People in Canada will watch, partly because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He is a top player in the NBA and plays for Oklahoma City. This helps get fans from Canada to watch.

Many people around the world watch NBA games because of the players from their countries. For example, people in Serbia and Greece will watch Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Fans in Turkey will watch Alperen Sengun, even if the games are late at night. People in Slovenia will watch Luka Doncic and the Lakers. Fans 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.

Again, the NBA playoffs will show how good international players are.

This season, the best players in five different areas in the NBA were from five different countries.

NBA leader Adam Silver said earlier this season: "Many players in our league are from other countries. About 30% of our players are from abroad, from 43 different countries on the first day. So 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 more than 15,000 points together. Canadian players scored 15,588 points, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from Canada was the best scorer.

Many people think Gilgeous-Alexander will be the best player this season. It will likely be him or Jokic. This means a player from another country will win the award for the seventh year in a row. Antetokounmpo won two times. Then Jokic won three times in four years. Joel Embiid from Cameroon won two years ago.

The coach from Toronto said, "You cannot stop Shai," after they played against the Thunder this year.

This means he is like many other international players now. It is very hard to stop players like Jokic, Antetokounmpo, and Doncic too.

This season, Luka Doncic's shirt was the most popular in the NBA. Many people bought his shirt on NBAStore.com. He moved from Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, and this helped sell more shirts. This is still important.

The famous player from Slovenia has the most popular jersey. He is the first international player to do this. For over ten years, only Stephen Curry or LeBron James had the most popular jersey. Before him, Carmelo Anthony had the most popular jersey in 2012-13 when he played for New York. Carmelo Anthony will soon be in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

"We are a small country with 2 million people. But our sport is really good," said Ajsa Sivka from Slovenia. She was chosen by the WNBA's Chicago Sky team and was asked about Doncic and other great Slovenian athletes. "In any sport, we have at least one great person. I am very happy to be Slovenian."

This is happening now because the NBA wants to become more popular in other countries.

This season, four NBA players scored over 2,000 points. Three of them were not from the US: Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo. Around the world, people watched 6% more NBA games on League Pass than last season. In France, more people watched NBA games than ever before, even though Wembanyama did not play for the last two months. In Canada, people watched NBA things on social media more than ever before this season. Also, in Asia, where basketball is already popular, more fans watched the games too.

FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers show that basketball is very strong now because it is growing in many countries.

Zagklis said that in many places, like North America, people really like the NBA, and it makes more money than before.