Books | News book: The NBA star wanted to join Susijeng, but Henrik Dettmann made a tough decision

Finland the national men’s basketball team is currently preparing for the second World Cup in its history. For the first time Susijengi took part in the karkeles in 2014 in Bilbao, Spain.

Before the 2014 Games, there was enough buzz around the national team, and one of the biggest causes of the buzz was an experienced NBA star Drew Gooden.

Gooden’s mother is Finnish, and he began to loudly announce his desire to represent Finland on the World Cup floor. The possibility naturally aroused enthusiasm, after all, it was about a superstar unprecedented on the scale of Finland. About a man who had played a big role in the NBA Finals a few years earlier Lebron James alongside.

Finland, more specifically a member of Susijeng’s coaching team Tomi Kaminenhad spotted this possibility years earlier and talked to Gooden’s agent.

It wasn’t until the 2014 World Cup loomed that Gooden also became interested in the opportunity, he says Mika Wickström and Hippo Taatilan novelty book Susijengi 2023 – From the wigs of Pohjola to the top of the world (Oak).

In the year 2014 Gooden was a thirty-year-old conker who had represented several NBA teams in recent years. When he heard about Finland’s place in the competition and that his home country, the United States, is in the same group, he contacted his mother himself Ullan to the country of birth.

“Gooden was genuinely interested. For him, playing in a Suomi shirt would certainly have meant something, because he had spent his summer with his grandparents in Finland and he had genuine ties to the country, unlike the American recruits of many European national teams”, Susijeng’s head coach at the time Henrik Dettmann says in the book.

The obstacle was that Gooden had represented the U.S. under-18 national team, while according to the Fiba rules, players with two passports must choose their national team by the age of 17 at the latest. However, this rule has been circumvented countless times in the sport.

Finally Dettmann’s decision became an obstacle to Gooden’s arrival. The coach noticed warning signs in Gooden’s speech.

“From the beginning, Gooden talked about how great it would be for him to represent Finland at the World Championships. He didn’t talk about that longer period. It went against the principle that I wanted every player to commit to the team in the long term,” says Dettmann.

Drew Gooden spent his childhood summers in the idyllic landscapes of Central Finland. Picture: Home album

Dettmann wanted Gooden to commit to the team for at least a few more years. Just like the other players on the team.

“I stressed to Drew that he should commit to our program, learn our way of playing and practice with us every single summer for a few years. Maybe he himself understood during that conversation how much it would have required of his time, because after that contact became less frequent.”

“We don’t know what would have happened if we had welcomed him to the team, but I have the feeling that his presence would have been more of a distraction than a benefit. However, in the game of basketball, two plus two is not always four, because there are so many changing factors.”