People in Canada will be watching, mainly because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He is expected to win MVP and is the top scorer in the NBA, which helps bring in fans from Canada.

Basketball fans around the world will be watching the games to support their favorite players, such as Nikola Jokic from Serbia, Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece, Alperen Sengun from Turkey, Luka Doncic from Slovenia, Pascal Siakam from Cameroon, Kristaps Porzingis from Latvia, and Al Horford from the Dominican Republic.

Once again, the NBA playoffs will feature many famous players from different countries.

This season is special because the best players in five different skills come from five different countries. This has never happened before in the NBA. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from Canada is one of these players. Domantas Sabonis from Lithuania is the best at getting rebounds, Victor Wembanyama from France is the best at blocking shots, Dyson Daniels from Australia is the best at stealing the ball, and Trae Young from the U.S. is the best at passing for points. Because of this, the games after the regular season will also have many international players. Gilgeous-Alexander's team is already in, and Sabonis, Daniels, and Young could join him if their teams win in the play-in tournament.

"A large number of international players are in this league," said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver earlier this season. "Around 30% of our players come from 43 different countries, so our teams feel much more global."

By the end of the season, players from 44 different countries had scored points in the NBA. For the first time, players from a country other than the U.S. scored over 15,000 points together. Canadian players achieved this, scoring 15,588 points, with Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from Canada, being a key player.

Many people think Gilgeous-Alexander will win MVP this year. It will likely be him or Jokic. This means the NBA will have had a player from another country win MVP for seven years in a row. Antetokounmpo won it two times, and then Jokic won three times in the next four years. Joel Embiid from Cameroon, who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers, won it two years ago.

Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season that Shai is a player who is very hard to stop.

He's like many other international players now. No one can really stop players like Jokic, Antetokounmpo, or Doncic either.

This season, something else happened for the first time internationally: Doncic had the most popular NBA jersey. This means that NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than any other player's. Of course, this was partly because Doncic got a new jersey when he moved from Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers during the season, but it is still important.

The famous player from Slovenia is the first international player whose jersey was the most popular. He is also the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to have the most popular jersey in over ten years. The last player to do it was Carmelo Anthony in 2012-13 when he played for New York; he will soon be in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Slovene athlete Ajsa Sivka said that despite Slovenia being a small country with only 2 million people, their sports achievements are impressive. She explained that Slovenia has excellent athletes in many different sports, and she is very proud of her country.

This is happening as the NBA is more serious than ever about growing its reach around the world. Last month, FIBA and the NBA announced they will work together on a new European basketball league that has been planned for many years. The first goal is to have a league with 16 teams, and it might include many of Europe's biggest teams, like Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, and Manchester City.

This NBA season was special because four players scored over 2,000 points, and three of them were international players like Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo. Around the world, people watched 6% more NBA League Pass than last season. In France, more people watched NBA games this season than ever, even though Wembanyama didn't play in the last two months. In Canada, NBA social media views were the highest ever this season. Also, in the Asia-Pacific region, which is already popular for basketball, more fans watched than ever before.

FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers, which show the sport is growing internationally, suggest the game is very strong now.

Around the world and in North America, Zagklis said the NBA is more popular and makes more money than ever.