PHOENIX – One late night in Italy, Pace Mannion finally got paid.
In a saga that lasted months, his club’s new owners had refused to honor the multi-year deal the former NBA player had signed under previous ownership. He showed up at the practice facility day after day but was turned away each time.
Despite the impasse, Mannion agreed to play in games to begin the season after some convincing from the club. Eventually, he grew tired of playing for free and demanded compensation if he were to continue.
“At about 10 o’clock on a Friday night, they called me and they told me to come to the lawyer’s office downtown, so I had someone drive me down there,” said Mannion, who elected not to identify the team. “It was a few hundred thousand in cash right there. I thought for sure they had guys outside the office that were going to jump me on the way out.”
Mannion survived, but he learned something many of his countrymen have learned: Playing in the big leagues overseas isn’t always the same as it is in the States.
American basketball players grow up with a common dream: to play in the NBA. Most of them never realize that lofty dream, or are unable to sustain their career. For those who accept that reality, playing overseas can offer a compelling experience filled with obstacles and triumphs alike.
Cronkite News talked with five players born in America who played in countries all over Europe, including Italy, Belgium and Russia. Their careers followed different paths, but they shared similar challenges, triumphs and frankly, unbelievable moments.
Pace Mannion
American players have long faced financial obstacles while playing overseas. Mannion left the NBA in the 1980s seeking more playing time and pay after a six-year career.
“The highest-paid guy I played with was Adrian Dantley,” Mannion said. “He made a million dollars a year, John Stockton was making $300,000, Karl Malone was making $300,000. Those guys were first-round picks. So guys like me weren’t even making six figures.”
Mannion played six seasons in the NBA, splitting time between the Warriors, Jazz, Nets, Bucks, Pistons and Hawks. His time in America laid a solid foundation for his transition to the Italian game.
“I was 29 years old, so for me, I think the transition was a little easier,” Mannion said. “I think it was an eye opener for everybody that went over how good the players were in Europe. How fundamentally sound they were and those things.”
Mannion also benefited from the support of his young family.
“I was married, I had kids,” Mannion said. “My family went with me and that was good ‘cause I had a foundation and I didn’t have to just go over there cold.”
Mannion made the transition to the European game before the move was common. The cultural differences were significantly wider than they are today.
“The lifestyle pace is completely different than we have,” Mannion said.
This became particularly apparent to Mannion when he found himself without a television to begin his first year.
“I had a really old TV in this apartment, so about a week and a half in, I said, ‘Hey, I need a new TV,’” Mannion said. “About three or four weeks go by and I don’t have a TV. I come to practice one day, and I go, ‘My hamstring’s really tight today, I don’t think I can practice.’ The next morning at 8 o’clock, there were two guys delivering this nice, big, brand-new flat screen.”
Mannion’s approach to contractual issues remained firm throughout his career.
“We lost a home game and we hardly ever lost at home,” Mannion said. “And they said, ‘Hey, they’re not going to pay us this month.’ I went to the coach, and I said, ‘Listen, until I get paid, I’m not practicing.’”
He met further resistance when the club he played for was bought by the aforementioned cash-wielding new owner who didn’t want to pay his expensive contract.
“They didn’t allow me to practice,” Mannion said. “They said I couldn’t come in the gym.”
The situation escalated once the season started and the team still sought Mannion’s services.
“The first game came around and they said they wanted me to play,” Mannion said. “And the doctor on the team, we were good friends, he said, ‘He can’t play. He’s been out running on the street and his knee’s bothering him,’ which wasn’t true but we just told them that.”
After an arduous process and negotiation with the club, Mannion received his payment, even if the method was unconventional. Mannion learned that the best strategy was to advocate directly for himself.
“Why did I have to do that?” Mannion asked the owner. “He said, ‘Well, it’s kind of our way to figure out how far an American will go before he stands up for himself.’”
Mannion’s back-and-forths weren’t limited to just the team for which he played.
“I remember coming out of a game, and I had my wife and my kids in the car,” Mannion said. “There were still fans in the parking lot and these three guys came up and the guy hit the hood of my car and they start screaming at me.”
By this stage of Mannion’s career, he knew how to handle these situations.
“This is my fifth year in Italy so I knew the language,” Mannion said. “There were three guys and they started saying what they had to say and I just slapped one of them. I didn’t want to hurt him. But he was a good-sized guy, so I just slapped the biggest one out of the three.”
The move helped Mannion eventually reason with the trio.
“Those are things that rarely happen,” Mannion said. “I said, ‘Look when I’m on the court, you guys can say whatever you want. You paid a ticket, you want to yell at me, you yell at me. But the minute I come out here, you don’t have the right to do that outside the arena.’”
Mannion played 13 seasons in Italy. His best season came in the 1992-93 season when he played for Shampoo Clear Cantu in Italy’s LBA Serie A. That year, Mannion averaged 23.6 points per game and shot 38.1% from the 3-point arc.
“People thought it was easy to go overseas,” Mannion said. “I think it was an eye opener for everybody that went over how good the players were in Europe.”
Tom Kuyper
Not only are there cultural differences and financial hurdles to manage, many American players have historically faced immense pressure from the clubs for which they play. Just ask former Sun Devils swingman Tom Kuyper.
“Most of the time, if the American doesn’t do well, the team doesn’t do well, and so the American can get sent home,” Kuyper said. “Even if it’s not his fault, there’s a lot of pressure on the American. The opposing fans know if the American has a bad game, there’s a good chance they win.”
Kuyper played overseas for two seasons for Basket Côte Lumière in France in the early ’80s. During this time, locker room atmospheres looked significantly different than they do now.
“My teammates would smoke in the locker room,” Kuyper said. “You’d leave the locker going in the arena, and there’d be a haze of smoke. Oftentimes, you couldn’t even see the ceiling because of the haze of smoke and so you’d play in that environment.”
While locker rooms were filled with smoke, playing surfaces were sometimes filled with live animals. Farm animals. Kuyper recalled a time he arrived to play in a building being used as a barn.
“I remember getting to a gym and as we were getting there, they were filing the animals out – the pigs and the cows and the sheep,” Kuyper said. “Then they washed down the floor real quick and that’s what we played on.”
The lack of advancement in the sport in Europe didn’t stop with the facilities. During a game, Kuyper sank a half-court shot at the buzzer, but the officials didn’t immediately declare the basket good.
“They went into our locker room and they were in our locker room for three, four, five minutes,” Kuyper said. “Nobody knew if it ever got counted or not, and then finally, they came out after about five minutes and then they said it was good and the arena erupted again.”
When he wasn’t playing or practicing, Kuyper became heavily involved in his local community of St. Gilles Croix de Vie on France’s Atlantic coast.
“It was a small town and we were accepted with a red carpet,” Kuyper said. “The town just loved us and we loved them.”
As a part of his pro deal, Kuyper was tasked with working as a youth coach, which fast-tracked his language learning.
“I was placed in the gym by myself with 15 8-year-olds or 10-year-olds and so we spoke French 100% of the time,” Kuyper said.
Kuyper felt it was important to cultivate positive relationships with the fanbase and community in which he lived.
“So much of it is on the American: Are you willing to be in a humble position and just love the people and love your experience?” Kuyper said. “A lot of Americans don’t do that. They go in there and they think, ‘I’m your gift, so take care of me,’ and so it doesn’t bode well for a really sweet relationship with the people.”
Paul Shirley
Paul Shirley was a walk-on at Iowa State who eventually earned a full athletic scholarship and Academic All-American honors, providing the foundation for a professional career that alternated between the NBA and Europe. Shirley logged minutes for the Hawks, Bulls and Suns during his NBA career. In Europe, he played for clubs in Russia, Greece and Spain.
“There was a lot of bouncing around, bouncing from league to league throughout my career,” Shirley said. “I was dead set on making it to the NBA and was happy that I got to do that, but that also required a fair bit of juggling.”
The harsh realities of playing overseas were prevalent throughout Shirley’s career.
“There was a lot of managing of aspirations,” Shirley said. “I had to balance what I wanted to do with what I needed to do.”
Shirley has written several books since his career in basketball including one titled “Can I Keep my Jersey?” which details his time overseas.
Shirley wrote about his initial landing in Greece in the book.
“I had very little access to the internet in my first weeks in Greece,” Shirley wrote. “Actually – access was available, I just was too cheap to buy it.”
Shirley began documenting his experiences early in his overseas career.
“I needed to tell someone about the absurdities I was encountering on a daily basis,” Shirley wrote. “So I began writing about my experiences, sending my journals home whenever I felt flush enough to fork over some money to the girl at the front desk.”
Shirley’s financial hurdles in Greece didn’t stop at his internet connection.
“In Greece I signed a contract for $105,000 and was paid $52,000 by the end of the year,” Shirley said. “We sued the team and won and then they appealed and we won again.”
Despite Shirley’s triumphs in court, he never saw the remaining dollars.
“The Greek minister of sport made all the teams that were in arrears promise to never do it again so I never got that $53,000 or whatever the number was.”
Greece wasn’t the only country to short Shirley during his career.
“Spain was much more stable and steady, although I’m still owed money there, too, which I will never get,” he said.
On top of organizational pressures, Shirley said roster restrictions raised the pressure Americans felt to perform for their clubs while in Europe.
“Most teams were only allowed two Americans and so that put a fair bit of pressure on the Americans,” Shirley said. “We were usually the best players on the team, but if we did not perform, they were quick to turn on us, which was understandable.”
Despite the pressure, Shirley enjoyed the team atmospheres he experienced overseas.
“We were kind of required to eat together on the road, we roomed together in fairly small hotel rooms,” Shirley said. “I think there’s a lot more togetherness with the team culture in Europe.”
Throughout Shirley’s career, his biggest supporter was always his mom.
“I probably should’ve gotten a girlfriend (or) wife a little quicker into the whole scene,” Shirley quipped. “But because I didn’t, it was my mom because she knew the whole story,”
In his book, Shirley likens his draw to professional basketball to that of an addict.
“I’ve been at the top playing in NBA games with three different teams,” Shirley wrote. “And the bottom, released or otherwise rejected eight times. But I keep going back. Much like a drug addict … or a guy who thought playing basketball for money, while sometimes maddening, remained a far better alternative to life in a cubicle.”
Casey Benson
After four years at Tempe Corona Del Sol High School, guard Casey Benson played for Dana Altman at Oregon before transferring to Grand Canyon University for his final year of collegiate eligibility. His first opportunity in professional basketball came in Slovenia.
“For me, basketball was all I knew,” Benson said. “When I went to college, the ultimate goal was to play professionally and try to make a living doing something that I loved.”
Benson played a season for Hopsi Polzela, a team in Slovenia’s Liga OTP Banka. It was the first of 11 teams across six leagues that Benson played for during his European career.
“I moved midseason a couple different times,” he said. “As I got more into my career, I found two places that I really enjoyed, so I tried to stay there longer. I went back and forth between Belgium and Germany, and so quality of life, for me, was most important.”
Despite Benson’s collegiate experience at the Division I level, his transition to the differences in style of play in Europe was rocky out of the gate.
“You’re going from playing against 18- to 22-year-olds to grown men,” Benson said. “I feel like oftentimes Europe gets a stereotype that it’s way more finesse and not as physical, but Europe was honestly far more physical.”
For Benson, not only did the new atmosphere present challenges on the court, it also presented them off it.
“My first year, I was in a really small town (Polzela, Slovenia),” Benson said. “I show up in Eastern Europe and it’s like a village. When you’re moving around so much, you don’t really get to settle somewhere and call it home.”
While working to sustain his pro career for as long as he could, Benson turned to his faith and the local communities he played in for solace.
“My faith is really important to me. So everywhere I was at, I made it a point to find churches to go to,” Benson said. “I was very intentional about finding friends and people outside of basketball that I could spend time with. I love to sightsee, so whenever we had time off I would take day trips and really try to experience everything so I could make the most of it.”
Benson’s career overseas yielded some of his closest friendships.
“Some of my lifelong friends I met while I was in Europe,” Benson said. “I went to church with them and they came to my games. I really tried to immerse myself in the culture and meet people.”
Kodi Justice
Benson isn’t the only Pac-12 product and Arizona local that made a career for himself overseas. Kodi Justice, a Mesa native and Dobson High graduate, played four years at Arizona State, the final three for Bobby Hurley.
“I’ve played basketball since I was 5 years old, so all I really know is basketball,” Justice said. “I’ve had a few people in my corner who told me I could play professionally and make a living out of this. But everyone’s dream is to play in the NBA and once you don’t get there, it’s like, ‘What’s the next step?’”
Justice’s international career began in 2018 when he joined Parma, a team based in Perm, Russia, that competes in the VTB United League. Despite the distance from home, he found that there were many similarities to the American style of play in Russia.
“My first year I played in Russia and it set me up almost for failure because it was the closest thing to Americanized basketball I played in Europe,” Justice said. “The next season I went to play in Italy and it was a night-and-day difference. The way practices ran, the way the game was played. My second year was my real transition period.”
At ASU, Justice played for Herb Sendek and then one of the most animated and passionate in-game coaches in Hurley, but he was still challenged by the style of coaching he found in Italy.
“I had a coach who was very, very strict on principles and the little things,” Justice said. “Anywhere else I’ve really been, I just played off a read-and-react system. So it took me a second to adjust to that.”
Like Benson, the importance of comfort and normalcy climbed the list of priorities for Justice as his European career continued.
“I’m going on my fourth season with the same team and I signed a two-year deal,” Justice said. “It’s because I know financially, the money will be there on time when I expect it. Everywhere else, there’s clubs where you just don’t know if you’re ever going to get paid or how late it’s going to be.”
Even with the fleeting stability for today’s players, Justice remains determined to live out his basketball dreams. He is currently playing for CSO Voluntari in the Romanian Liga Națională, where he has been competing since March 2024 and recently re-signed for the 2025–2026 season.
“There’s a lot of things you’ve got to kind of balance out and figure out,” Justice said.
“But I could have no job. I could not be playing basketball for a living.”
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