People in Canada will watch, partly because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He plays for Oklahoma City and is a top scorer in the NBA. Many people think he will be the best player. This helps get Canadian fans interested.

Basketball fans all over the world will watch the games and support players from their countries. People in Serbia and Greece will watch Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will make fans in Turkey watch Houston games very late at night. Fans in Slovenia will watch Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their first playoff game early on Sunday. Fans in Cameroon will watch Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. The Boston team, who won last year, has players like Kristaps Porzingis from Latvia and Al Horford from the Dominican Republic.

Again, the NBA playoffs will show the skills of international players.

This season, the five top players in different skills came from five different countries. This is new for the NBA.

We have many international players in this league, NBA boss Adam Silver said earlier this season. About 30% of our players come from 43 different countries. This makes our teams feel more global.

This season, players from 44 different countries scored points in the NBA. For the first time, players from Canada scored over 15,000 points together. This was more than players from any other country except the U.S. Canadian players scored 15,588 points. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from Canada was the best scorer.

People think Gilgeous-Alexander or Jokic will be the best player this year. This means the best player in the NBA will be from another country for seven years 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 years ago.

Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game this season that Shai is very difficult to stop.

He is like many other international players now. It is hard to stop players like Jokic, Antetokounmpo, or Doncic.

This season, Luka Doncic's shirt was the most liked on the NBA website. Many people bought his shirt, more than any other player's.

The Slovenian player has the most popular jersey. He is the first player from another country to do this. For over ten years, only Stephen Curry or LeBron James had the most popular jersey. Before that, Carmelo Anthony had it in 2012-13 when he played for New York.

We are a small country with only 2 million people, but our sports are really good," said Ajsa Sivka. She was chosen by the Chicago Sky basketball team on Monday night. She was asked about Luka Doncic and other good Slovenian athletes. "In any sport, we have at least one great athlete. I am very proud to be Slovenian."

This is happening now because the NBA wants to be bigger in other countries. Last month, the NBA and FIBA, which is in charge of basketball around the world, said they will work together to start a new basketball league in Europe. They have been planning this for a long time. The plan is to have 16 teams, and some big European teams like Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain might be part of it.

This season, four players in the NBA scored over 2,000 points. Three of them were from other countries, including Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo. People around the world watched NBA games on League Pass 6% more than last season. In France, more people watched NBA games this season than ever before, even though Wembanyama missed the last two months. In Canada, people watched NBA social media videos more than ever this season. Also, in Asia, where basketball is already very popular, more fans watched the games than ever before.

FIBA's main leader, Andreas Zagklis, said the numbers show that the game is very popular and strong now because it is growing in many countries.

Zagklis said that around the world and in North America, the NBA is more popular and makes more money than before.