People in Canada will be watching, especially because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. As the NBA's top scorer and a likely MVP, he plays for Oklahoma City and helps attract Canadian fans.

People around the world will be watching their favorite international basketball players. Fans in Serbia and Greece will watch Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will make people in Turkey watch Houston games late at night. Fans in Slovenia will watch Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their first playoff game very early in the morning. People in Cameroon will watch Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. The team that won last year, Boston, has players like Kristaps Porzingis from Latvia and Al Horford from the Dominican Republic.

The NBA playoffs look likely to show the skills of international players again.

This NBA season was special because the five players who led in different stats were from five different countries. Gilgeous-Alexander is from Canada, the player who got the most rebounds, Domantas Sabonis, is from Lithuania, the player with the most blocked shots, Victor Wembanyama, is from France, the player with the most steals, Dyson Daniels, is from Australia, and the player with the most assists, Trae Young, is from the U.S. Because of this, the playoffs will also have many international players. Gilgeous-Alexander is already in the playoffs. Sabonis and Daniels, and also Young, might join him if their teams win in the play-in tournament.

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

By the end of the season, players from 44 different countries scored points in the NBA. For the first time, players from one country other than the U.S. scored over 15,000 points together. Players from Canada scored 15,588 points this season. This was mainly because of Gilgeous-Alexander, who was the first scoring champion from Canada.

Many people think Gilgeous-Alexander will win the MVP award this season. It will probably be him or Jokic. This means a player from another country will win the NBA MVP for the seventh year in a row. Antetokounmpo won two times, 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 you cannot stop Shai.

In other words, he's like many other international players today. It's very hard to stop players like Jokic, Antetokounmpo, and Doncic.

This season also brought an international first: Doncic had the most popular jersey in the NBA. This means that the NBA's online store sold more of his jerseys than anyone else's. This might have been helped because Doncic changed jerseys when he was traded from Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it is still important.

The Slovenian player is the first international player to have the most popular jersey. He's also the first player besides Stephen Curry or LeBron James to do this in over ten years. Before him, Carmelo Anthony had the most popular jersey in 2012-13 when he played for New York. Later, Carmelo Anthony joined the Basketball Hall of Fame.

"We are a small country with only 2 million people, but our sports are truly fantastic," said Ajsa Sivka from Slovenia after being chosen by the Chicago Sky WNBA team on Monday night. She was asked about Luka Doncic and other famous Slovenian athletes. "Whatever the sport, we always have at least one excellent person. I feel very proud to be Slovenian."

This is happening now, when the NBA is more serious than before about increasing its presence around the world.

This NBA season was special. Four players scored over 2,000 points, and three were from other countries: Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo. People around the world watched NBA League Pass 6% more than last season. In France, more people watched NBA games than ever, even though Wembanyama missed the last two months. In Canada, people watched NBA social media videos more than ever this season. Also, league information shows that more fans watched in the Asia-Pacific area than ever before. This area is already very popular for basketball.

FIBA's top official, Andreas Zagklis, stated that the increasing number of people playing and watching basketball around the world shows the sport is currently very popular and successful.

Looking around the world, especially here in North America, Zagklis said the NBA is more popular and makes more money than ever.