People in Canada will be watching, partly because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. As a top scorer and possible MVP in the NBA, who plays for Oklahoma City, he definitely attracts Canadian fans.

Basketball fans around the world will be watching the games, supporting players from their countries like Nikola Jokic from Serbia, Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece, and Alperen Sengun from Turkey, even if it means watching late at night. Fans in Slovenia will stay up late for Luka Doncic's games, while those in Cameroon will watch Pascal Siakam. The champion team from Boston also has international players like Kristaps Porzingis from Latvia and Al Horford from the Dominican Republic.

Again, the NBA playoffs are likely to show the skills of international players.

This season, for the first time in the NBA, the five top players in different statistics were from five different countries. Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, Sabonis from Sacramento is Lithuanian, Wembanyama from San Antonio is French, Daniels from Atlanta is Australian, and Trae Young from the Hawks is American. The playoffs will also have many international players. Gilgeous-Alexander is already in the playoffs, while Sabonis and Daniels (and Trae Young) might join him if their teams win in the play-in tournament.

We have a very large number of international players in this league," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. "About 30% of our players are from at least 43 different countries, at least on opening day. This means our teams feel much more global.

At 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 scored 15,588, and Gilgeous-Alexander became the first scoring champion from Canada.

Many people think Gilgeous-Alexander will win MVP this season. It will probably be him or Jokic, so the NBA will have an international MVP for the seventh year in a row. Antetokounmpo won two times, and then Jokic won three times in the next four years. Joel Embiid from Cameroon, who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers, won two seasons ago.

"You cannot stop Shai," said Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.

He's similar to many other international players now. It's very hard to truly stop players like Jokic, Antetokounmpo, or Doncic.

This season, something else happened for the first time internationally: Doncic's jersey was the most popular in the NBA. This means that the official NBA online store sold more of his jerseys than any other player's. While this was partly because Doncic changed teams from Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers during the season, it is still an important achievement.

The Slovenian star is the first player from another country to have the most popular jersey. He is also the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to do this in over ten years. The last player to do it was Carmelo Anthony in 2012-13 when he played for New York, and he will soon be in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

"We are a small country with two million people, but our sports are truly fantastic," said Ajsa Sivka, another Slovenian athlete, after she was chosen to play for the Chicago Sky basketball team on Monday night. She was asked about Luka Doncic and other excellent Slovenian sports stars. "It doesn't matter what sport it is, we always have at least one amazing player in it. I am simply very proud to be Slovenian."

This is happening when the NBA is possibly more focused than ever on expanding its influence around the world. Last month, FIBA, which is the international group that controls basketball, and the NBA said they would work together on a new European basketball league that has been planned for a long time. The first goal is to have a league with 16 teams, and some of Europe's most famous clubs, like Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, and Manchester City, might be involved.

This season, four NBA players scored over 2,000 points, and three were international players: Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo. Around the world, people watched 6% more NBA League Pass this season. In France, a record number of people watched NBA games, even though Wembanyama didn't play in the last two months. This season, social media about the NBA was viewed a record number of times in Canada, and data shows that more fans than ever watched in the Asia-Pacific region, which is already a popular area for basketball.

Andreas Zagklis, who is in charge of FIBA, said the numbers show the sport is very strong now, probably because it is growing internationally.

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