In German club basketball, too many foreign players are allowed; in fact, carrying eight or nine American players on a single roster certainly hurts quite a few Bundesliga teams and may be undermining most. Such an opinion is often heard these days about the free-for-all state of BBL contract rules, but rarely does a player affirm such a few … would you believe this is the view of a veteran U.S. player?
But 36-year-old Quadre Lollis, currently with EnBW Ludwigsburg, has garnered quite a lot of wisdom on the European game and the American players therein, with a CV that includes stints with Vanoli Soresina, AEK Athens, ALBA Berlin, Fenerbahce Ülker, Galatasaray, Oyak Renault Bursa, Oostende and now Ludwigsburg, after his NCAA career with Montana State University.
In an interview with Germany-based Basketball Akademie, Lollis advances just such an opinion, even going so far as to say that the success enjoyed in the 2008-09 season by Alba Berlin (of which Lollis was a member) was due to the *few* American players filling its roster.
Lollis goes on to expound on the proliferation of Americans in the German league, attitude versus experience, the European game in the last decade, and the origin of his (sort of) Spanish name.
Click here to download the interview with Quadre Lollis in MP3 file format.
Thanks to Christophe of European Prospects for the tip!
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Over at