Having played point guard through college and the professional ranks, Michigan native Matt Van Pelt was used to taking instructions from his coaches; he’d always been expected to control the action on the court and could be counted on to do so. But, late in his professional career and in only his second game with a team in Thailand (that will remain unnamed), Van Pelt’s coach gave him an instruction unlike any he’d ever received before—dribble the ball off your foot. The coach explained that they needed to win by less than 26. Coach had money on the game. Play resumed, and Van Pelt—wanting no part of his coach’s scheme—promptly drained a three-pointer. He finished the game with around 25 points in a big win. He was cut from the team immediately thereafter. Then he started receiving messages that he should leave the country.
For decades, American hoopers have gone overseas to pursue their basketball dreams. They have different reasons for heading abroad. Former NBAers on the tail end of their playing careers can eke out a few more years playing at a high level. Borderline NBA talents can make more money overseas. For others, overseas leagues provide their only opportunity to make a living playing the game they love. But for these others, carving out a professional basketball career can be both risky and rewarding. Using the experiences of three current and former overseas pros—Matt Van Pelt (former player and current coach), Howie Rankine, Jr. (current player), and Marcus Hall (current player)—this article examines the pros and cons of pursuing a career playing ball overseas.
Going Pro
Those who pursue professional basketball careers face long odds. According to 2024-2025 studies, 540,704 men and 356,240 women played high school basketball. The NCAA estimated that only 19,617 (3.6 percent) of those men and 16,823 (4.7 percent) of those women would go on to play NCAA basketball. Of those NCAA players, an estimated 21.8 percent of the men and 9.1 percent of the women would continue their careers at the professional level. (These statistics do not account for those who went on to play junior college or NAIA basketball; given the NCAA’s preeminent standing in college athletics, it’s safe to assume that statistics are even less promising for aspiring pros who played college ball at only the junior college or NAIA level.)
Players talented (and fortunate) enough to beat those odds take a number of very different paths to pro roster spots. High-profile players (like former NBA players and high-level NCAA Division I players) have it easiest; their resumes speak for themselves. Overseas team executives know who these players are and would love to have them.
By contrast, the lesser-knowns and straight up unknowns—former junior college players, NAIA players, lower-division NCAA players—need to market themselves. Some market themselves directly to team executives, while others market themselves to agents who can help them land contracts. Oftentimes, opportunities come with a price.
Some aspiring pros pay hundreds of dollars in registration fees to play in exposure camps. While some camps are legit, stories abound of scammers holding camps and filling the stands with random acquaintances posing as agents and team executives. Other hoopers pay $1,000 or more to play in overseas tours in front of team executives. Others try it all until they (hopefully) catch a break.
Matt Van Pelt is one of those few small college players who made it—and one of the even fewer to carve out a lengthy professional career. Van Pelt played college ball at Spring Arbor University, a small NAIA school in Spring Arbor, Michigan. Playing for a team-oriented coach, he averaged around seven points and six assists throughout his college years. While those numbers are certainly respectable, they don’t catch the eyes of pro scouts. To boot, Van Pelt is a five-foot-nine white guy. That doesn’t even help getting on the court for a pick-up game at a local gym, let alone landing a pro contract.
So after Van Pelt graduated in 2013, he did everything he could to market himself. He paid $150 to try out with a G-League (the NBA’s minor league) team in Detroit. And he paid his own way to play in an exposure camp in Miami. Those efforts didn’t pan out. But after Van Pelt posted his basketball resume to a recruiting website only a month or so after his graduation, an agent contacted him and helped him land a contract in Australia.
Even though Howie Rankine, Jr., and Marcus Hall both played small college ball in Pennsylvania and then as teammates on the Central Pennsylvania Kings of the American Basketball Association (a semi-pro league in the U.S.), they took very different routes to their overseas careers.
In 2024, Rankine wrapped up a successful college basketball career while earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Susquehanna University and Widener University, respectively. Though an all-conference performer, Rankine faced an uphill battle turning pro by having played at the NCAA Division III level and standing only six-feet flat. He acknowledges that he had “a little bit of luck” in making his way overseas. He found an agent through a “friend of a friend” in his basketball circle. During his first summer out of college, his agent worked on finding him an overseas contract while Rankine continued working on his game and pursued Jamaican citizenship (he was eligible because his father is a citizen). Like many U.S. hoopers, he hoped to bolster his basketball resume by obtaining dual citizenship.
A large majority of professional basketball leagues outside the United States limit the number of foreign players who can be on a team’s roster or be on the court at the same time. While rules vary league to league, a limit of two foreigners (referred to as “imports”) is typical. Americans who aspire to play professional ball abroad can increase their chances by obtaining dual citizenship—and a foreign passport—to bypass those import limits and fill one of the more numerous domestic roster spots.
The most highly-prized foreign passport is commonly known as a “Bosman passport”—a nod to Jean-Marc Bosman, a Belgian soccer player whose legal battle in the European Court of Justice opened doors for athletes throughout the European Union. In 1990, Bosman’s contract with his Belgian soccer club expired and he attempted to sign with a French club. The Belgian soccer club demanded that the French club pay a transfer fee, but the French club refused. Bosman filed suit in the European Court of Justice claiming that the Belgian club’s demands constituted a restraint of trade. The court agreed—and went even further, ruling that European Union regulations also barred leagues in European Union member states from limiting the number of roster spots that could be filled by foreign players from other European Union member states. What does this mean for overseas hoopers? It means that once an American basketball player obtains citizenship in one European country, he or she is treated as a domestic player—and not subject of import limitations on rosters—in other European Union countries.
With Jamaican citizenship, Rankine would obtain a “Cotonou passport”—another passport that gives him far more opportunities to play overseas than Americans who have only U.S. passports. The Cotonou Agreement is a treaty between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) aimed at “poverty eradication, sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy.” Like a Bosman passport, a Cotonou passport opens doors for U.S. basketball players, making them eligible for domestic roster spots they could not otherwise fill.
That first year out of college, Rankine was working against the clock. While some overseas leagues start at different times of the year, most rosters are filled by July or August. A hurricane that blew through Jamaica delayed Rankine’s efforts to obtain his Cotonou passport until October 2024. Knowing that it would be incredibly difficult to go overseas at that point, Rankine latched on with a couple local semi-pro teams to stay sharp. He spent that 2024-2025 season playing for the Central Pennsylvania Kings and the Reading Rebels of The Basketball League (TBL). At the same time, he picked up any work he could to make ends meet—youth basketball training, house painting, even DoorDash delivery. He did all this without any guarantee it would pay off and lead to an overseas job. Fortunately, it did.
The next summer—Cotonou passport in hand—Rankine signed a contract to play in Germany with the Grevenbroich Elephants. Germany has one of the most structured basketball systems in the world; with a six-level hierarchy of leagues, players have opportunities to enter a league suitable for their talent level and earn future opportunities to play at higher levels, which typically come with larger paychecks.
And that’s exactly what Rankine did. He moved to Germany in mid-August 2025 and stayed until mid-April of 2026. Rankine was effusive in describing his experiences with the Elephants and German pro basketball. “Germany does things the right way,” he said. In addition to his salary, the club provided him with living accommodations, a car, and meals. His total compensation amounted to approximately $2,500 per month. He lived in an apartment on the top floor of a three-story complex and an older couple on the first floor made his meals. “They became like my German grandparents,” Rankine said.
A relatively small town about a half-hour train ride from Dusseldorf, Grevenbroich provided Rankine with a quiet environment where he could continue working on his game. The team typically practiced three nights per week—usually 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. so the German players who held day jobs could make it to practice—and played their games on Saturdays. That left Rankine with quite a bit of downtime. He got a key to the gym and made good use of it, working out every day. When he needed a change of scenery, he was able to explore a bit of Europe—making day trips to Amsterdam, Belgium, and Milan.
Rankine’s hard work paid off. He earned several accolades for his play, including Player of the Year honors for the West Division of the Regionalliga, the fourth tier of Germany’s pro system. It was the type of season that typically leads to bigger and better opportunities. After the season, Rankine initially relied on his agent to find that next opportunity. In short time, however, he “started getting antsy,” Rankine admitted. He “felt the need to be proactive” and started reaching out to teams on his own. In the end, though, his agent came through and got Rankine an offer from a team in the ProB—Germany’s third-tier league. The salary increase was not quite what Rankine was looking for, so he passed. His patience paid off, as his agent obtained a second offer from another ProB team, the Iserlohn Kangaroos. Rankine signed the contract and, just last month, left for his second pro season in Germany.
Marcus Hall—Rankine’s former teammate with the Central Pennsylvania Kings—didn’t have quite as much luck in his early career. At 27 years old, Hall—an athletic, six-foot-four-inch forward—has taken a long and winding road to his first overseas stint. He played for Juniata College (another NCAA Division III school) from 2017 through 2021, averaging as many as 8.1 points per game and 5.2 rebounds per game before COVID-19 restrictions cut his college career short. The pandemic also killed virtually any opportunity to get an overseas contract; leagues around the world simply came to a standstill.
But Hall kept working on his game, playing in the ABA with the Kings and in the TBL with the York Mighty Ants. At the same time, he worked as a basketball coach and basketball camp counselor while also using his degree in social work to work as a behavioral health specialist in a pediatric psychiatric hospital. All the while, Hall scanned social media for any overseas opportunities that might work.
Hall’s hard work also paid off. He recently spotted a social media post indicating that a basketball acquaintance who’d become an agent had partnered with a new professional league in Mexico—La Liga de Desarrollo Antorcha Oaxaca (Torch Development League Oaxaca). Hall reached out to express his interest in joining the league and, in short time, signed a contract with a team called Guerreros BC. The team pays Hall a salary while covering his housing and meals.
Hall left for Mexico (for the first time ever) on July 21 to be there for the July 30 start of the roughly three-month season. His wife joined him for the season. Asked about how he prepared for his first season overseas, Hall explained, “I’ve been doing a lot of research on the area. Staying consistent in the gym.” Highlights posted to Instagram show Hall excelling with his new team.
Risky Business
Pursuing a professional basketball career overseas comes with risks. There are countless stories of players being scammed out of funds by phony agents, schemers running shady exposure camps and tours, and fraudsters impersonating team executives. After his second year as a pro, Van Pelt was scammed out of $300 for a “visa fee” requested by a scammer impersonating a coach in the British Basketball League.
And the risks continue even after players land pro contracts. Many American players complain of difficulties being paid on time—if at all. In the United States, an employee who has been stiffed by his employer can simply sue the employer, file complaints with any agencies that oversee the employer’s business, and find a new job elsewhere. Overseas hoopers don’t have it so easy. Dealing with courts and agencies in foreign lands—that oftentimes conduct business in foreign languages—adds layers of challenges that can render such efforts futile. On top of that, with limits on import players, finding a new team midseason can be virtually impossible, especially if the team who stiffs the American tries to save face by falsely blaming the American as the cause of the dispute.
These financial risks pale in comparison to other risks American hoopers face overseas. In 2022, Russian authorities arrested and convicted women’s basketball star Brittney Griner for possessing less than a gram of hash oil. Although the crime would typically carry a 15-day sentence, Griner received nine years. She was only released, about 10 months later, because U.S. authorities agreed to a prisoner swap that freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout from a 25-year sentence he’d been serving in the United States.
While foreign governments may not target lower-profile players, those players can still face serious consequences for crimes that would likely receive a slap on the wrist, if anything, in the United States. Jarred Shaw, a Dallas native who played professionally in a number of countries, is presently serving a 26-month sentence in Indonesia. His crime? Being caught with cannabis gummies and candies he used to relieve the symptoms of Crohn’s Disease. Without proper medical treatment, his condition continues to worsen.
Americans playing ball overseas also risk their lives being upended by conflicts that do not directly involve the United States. Oftentimes, higher salaries are paid in more volatile parts of the world. Americans take real risks when they decide to play in those locales. They have to be nimble and ready to make quick decisions when, say, Russia invades Ukraine or violence breaks out in the Middle East. In his book, Qaddafi’s Point Guard, Nigerian-American Alex Owumi recounts his time playing professionally in Libya and his harrowing escape during the Arab Spring.
The effects of even minor crimes are amplified overseas. One night in Cambodia, Van Pelt was wrapping up his stay with a stop at the casino. He won around $1,000 playing poker before heading to the airport for his next job. He was in a tuk-tuk—a three-wheeled, golf cart-like mode of transportation common in those parts—with his travel bag sitting on his lap. Suddenly, two men pulled up on a motorbike and, before Van Pelt could react, one of them snatched his bag off his lap and sped away through the heavy traffic. “I lost everything—the money, a laptop, my debit cards, my passport,” Van Pelt said. Fortunately, a friend provided him with a place to stay until he was able to obtain an emergency passport a few days later.
Making a Career Overseas
While the pursuit of a career overseas can be risky, it can also be rewarding. Van Pelt has reaped the rewards. From 2013 through 2019, he played professional ball in 13 countries. Those experiences opened doors for him. He co-owns a youth basketball academy in Ho Chi Minh City. He runs online coaching clinics. He wrote a book that uses his experiences to provide guidance to other aspiring professionals—Hoopin’ Abroad: How to Have a Successful Career Playing Professional Basketball Around the Globe. And he’s transitioned from playing to coaching.
Van Pelt had already been thinking about life after playing when his coach asked him to throw that game. And after Van Pelt had been cut for refusing to throw that game, he had a little luck that helped him make that transition; one of his former coaches got a job coaching the Saigon Heat—a top pro team in Vietnam. He asked Van Pelt to be an assistant coach. And so began Van Pelt’s coaching career. The following season, Van Pelt became the team’s head coach. His stature in the coaching community grew, and he became a head coach for Vietnam’s national teams (both five-on-five and three-on-three).
Asked about their own long-term goals, Rankine and Hall are hopeful while recognizing the uncertainty of their paths. Hall said he’s just taking it “one day at a time” and wants to see where the game takes him. Similarly, Rankine said he’s “riding this thing ‘til the wheels fall off” while expressing an interest in transitioning from playing to coaching one day down the road. As Van Pelt’s journey from a small college Michigan hooper to head coach of Vietnam’s national team illustrates, the possibilities are numerous.
Van Pelt continues to call Vietnam home. He’s been there (and everywhere else his basketball endeavors take him) with his Malaysian-born partner for nine years. He last returned to the United States seven years ago. He sees family when they visit him. “I like Vietnam,” Van Pelt said. “I’m staying in Asia for the foreseeable future.”
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Michael C. Kovac is an assistant professor for Vermont Law and Graduate School, where he teaches legal writing. He has also taught law and/or criminal justice courses for Penn State University, Arizona State University, Texas A&M University, the University of Southern California, and the University of New Mexico. Previously, Kovac spent a decade working as a prosecutor in Las Vegas, Nevada. He received his B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh (Johnstown), his M.A. from Arizona State University, and his J.D. from Duquesne University. He still enjoys playing basketball in his free time.
