Eyes of the world will be on playoffs

NBA

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NBA MVP favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will lead the top-seeded Thunder in the Western Conference playoffs. Gilgeous-Alexander, a Canadian, is one of many international stars on postseason teams. Kyle Phillips/ap

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By Tim Reynolds Associated Press

They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for the Thunder surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.

They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Nuggets star Nikola Jokic and Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Rockets games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Pacers. The defending champion Celtics feature, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.

Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.

In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of the Kings is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs is from France and steals champion Dyson Daniels of Hawks is from Australia. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament. The Hawks faced the Magic on Tuesday, but that game ended too late for this edition. The Kings play the Mavericks on Wednesday.

“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”

By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born.

Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It’ll be either him or Jokic, which means it’ll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the 76ers winning two seasons ago.

“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game against the Thunder this season.

In other words, he’s like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo, and Luka Doncic either.

And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA’s most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else’s. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by the Mavericks to the Lakers, but it still is significant.

The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade.

All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport’s international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league.