We are recalling all foreign players that have ever played in the League, telling about foreign championships and National teams of different countries in World basketball map project. Today we are moving to Poland.
Population: 38,3 mln
Players in the hisory of League: 45.
Full list of players: Sebastian Balcerzak, Tomasz Bodzinski, Robert Witka, Mikolaj Witlinski, Lukasz Wichniarz, Lukasz Wisniewski, Michal Gabinski, Milosz Gorenczyk, Filip Dylewicz, Sebastian Szymanski, Krzystof Szubarga, Przemyslaw Zamojski, Jaroslaw Zyskowski, Michal Ignerski, Wojciech Kapic, Jakub Karolak, Iwo Kitzinger, Arkadius Kobus, Pavel Kowalczuk, Mateusz Kostrzewski, Lukasz Koszarek, Aleksander Krauze, Damian Kulig, Maciej Lampe, Adam Lapeta, Wojciech Leszczynski, Kacper Makowski, Filip Matczak, Jaroslaw Mokros, Maciej Muskala, Mateusz Podanowski, Marcel Ponitka, Mateusz Ponitka, David Przybyszewski, Lukasz Seweryn, Slawomir Sikora, Michal Sokolowski, Piotr Stelmach, Kacper Traczyk, Przemyslav Frasunkiewicz, Adam Hrycaniuk, Aaron Cel, Michal Chylinski, Piotr Szczotka, Julian Jasinski.
There are 45 players from Poland in the history of the League, only 3 of them – Maciej Lampe, Michal Ignerski and Mateusz Ponitka haven’t played for Polish teams in VTB League (Asseco Prokom, PGE Turow and Zielona Gora). Lampe has played for UNICS since 2009 till 2011, Ignerski was wearing Lokomotiv-Kuban (2011/12), Nizhny Novgorod (2011/2012) and Krasnye Krylia (2013/14) jerseys, and Ponitka has played for Lokomotiv-Kuban and Zenit in last 2 seasons.
Przemyslaw Zamojski is Polish leader in games played in the League (59 games), and Mateusz Ponitka is League’s Top scorer among Poles (380).
Only Maicej Lampe managed to win VTB United League medals among Polish players. He has one silver medal and one bronze medal.
Moreover, there is one Amercian players with Polish citizenship in the history of League – Thomas Kelati. In 2010/11 season Kelati became VTB United League champion as a Khimki player. In the final game against CSKA (66:64) the guard was in starting five and scored 15 points.
Basketball in Poland
League: Energa Basket Liga (PLK)
Founded: in 1995
Number of teams: 16
League’s web-site: https://plk.pl/
There are 16 teams from 16 cities in Polish championship. The most titled team is Slask Wroslaw, they has 17 wins (6 times after transformation of Polish championship into PLK).
After a regular season (2 rounds, 30 games) 8 strongest teams make it to play-offs. Quarter-finals and Semi-finals are played till 3 wins, Finals till 4.
Four Polish teams represented their country in European Cups. In 2019/20 season club Arka Gdynia participated in Eurocup while Anwil, Torun and Legia in Champions’ League. Besides, Polish champions Zielona Gora participated in VTB United League.
There are some individual awards given in the end of the season: regular season MVP, Finals MVP, Top Scorer, Defensive Player Of the Year, Rookie Of the Year and Coach Of the Year.
It’s interesting that all the past decade MVPs are related to VTB United League and Russian basketball. Qyntel Woods (2010 MVP) played for Krasnye Krylia, Torey Thomas (2011 MVP) for Spartak-Primorie from Vladivostok, Walter Hodge (2012, 2013 MVP) – for Zenit, John Prince (2014 MVP) and Damian Kulig (2015 MVP) for Turow, Mateusz Ponitka (2016 MVP) for Loko and Zenit, Shawn King (2017 MVP) and Ivan Almeida (2018 MVP) for Estonian Kalev, and James Florence (2019 MVP) for Astana.
Besides, There are some Russian players that participated in Polish championship. Evgeny Kisurin (Anwil, 2000), Andrei Fetisov (Slask Wroclaw, 2001), Fedor Dmitriev (Arka Gdynia, 2013-14) and Valerii Likhodey (Anwil, 2018-2019).
Interesting fact
In 2013 Polish scout Rafal Szuk became the youngest international NBA scout. At age of 21 he started to work with Denver Nuggets. Before NBA Szuk worked as video coordinator of Poland National team, was coaching staff member of Poland National team U18 and scouting director of Eurohopes.com.
Poland National team
FIBA rank: 13
FIBA members: since 1934
Achievements: Eurobasket silver (1963), and Eurobasket bronze (1939, 1965, 1967)
Poland became FIBA member in 1934 and 2 years later participated in Olympic Games, taking 4th place, and three more years later in 1939 they won first Eurobasket medals. On tournament in Lithuania Poland took 3rd place, outpaced by the host team and Latvia.
The main success of Poland National team happened in 60-s. In 1963 on home Eurobasket Polish players could make it to the final. In decisive game Poland lost to USSR (45:61), and won silver medals. In 1965 and 1967 the Eagles won Eurobasket bronze.
In 21st century Poland National team participated in Eurobasket 6 times. The best result is 9th place that they took in 2009 on home tournament.
In 2019 Poland National team was one of the World Cup sensations. In China the Eagles took 8th place losing to Spain in quarterfinals (78:90), that became World Champions.
Today Poland is ranked 13th by FIBA outpacing such teams as Croatia, Turkey and Slovenia.
The most popular Polish players in history
Marcin Gortat. Seasons spent leader among Polish players (12), point per game leader (9,9) and rebounds per game leader (7,9) in NBA. Moreover, Gortat has 3 wins in Germany Cup (2004, 2005, 2007) and Germany Champion title (2006) as Rhein Stars player.
Adam Wojcik. 8-time Poland champion, 3-time Polish championship MVP and 3-time finals MVP. He is second best scorer in the history of Polish championships (10097 points). Moreover, Wojcik has 4 Eurobasket participations (1991, 1997, 2007, 2009), Belgium champion title (1997) and Greece All-Star Game appearance (2002).
Mieczyslaw Lopatka. 2-time Poland champion, 4-time Polish championship top scorer and 2-time player of the year in Poland. As National team player he became the silver medalist of 1963 Eurobasket and bronze medalist of 1965 and 1967 Eurobasket. After Lopatka retired he became a coach, as a head coach he won Polish championship 8 times.
Mieczyslaw Mlynarski. Polish champion, 4-time Poland top scorer and 5th top scorer in the history of Polish championship (9026 points). In 1979 and 1981 Mlynarksi became Eurobasket top scorer (26,6 and 23,1 points), and in 1982 set Polish championship scoring record, he scored 90 points.
Eugeniusz Kijewski. 4-time Poland champion, 5-time Poland top-scorer and 3-time player of the year in Poland. He is all-time Polish championship top scorer (10185 points).
Dmitriy Kolinov
