciulionis, Zarco Caparkapa