The NBA is the most international league today

world’s best basketball league, National Basketball Association (NBA), is an American competition where only the best players make it.

Since its founding on June 6, 1946, the league, with 30 teams competing, 15 from the Eastern Conference and 15 from the West, has been dominated by North American elements that have monopolized most individual awards throughout history. .

However, for a few years to now, basketball, thanks to the NBA, has been expanding more and more around the world, reaching countries that would not have been imagined before, thereby increasing discipline, and therefore, international quality. level player.

Until the 2004/2005 season, all awards most valuable Player of the season (MVP), was for someone of American descent, until he came Steve NashoWinning prestigious awards in 2005 and 2006 with the Phoenix Suns, The first unborn in the United States To keep the prize.

international talent

Was the first player not to be born in the American continent to win the MVP award Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks, who received this appointment in 2007 first european Maurice Podoloff to hold the trophy.

It took 12 years for an element not born in the United States to be named Most Valuable of the Year, with Giannis AntetokounmpoBorn in Greece to Nigerian parents, he broke the hegemony, taking the prize for the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2018/2019 campaign.

It was from here that a new era in world basketball began, since Giannis won his first MVP, no other American has won it, as Antetokounmpo repeated in the 2019/2020 season.

Then it was Giannis’ turn Nikola JokicThe versatile center of the Denver Nuggets, who was named MVP in the 2020/2021 season, and has just received his second award in the 2021/2022 campaign.

Similarly, award for Defensive Player of the YearIn the last 5 years, there have been 4 international players, with 3 selections Rudy Goberte One for the Utah Jazz, and another for Giannis Antetokounmpo, with Marcus Smart brought the award back to the USA in 2022 with the Boston Celtics.

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For the second year in a row, among the top 5 players in the league, 3 are of international origin, with Greece’s Giannis, Cameroon’s Joel Embiid and Serbia’s Jokic making it clear that the ‘outsiders’ are here to stay, and demonstrates That they can dominate the same way the Americans did in the past.