Los Angeles Lakers center Jaxson Hayes could soon debut on the international stage, but not for the United States. Hayes said he is working on acquiring a Slovenian passport in order to join his superstar teammate, Luka Dončić, on his national team in future offseasons.
FIBA permits national teams to have one naturalized player on their roster per game. Players who receive passports before age 16 are considered locals, while those who are granted citizenship after that cutoff count toward the naturalized player cap.
“We have the same agent, and my parents and his parents are kind of all working on it right now,” Hayes said Sunday at Lakers practice. “They came to me with the idea. I think each national team gets one naturalized player, or something like that. They brought that to my attention. USA doesn’t do open tryouts, and I feel like there’s guys they invite to the USA one that shouldn’t be there. I want to play on that stage, so I’m going to do whatever it takes to play on that stage, and they invited me to.”
This is not the first time Dončić sought to bring a teammate with him into international competition. During his Dallas Mavericks career, the five-time NBA All-Star planned to help bring Daniel Gafford aboard the Slovenian national team for the 2024 Paris Olympics, but talks fell through and Gafford did not end up participating. Dončić then turned his attention to Hayes.
“Luka and his family have been talking about it the past year and a half. I’m just excited. Obviously I would love to go represent my own country, but we don’t do open tryouts, so it is what it is.”
Dončić and Hayes became teammates for the first time when the Lakers acquired the former in a groundbreaking trade. Hayes jumped into the starting lineup after the transaction, filling the starting center role Anthony Davis left behind when he moved to the Mavericks as part of the trade package. It was the largest role of Hayes’ two-year Lakers career and his most prominent job since he spent part of the 2021-22 season in the New Orleans Pelicans‘ starting lineup.
Hayes will return to a reserve role this season after the Lakers addressed their frontcourt need in signing Deandre Ayton to a two-year deal.
The upcoming season will be Hayes’ seventh in the NBA and third with the Lakers. The No. 8 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft spent the first four years of his career with the Pelicans and never latched on as a starter. He signed with the Lakers as a free agent in 2023. For his career, Hayes averages 6.8 points and 4.8 rebounds per game on 64.9% shooting.
