Overseas

It all began with a single shot. A ball released toward the hoop in San Giovanni in Persiceto— the first of millions that would follow. That moment wasn’t just the start of a career. It was the beginning of a love story. From the courts of Bologna to the bright lights of America, Marco didn’t just chase a dream—he studied it. He became a student of the game, learning to read his NBA role with precision, and to carry the weight of a national team on his shoulders. And then, he came home. Back to Bologna. Back to where it all began. His journey is etched in the evolution of a jumpshot— the unmistakable “Beli jumpshot.” Once wild and off-balance, now a masterpiece sculpted through stubborn repetition, minute corrections, and infinite adjustments. The footwork. The reception. The alignment of wrist and elbow. The execution speed. The subtle role of the left hand. The release from the fingertips of the right hand. And finally, that elegant snap— a final caress, a whispered goodbye to the ball before it sails toward the net. It’s a gesture of love. A ritual. A legacy. Because for Marco, basketball isn’t just a game. It’s a lifelong romance. One that travels the world, measured not only in points, but in the timeless echo of a shot that tells a story. Because there’s nothing quite like it. Making a bucket.

There’s no progress, let alone revolution, without culture. The waves of Overseas Issue 04 have officially set sail from the Black Sea and are about to reach the world. Get ready to ride them. Join us now at the link in bio.

“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,” Bob Dylan once sang, chasing meaning through questions too vast, too fragile to ever be held still. In Trieste, over these past weeks, those questions have found a different current. They have ridden the Bora: sweeping down from the hills, skimming the port before slipping into the PalaTrieste, and settling somewhere between the hardwood and the red-and-white pulse of a community. On Sunday, at last, an arena, and a city, rose as one, with a club caught in that delicate space between memory and what comes next. Across Trieste, posters reading ‘Tutto questo non può finire’ | ‘All of this cannot end’ spoke louder than any pregame slogan. They carried the weight of pallacanestro as identity. On the court, Cremona claimed the win. But the afternoon belonged to a sea of hearts moving like flags of quiet resistance, and to a sold-out arena that refused silence. The PalaTrieste became something more than a venue: a space suspended in feeling. A city waiting. A future still unwritten. An answer will come. Or perhaps, as Dylan suggested, it is already out there: drifting, restless, somewhere in the wind. 📸 @libo_killquick

The return of the @portlandfirewnba to Portland may sound like a nostalgic move. Placing it inside what is called the “Epicenter of Women’s Sport” like smart branding. But what’s happening here reaches further than marketing. Because opening the game to more than nineteen thousands of people who can now see women’s basketball as inspiration means building something more lasting: belonging, cohesion, identity woven into the fabric of a city. A city that loves obsessively. Its colors. Its roses. Its rain. And now, a roster of fifteen women from different corners of the world, assembled as Year Zero. The foundations of a project that promises not only to entertain but to accelerate a movement already proving the global reach—and untapped potential—of the game itself. So @bridgecarleton and teammates, may you become the epicenter of a tremor capable of reshaping the basketball culture of an entire region forever.

In the Korean language, there exists an untranslatable term: 정 | Jeong. It does not simply mean affection or love, but rather a deeply rooted emotional bond, built over time, often in silence, through the pure sharing of everyday life. It is a form of human connection and cohesion, shaped by simple, constant gestures. Walking through the forward-looking streets of Seoul, this concept naturally unfolds in the relationship between the Korean people and basketball | 농구. A bond that is never shouted, but quietly sustained: revealing itself through brief yet recurring moments, traces of an emotional and cultural presence. A presence that takes on countless forms and expressions across the Land of the Morning Calm and its capital city. 📸 @fbonard

Like the perfect ending to a film. Beyond rhetoric. Beyond anything contrived. At PalaRomare, everything turns Orange for Game 3 of the Finals: an apex that feels like an ending long before it becomes one. After 40 breathless minutes, the ever-noble @familabasketschio add their 14th Scudetto to a history that keeps expanding. And captain @gio_skirt , at 37, reaches 30 national titles in a career that has always carried something regal. Closing as the protagonist, as she always has. “I’ve lived through every emotion: this is the last game, this really is the last,” she says after the final buzzer, where dream and fulfillment, ecstasy and legacy collapse into one. And a legend’s farewell to the Game becomes the final confirmation of the legend itself. 📸 @fbonard

Etymology traces the name Hong Kong to the Cantonese ‘Heung Gong’ | ‘Fragrant Harbor.’ Across the centuries, the scents of this liminal meeting point between East and West have continually mingled, enriched by the subtler notes of James Naismith’s legacy. Today, basketball pulses in the shadow of monumental skyscrapers, suggesting a pervasive presence woven into the city’s urban fabric. It affirms, once again, a quiet constant: wherever cultures intersect, the Game the Game absorbs and carries their imprint. 📸 @nadyeltounsy

The United States testing the rest of the world in the most global of the sports it commands. A challenge that has long since become tradition. Repeated endlessly, reframed across different stages, from youth tournaments to professional basketball. The @hoop.summit has always been the most avant-garde of all those stages. In its recent history, this iconic event has also opened its doors to the women’s Game, expanding its platform to reflect the sport’s global future. Since 2023, twelve teenagers from vastly different corners of the world are given the chance to spend a week immersed in elite-level preparation, experiencing the U.S. basketball dream firsthand while measuring themselves against their American peers on the brink of the collegiate game. For all of them, the real dream is to meet again one day at the highest level. The certainty is that overcoming the United States—or, on the other side, holding off the rest of the world—carries a flavor that only the most respected traditions can offer.

The United States testing the rest of the world in the most global of the sports it commands. A challenge that has long since become tradition. Repeated endlessly, reframed across different stages, from youth tournaments to professional basketball. The @hoop.summit has always been the most avant-garde of all those stages. For more than three decades, it has given twelve teenagers from vastly different corners of the world the chance to spend a week immersed in elite level preparation, touching the American basketball dream firsthand while measuring themselves against their American peers on the brink of the collegiate game. For all of them, the real dream is to meet again one day at the highest level. The certainty is that overcoming the United States—or, on the other side, holding off the rest of the world—carries a flavor that only the most respected traditions can offer.

You may have seen every city in the world and still find yourself astonished upon arriving in Venice. Montesquieu wrote. The hoop culture of the ‘Queen of the Adriatic’ proves him right. A love that permeates everything: guided by the solemn presence of Her Majesty @umanareyer , and handed down from generation to generation, finding fertile ground even within the school system, as the invigorating marvel of the @reyerschoolcup so vividly attests. You may have seen every city in the world and still be astonished upon arriving in Venice, Montesquieu observed. To step inside the legendary Taliercio and be swept up in waves of students, united and animated by the Game, is nothing less than a living confirmation of his assertion.

“This MVP award means a lot. It’s going to open doors for younger kids who don’t have the same opportunities. I’m from Africa. I’m 100% South Sudanese, and playing in the BAL served a purpose greater than money: I wanted to change the narrative for my people.” Nuni Omot told us in the aftermath of his 2023 BAL championship run and MVP season. Today, those words read like prophecy. Across the Basketball Africa League, a broader South Sudanese ecosystem is taking shape. Season after season, the NBA-driven apex of the continent’s Game is increasingly defined by the presence of the ‘Bright Stars,’ both present and next. 2024 BAL Most Valuable Player and Defensive Player of the Year Jo Lual-Acuil Jr. | Majok Deng (Al Ahly Ly; Libya) | Junior Madut (Dar City; Tanzania) | Garang Diing (Nairobi City Thunder; Kenya) | Mangok Mathiang | Kacoul Peter Dut Jok (Petro de Luanda; Angola). This is no longer a moment. It’s a movement. And in watching it unfold, you’re drawn back to a chant that carries meaning far beyond the Game: a mantra of identity and cohesion, of a nation finding, through basketball and through the BAL, a way to become and define itself by example. As we wrote in our Issue 03: “Junub Sudan, Oyee.” 📸 @armandlenoir

Basketball in March has always belonged to a particular kind of madness. For decades, March Madness was an American trademark built on improbability: unknown schools, fleeting fame, and stories passed down like folklore. But today, what was once chaos is becoming a ruthless quest dictated by the naming, imaging and licensing rights rewarded by glorious universities. The rule of the strongest, or the richest. With that, recruiting has become more global, identities more curated, and programs separated by miles more shaped by players migrating from different continents. The Cinderella run might have vanished, or perhaps has just been re-engineered. Something, inevitably, is lost. The Final Four no longer feels entirely accidental, the magic of that “one shining moment” is increasingly reserved to very few. Yet something is gained. This tournament is no longer just a national myth but a global pathway, shaping careers and dreams, just more professional ones. So stop the nostalgia. Hail to the champs @adaymara15 and @angeladugalic , to the -ić brothers who exported the Balkan mentality to Illinois, to @blanca_fran_11 being the first South American at the service of the UConn women’s regality, to @ik__10__ who demonstrated that solid players belong to any basketball court on both sides of the ocean, to the hundreds of overseas youngsters who—to chase madness, money, growth, or all the above—followed the overseas pioneers of what is now a movement that we hope will make the Game better. Globally.