The importance of homegrown players has become crucial after Covid-19
At this moment when everything is still unclear for the next season, the best thing that teams can do is to sign as many quality local players as they can. The future of basketball in Europe is related to this important issue and I see smart organizations trying to seal the deal with homegrown fellows. One of the best examples in Europe is Virtus Bologna who signed many Italians during the last weeks. Amar Alibegovic, Amedeo Tessitori are the new acquisitions and now they hit an important target, Awudu Abass who left Brescia Leonessa to join the other Eurocup powerhouse, Virtus.
What is so good in having many homegrown players in your roster, no matter if you are a team from Turkey, Greece, Italy or Bulgaria? Let’s review some of the advantages:
- the salaries of the homegrown players are cheaper than the foreigners’ ones, so it is a good investment. Because building a team means firstly investing in a smart way in the roster.
- the number of quality local players is not infinite. In many countries, there are only 20-30 very good homegrown players and they have to be split between 16-18 teams. The clubs are engaged in a hard battle to bring in those guys. This has to be vital. You can find many mercenaries during the whole year due to the dynamic of the market, but excellent local players are just a few.
- in the case of a virus, like we experienced these months, in all the countries, the homegrown players will continue to stay with the team, because they belong to the city, to the country, to the community. Sometimes the Americans have to leave in the middle of the season for a couple of days to the USA for personal issues and this is normal but it is affecting the whole team.
For all these reasons and many others, I think the best move for all the European clubs, no matter the country, is to stimulate the homegrown players, to invest in them, to give them many minutes on the court when it’s possible in order to help them develop as strong individuals. The focus has to be right now on them, to push them to reach mental growth.
Image: Angel Salazar from Pixabay
Gratian Cormos
