EuroBasket 2025: The Best NBA Players in Action
The absence of the Summer Olympics means that NBA fans will not be able to enjoy the performances of figures like Stephen Curry, LeBron James, or Kevin Durant on the international stage. However, fans still have the opportunity to witness the talent of their favorite stars at EuroBasket 2025.
This tournament, which will be held from August 27th to September 14th, will feature the teams of France and Serbia, who faced the United States team in the elimination rounds of the 2024 Olympic Games, as well as 22 other teams from across the continent. Although not all European NBA stars will participate, the connection between the league and this event has never been so significant. Powerhouses like Serbia, Germany, France, Greece, and Slovenia will have multiple NBA players on their rosters. Given the impact of international stars in the current NBA, the performance of these players in the league offers an excellent guide to their potential in the tournament, and vice versa.
Here’s our ranking of the top 10 NBA players who will participate in EuroBasket 2025.
To create this ranking, the projected performance of each player for the 2025-26 NBA season was evaluated using the estimated RAPTOR system, which combines individual statistics with the player’s impact on the team to obtain an overall measure of their value. In addition, a version of the Basketball-Reference projection system was considered, which takes into account age and past production to forecast the offensive and defensive RAPTOR of any player with minutes in the NBA during the last three seasons.
It is important to note that these figures represent a player’s projected performance for the entire 2025-26 NBA season, so their form may vary compared to what they show next year, depending on the aging curve. Veterans could arrive fresher at this tournament than after 82 games, while younger players could still be on the rise.
Teams are still defining their rosters, and the participation of players like Giannis Antetokounmpo is not yet confirmed. This ranking focuses on the players currently expected to participate.
In any case, the projections give us a clear idea of who could be the protagonists of EuroBasket 2025 before a great NBA season. Let’s go with the ranking!
Editor’s Note: This list has been updated to reflect Lauri Markkanen’s confirmation in Finland’s roster, displacing Nikola Jovic from the top 10.1. Nikola Jokić, Serbia
Age in 2025-26: 30 years old | Denver Nuggets
Estimated projections 2024-25: +7.1 offensive | +1.1 defensive | +8.2 overall
Was there any doubt that “The Joker” would take the top spot among the NBA talents who could lift the EuroBasket trophy next month? Jokić had the highest RAPTOR during the 2024-25 regular season, a distinction he has held for five consecutive seasons. Now he will lead a Serbian team that is the big favorite to win the tournament and that will surely be even more motivated after squandering a 13-point lead at the start of the last quarter in the semi-final defeat of the last summer’s Olympic Games against the United States.
Serbia hasn’t won the EuroBasket since 2001, and Jokić wasn’t part of the team that reached the final in 2017, so a victory would be an opportunity to add more trophies to the player who, otherwise, has almost everything.
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Greece
Age in 2025-26: 31 years old | Milwaukee Bucks
Estimated projections 2024-25: +5.0 offense | +0.7 defense | +5.7 overall
Antetokounmpo has finished in the top 4 of the NBA MVP voting for seven consecutive seasons, winning it twice, although the Bucks have only achieved one championship in that period. He is in a similar situation with Greece at the international level: he averaged 25.8 points in the Olympic Games last summer, but his team finished eighth. He led all scorers with 29.3 points per game in EuroBasket 2022, but Greece finished fifth.
Greece won this event in 2005 and got a medal again in 2009, so, ironically, the emergence of the country’s best NBA player has coincided with mediocre performances in international tournaments. If he receives authorization to play, Antetokounmpo should dominate individually again.
3. Luka Dončić, Slovenia
Age in 2025-26: 26 years old | Los Angeles Lakers
Estimated projections 2024-25: +4.5 offense | +0.7 defense | +5.2 overall
Possibly, the biggest draw of this tournament for NBA fans is the opportunity to see Dončić in significant action for the first time since his much-discussed physical transformation of the summer. Of course, statistical forecasts cannot take those physical changes into account, but they do know that Dončić maintained a relatively stable version of his impact after his surprising trade to the Lakers mid-season, even if he wasn’t as dominant in the first-round playoff loss as he had been in leading Dallas to the 2024 NBA Finals.
After avoiding a significant injury during a recent exhibition game, EuroBasket should be Dončić’s usual showcase. He has been a fixture on this stage since he played for the gold medal-winning Slovenian team in 2017 at the age of 17, and was one of the best players in the 2022 tournament, an early sign that he was about to take his game to an even higher level. Slovenia follows Serbia, Germany and France in the odds table, but a new and improved version of Dončić could be the deciding factor.
4. Franz Wagner, Germany
Age in 2025-26: 24 years old | Orlando Magic
Estimated projections 2024-25: +3.1 offense | +0.9 defense | +4.0 overall
Wagner has long been a fixture on these RAPTOR-based lists, and his presence has aged well. About to turn 24 on the opening day of EuroBasket, he’s coming off the best season of his NBA career despite battling a right oblique injury mid-season. He has already tasted success in these international tournaments: he won bronze with Germany at EuroBasket 2022, gold at the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, and then finished fourth at last year’s Olympic Games.
Although Germany’s roster boasts several NBA players, and could have had more if Isaiah Hartenstein and Franz’s brother, Moritz, hadn’t missed the tournament, Wagner is the main reason Germany has the second-best odds of winning it. And if his 3-point shot has improved as much as pre-tournament buzz would indicate, this could be a preview of another arrow in his quiver for the upcoming NBA season.
5. Alperen Şengün, Turkey
Age in 2025-26: 23 years old | Houston Rockets
Estimated projections 2024-25: +1.8 offense | +0.6 defense | +2.4 overall
Şengün has said he wants to win both the EuroBasket 2025 and an NBA championship with the Rockets this season. Houston looks solid enough, with the fifth-best title odds, after adding Kevin Durant to a young core led by Şengün and Amen Thompson. But Şengün will have to elevate his game from the start to win the EuroBasket for a Turkish team that is tied for seventh place to win the tournament and hasn’t finished better than eighth since winning silver in 2001.
This will be one of the highest-profile international events that Şengün has played in, and as with Wagner, it will be an opportunity to showcase any development in his shooting ability. After making only 23.3% of his shots from distance last season, Şengün’s shot is one of the few weaknesses left for him to correct before jumping to another level of young stars.
6. Kristaps Porziņģis, Latvia
Age in 2025-26: 30 years old | Atlanta Hawks
Estimated projections 2024-25: +1.7 offense | +0.4 defense | +2.2 overall
After a successful period with the Celtics that helped Boston win the NBA title in 2024, the former “unicorn” faces the next chapter of his basketball career. However, before jumping on the court with the Hawks, he will add to a EuroBasket resume that has been inactive for almost a decade. A 21-year-old Porziņģis impressed for Latvia in 2017, averaging 23.6 points and 6.0 rebounds, as Latvia finished fifth. This year’s squad, which also features former NBA players Dāvis and Dairis Bertāns, has fewer expectations with the ninth-best odds. But Latvia finished fifth in the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup and is the main host country for EuroBasket 2025, which should provide a boost in Porziņģis’s performance.
7. Lauri Markkanen, Finland
Age in 2025-26: 28 years old | Utah Jazz
Estimated projections 2024-25: +2.2 offensive | -0.9 defensive | +1.3 overall
Markkanen was one of the most impressive NBA players in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, even reaching the level of performance that made him a possible member of a championship-aspiring core according to historical NBA standards. But last season he experienced drops in almost all of his metrics, resulting in a below-average estimated RAPTOR (-0.5). He is still projected as an above-average player based on his strengths, but he needs to recover this season to return to that stellar trajectory of before. And if his performance in the pre-tournament friendlies is any indication (he had 42 points and 12 rebounds against Poland earlier in the week), Markkanen could be motivated for another great performance in the tournament.
8. Deni Avdija, Israel
Age in 2025-26: 25 years old | Portland Trail Blazers
Estimated projections 2024-25: +0.7 offensive | +0.4 defensive | +1.1 overall
Avdija is possibly the most underrated player in this EuroBasket. He made the most of a trade that sent him from the Washington Wizards to the Portland Trail Blazers last summer, setting new career averages in points (16.9), rebounds (7.3), assists (3.9), true shooting percentage (60.5%), PER (17.7), Win Shares (5.6), estimated RAPTOR (+1.7) and WAR (5.1). Hints of further progress as a shooter and ball handler would demonstrate his persistence.
Yes, he has a history of great performances on the international stage: he was the MVP of the 2019 FIBA U20 European Championship, held in his native Israel, averaging 18.4 points, 8.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.1 steals and 2.4 blocks on the way to gold. Although that kind of team success is unlikely on this occasion (Israel is tied for the lowest odds in the field), Avdija should get good individual numbers.
9. Santi Aldama, Spain
Age in 2025-26: 25 years old | Memphis Grizzlies
Estimated projections 2024-25: +0.4 offensive | +0.5 defensive | +0.9 overall
Spain is a team in transition, and Aldama will be in the midst of all that upheaval. The current champions have won four of the last six EuroBasket and have finished off the podium only once since 1997, when they finished fourth in 2005. However, they fell to ninth place in the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup and tenth in the 2024 Olympic Games, as the veterans who fueled their golden era have slowed down or been eliminated.
The long-time coach, Sergio Scariolo, a four-time EuroBasket champion who has led this team for the most part since 2009, will leave after the tournament. That means that, with the help of Willy and Juancho Hernangómez, Aldama is one of the leaders of the next generation of Spanish stars. He was one of the most improved players in the NBA last season, going from a RAPTOR of -1.7 to +1.8 thanks to a more versatile range of offensive skills (and with better talent to play with on a revitalized Grizzlies team). Even so, Spain is likely to abdicate its EuroBasket crown, occupying a distant sixth place in the odds table.
10. Neemias Queta, Portugal
Age in 2025-26: 26 years old | Boston Celtics
Estimated projections 2024-25: -0.4 offensive | +0.7 defensive | +0.2 overall
Queta registered an impressive RAPTOR of +4.6 in a very limited sample of 333 minutes (11.9 MPG) in 2023-24, but fell to -0.1 in a larger role with 863 minutes in Boston’s crowded center rotation last season. He didn’t exactly have the same team efficiency split on and off the court (+9.4 per 100 possessions) that he had boasted a year earlier. Still, average NBA players don’t grow on trees, and this is a good opportunity for Queta to improve on a relatively high-level international stage.
Other players to watch: Nikola Vučević, Montenegro (Chicago Bulls); Dennis Schröder, Germany (Sacramento Kings); Moussa Diabaté, France (Charlotte Hornets); Guerschon Yabusele, France (New York Knicks); Bogdan Bogdanović, Serbia (LA Clippers); Pelle Larsson, Sweden (Miami Heat); Luka Garza, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Boston Celtics)
