Netherlands men's national basketball team

Men's national basketball team representing the Netherlands
the men's team

The Netherlands men's national basketball team (Het Nederlands nationaal basketbalteam) represents the Netherlands in international basketball matches. The national team is governed by Basketball Nederland. The Dutch have reached the European Basketball Championship on 16 occasions. Their best results at the event came in 1983, where they finished in fourth place. They have also qualified for the FIBA World Cup once, in 1986. However, in recent years the national team has struggled to maintain consistency to reach major international tournaments. The team represents itself as the Orange Lions.

The Netherlands were one of the teams that played in the 1946, 1947, 1949 and 1951 EuroBasket tournaments. During this period, the 5th place finish in 1949 was the best performance by the national team.

The Oranje qualified for three European Basketball Championships in the 1960s (1961, 1963, 1967). After three consecutive missed tournaments, the Netherlands had another three EuroBasket appearance stretch from 1975, 1977, and 1979. During the 1977 EuroBasket, the Netherlands' star player Kees Akerboom shined during the tournament. He finished the competition as the top scorer, and earned a spot on the All Tournament Team. At EuroBasket 1983, the Dutch had its biggest success in history under head coach Vladimir Heger. The national team achieved fourth place at the tournament. The Dutch wound up reaching the semi finals, but eventually fell to Italy. In the third place game they would lose again, this time to the Soviet Union. Three years after achieving success at the continental level, the Netherlands qualified to the World Cup for the first time in 1986. The national team ultimately did not make it out of the group stage though, finishing the tournament with an (2–3) record to place 14th overall.

From 1991 until 2012, the Netherlands did not qualify for a EuroBasket tournament. Star player Francisco Elson, former NBA champion, represented the team on several occasions but the team never came close to qualifying. During this period, notable Dutch players like Dan Gadzuric were not willing to play for the national team. Home games were usually played at the Topsportcentrum in Almere and usually had little to no media attention or fan support in the Netherlands.

In December 2012, it was announced that the Netherlands national team would be dissolved for 2 years, because the national federation NBB {Netherlands Basketball Bond} was not willing to invest money in to it. After a campaign by Dutch players who played in the Dutch Basketball League, the national team was eventually saved. Sports broadcaster Sport1 became the main sponsor and DBL teams invested in the team, which started playing again. During August 2013, the Netherlands was on its way to qualification for EuroBasket 2015, but lost two games 20–0 because the team played with two players – Mohamed Kherrazi and Sean Cunningham – who were identified as foreign players by FIBA. The NBB believed that both were eligible players, and was upset that the attention came up after the Netherlands already won 2 games.

At the start of the second 2015 qualification round, things looked bad for the Oranje. The DBL teams didn't have any more money to invest in the team and the NBB wasn't ready to take the team back. Head coach Toon van Helfteren, who worked as a volunteer, still did prepare for the qualifying games. He invited 42 players to play for the national team, but after most (notable) players rejected the offer, he started his first training camp with 7 players. The team eventually shocked the world, by beating heavy favorite Montenegro to get the second place in their group. On 27 August 2014, the Dutch national team qualified for EuroBasket for the first time in 25 years.

The national team left the NBB and FEB, from 2015 the team was run by the NMT. Coach Van Helfteren then had his contract with the national team extended. In contrast to the summer of 2014, big name players from foreign leagues applied to play for the national team. In the first game at EuroBasket 2015, the Dutch beat Georgia 73–72 behind Charlon Kloof's 22 and Worthy de Jong's 16 points. The Netherlands remaining four games though were all loses, but only by single digits to power houses such as Croatia and Greece. On 22 July 2019, Italian coach Maurizio Buscaglia signed on to become head coach of the Netherlands, replacing Toon van Helfteren who stepped down. After a disappointing EuroBasket 2022, in which the Netherlands went winless, Buscaglia was sacked. On 6 October 2022, Radenko Varagić was appointed as interim head coach for the remaining World Cup qualifying campaign. On 23 May 2023, the Netherlands named Israeli coach Arik Shivek, as head coach of the national team. He previously led at national team level for five years with Israel from 2009 to 2014.

Roster for the EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers matches on 23 and 26 February 2024 against Great Britain and Greece.

No. Name Nationality From To Games coached Wins Losses Winningpercentage Notes 1 31 March 1946 1 May 1951 39 15 24 0.385 2 1 March 1952 1 April 1952 3 1 2 0.333 3 1 November 1952 1 April 1953 3 1 2 0.333 4 1 September 1953 1 September 1955 3 0 3 0.000 5 1 March 1955 31 January 1957 3 0 3 0.000 6 27 October 1956 27 October 1956 1 0 1 0.000 Interim replacement.7 1 November 1957 1 November 1957 1 0 1 1.000 Interim replacement. 8 1 March 1959 1 May 1959 10 2 8 0.200 9 5 March 1960 2 October 1965 5 1 4 0.200 10 1 April 1960 1 November 1965 11 1 September 1966 1 July 1970 54 18 36 0.333 Steuer was the first ever foreign coach. 12 1 October 1970 1 May 1971 10 4 6 0.400 13 1 May 1971 1 May 1973 31 17 14 0.548 14 1 May 1974 1 May 1974 1 1 0 1.000 15 1 October 1974 1 July 1976 56 33 23 0.589 16 1 January 1977 1 September 1977 17 1 May 1978 1 June 1979 30 20 10 0.667 18 1 April 1980 1 May 1980 11 3 8 0.273 19 1 February 1981 1 May 1981 10 5 5 0.500 20 1 July 1982 1 August 1982 21 1 April 1982 1 June 1986 82 44 38 0.537 22 1 June 1986 30 June 1991 23 1 June 1991 1 June 1993 26 9 17 0.346 24 1 September 1993 1 June 1997 44 24 20 0.545 25 1 June 1997 1 May 1999 26 7 19 0.269 26 1 September 1999 1 February 2000 5 1 4 0.200 27 4 August 2000 1 January 2003 21 5 16 0.238 28 1 January 2004 14 April 2006 26 5 21 0.192 29 24 May 2006 4 February 2008 13 8 5 0.615 30 13 May 2008 20 April 2012 43 25 18 0.581 31 25 June 2012 2013 15 6 9 0.400 32 6 March 2013 25 February 2019 87 28 59 0.322 Coached at EuroBasket 2015. 33 22 July 2019 10 September 2022 25 3 22 0.120 Coached at EuroBasket 2022. 34 6 October 2022 26 February 2023 4 0 4 0.000 Interim replacement. 35 23 May 2023 present 5 1 4 0.200