{"id":42025,"date":"2025-08-04T04:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T04:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/42025\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T04:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T04:44:07","slug":"international-notes-napier-markkanen-williams-birch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/42025\/","title":{"rendered":"International Notes: Napier, Markkanen, Williams, Birch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After winning a championship and being named 2025 Finals MVP of the German Bundesliga for Bayern Munich, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/napiesh01.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Shabazz Napier<\/a> is hitting free agency, writes <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/shabazz-napier-hits-free-agency-after-championship-season-with-bayern-munich\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dario Skerletic of Sportando<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old point guard averaged 10.3 points, 3.2 assists, and 1.1 steals while shooting 41.1% from three during EuroLeague play.<\/p>\n<p>Napier was the 24th pick in the 2014 draft and averaged 7.1 points and 2.5 assists during his six-year NBA career. He split time between the G League and EuroLeague throughout the 2022\/23 season, playing 10 games for the Mexico City Capitanes and averaging 22.3 points, 4.7 assists, and 1.9 steals while shooting 47.1% from three before joining Olimpia Milano, where he averaged 15 points and 3.9 assists and shot 45.6% from three.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, he has bounced between Olimpia Milano and Crvena Zvezda before heading to Bayern this season.<\/p>\n<p>We have more from the world of international hoops:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/markkla01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Lauri Markkanen<\/a> will lead Team Finland in EuroBasket as the lone NBA player on the roster, writes the team at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/en\/eurobasket\/1852574\/lauri-markkanen-leads-finlands-16-man-team-for-eurobasket\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Eurohoops.net<\/a>. He\u2019s not the only NBA personnel, though, as Jazz assistant Sean Sheldon will serve as an assistant coach. The Finnish team will play Sweden, Great Britain, Montenegro, Lithuania, and Germany in the group stage, which starts on August 27.<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/international\/players\/johnathan-williams-1.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Johnathan Williams III<\/a> has signed a one-year deal with the London Lions, reports <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/en\/eurocup\/1853777\/johnathan-williams-iii-signs-with-london-lions-eurocup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops<\/a>. Williams spent two seasons in the NBA, from 2018-2020, splitting time between the Lakers and Wizards. He spent the previous three years in the Japanese league, playing last year for the Chiba Jets, where he averaged 11.8 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.1 assists in 17 games.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/birchkh01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Khem Birch<\/a> has finalized his contract <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/08\/khem-birch-fenerbahce-nearing-extension.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">extension<\/a> with Fenerbahce. The new deal is for one year as the Turkish powerhouse looks to defend its title. The 32-year-old center was named Finals MVP of the Basketball Super League playoffs last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After winning a championship and being named 2025 Finals MVP of the German Bundesliga for Bayern Munich, Shabazz&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,36942,36943,32207,36944,85],"class_list":["post-42025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-johnathan-williams","tag-khem-birch","tag-lauri-markkanen","tag-shabazz-napier","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}