The Most Famous
BASKETBALL PLAYERS from South Africa
This page contains a list of the greatest South African Basketball Players. The pantheon dataset contains 1,757 Basketball Players, 1 of which were born in South Africa. This makes South Africa the birth place of the 52nd most number of Basketball Players behind South Sudan, and Jamaica.
Top 1
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary South African Basketball Players of all time. This list of famous South African Basketball Players is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Steve Nash (b. 1974)
With an HPI of 47.96, Steve Nash is the most famous South African Basketball Player. His biography has been translated into 50 different languages on wikipedia.
Stephen John Nash (born 7 February 1974) is a Canadian professional basketball coach and former player who most recently served as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played 18 seasons in the NBA, where he was an eight-time All-Star and a seven-time All-NBA selection. Nash was a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player while playing for the Phoenix Suns. Nash grew up playing several different sports, and after a successful high school basketball career in British Columbia, he earned a scholarship to Santa Clara University in California. In his four seasons with the Broncos, the team made three NCAA tournament appearances, and he was twice named the West Coast Conference (WCC) Player of the Year. Nash graduated from Santa Clara as the team's all-time leader in assists and was taken as the 15th pick in the 1996 NBA draft by the Phoenix Suns. He had minimal impact and was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in 1998. By his fourth season with the Mavericks, he was voted to his first NBA All-Star Game and earned his first All-NBA selection. Together with Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley, Nash led the Mavericks to the Western Conference Finals the following season. He became a free agent after the 2003–04 season and returned to the Phoenix Suns. In the 2004–05 season, Nash led the Suns to the Western Conference finals and was named the league's MVP. He was named MVP again in the 2005–06 season and was runner-up for a third consecutive MVP to Nowitzki in 2006–07. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest point guards of all time. Nash led the league in assists and free throw percentage at various points in his career. He is also ranked as one of the top players in NBA league history in three-point shooting, free throw shooting, total assists, and assists per game. In 2018, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Nash has been honoured for his contributions to various philanthropic causes. In 2006, he was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Nash was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2007 and invested to the order in 2016, and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Victoria in 2008. Nash has been a co-owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer (MLS) since the team entered the league in 2011. From 2012 to 2019, he served as general manager of the Canadian men's national basketball team, for whom he played from 1991 to 2003, making one Olympic appearance and being twice named FIBA AmeriCup MVP. In 2021, Nash was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
People
Pantheon has 1 people classified as South African basketball players born between 1974 and 1974. Of these 1, 1 (100.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living South African basketball players include Steve Nash.
